Audacity Forum

Audacity 1.3.13 on Windows 7: When trying to save to WAV file, I get the following error:

"Error while writing WAV (Microsoft) file (disk full?). Libsndfile says ""

Often the "" is replaced by a string of gibberish.

I have been exporting to WAV successfully in the past but now I'm stuck. What should I try next.

Thanks

[Edited by Elf]

SOLUTION - Open File > Metadata Editor and press "Clear".

We get at lot of attention from spammers, so it's a really bad idea to post your email address. Nobody has time to write you back, anyway.

"Error while writing WAV (Microsoft) file (disk full?). Libsndfile says ""

What was your file name? Did you put dates in there? Really bad idea. No punctuation marks. Upper and lower case letters, numbers, underscore and dash. That's it.

Are you running out of drive space? If you've been editing for a long time and never shoveled off your hard drive, it may be full.

-- Right Click Start > Explore > Right Click Local Drive C: > Properties (Used, Remaining)

Koz

Disk has 100GB free space. File name is just "test". Note that the error message is different each time in terms of what falls within the quotes. It may just be "" or "J" or a string of total gibberish. I have tried rebooting the computer, saving to external drives, saving to different file names and directories but still no success.

Please keep suggestions coming. My project is due next week!

Tom

I am going to break this reply into two sections (getting the job out in time & figuring out the problem) because you are under a deadline! You might want to try the first suggestion for "figuring out the problem" and if it does not work skip directly to "getting the job out in time"--once you have the deadline off your back we can do all the tedious stuff of figuring out why you are having the problem!

Figuring Out The Problem
1) Though rare, it is possible that your installed version of Audacity &/or libsndfile is ever so slightly mangled. libsndfile is built in to Audacity so your best bet here is to download a new Audacity. You might as well grab the Nightly, it is almost the same as the recent beta release but has a few bug fixes:
Nightly Builds:
http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php? ... tly_Builds
or
Download 1.3.13 (Beta):
http://audacityteam.org/download


2) Give us a lot more detail!
___A) Is this happening for everything you try to export?
______i.) We need a lot more detail about the failing audio:
_________a) is it a project which has been saved and now re-opened?
_________b) how many tracks?
_________c) how long (in minutes & seconds)
_________d) have you named any of the track(s) and if so what names?
_________e) try:
____________exit Audacity completely, start it with a single empty project window
____________select menu Generate > Noise... (accept the defaults)
____________try to Export using the same method which is failing--does it export OK?
___B) Is it only WAV exports or all exports?
______i) Try exporting your failing project as an MP3 or one of the other formats; did it export and could you play the result?
___C) You show Audacity 1.3.13 in the original post but to make sure what is the exact build number and date (menu item Help > About Audacity...
______i) Have you installed Windows7 Service Pack 1 (and in general all Windows updates)?



Getting The Job Out In Time
1) First, let's try to rehabilitate your project...open it then open a new project window(menu File > New
). Next, for each track, click in the track's waveform, press <HOME> (or whatever your appropriate keyboard shortcut is) to move the cursor to the beginning of the track, press <CTRL + a> to select all, then <CTRL + c> to copy it all; now, in the second (empty at first) project create a new track (mono or stereo as appropriate, menu item Tracks > Add New > Audio Track ), click in this track's empty waveform and paste (<CTRL + v>). It is very important to follow these steps exactly as we DO NOT want to copy the track, just the audio! You should now have a second project window with the same track structure and audio; close the original project window. Now use the menu item File > Open Metadata Editor... and make sure every entry is EMPTY. Now, save this as a Project in a new, different directory from anything previously used. Finally, try to export this as a WAV using the method which failed in the past.

If this worked, save this Project in another new, different directory from anything previously used (and maybe also on a CD or somewhere external). If so, go back and add any track names and try exporting again (to a different file name <grin>!), is all OK? If so, add metadata (maybe one or two items at a time)--OK? If so do anything else you need to get the Project & export into shape to submit, export OK? If so wipe sweat off brow, pour a tall cool one sit back and wonder what went wrong with the first project!

2) OK, that did not work; let's try another approach...open the original project and select all the tracks (of course, there may only be one -- menu item Edit > Select > All). Open the Export dialog-- menu item File > Export.... Try one of the other WAV export options, here is the most obvious: others are accessed via the "other uncompressed files" Save as type:: Did anything there export (the 32 bit float will be most usable)? If so and the result is something you may submit, do so (see above for sweat wiping etc.).

3) OK, getting desperate here...as in #2 above, open your Project, select everything, open the Export dialog and try exporting via Save as type: "other uncompressed files" and use FLAC files: use the Options... button to open the Options dialog--select Level 8 (best) and Bit Depth 24 (best) for maximum quality. Did this export? If so (and FLAC is not viable for submission) use any of the available converters to convert this to a WAV and again see above for tall-cool-one etc.).

4) Hair pulling time...! Zip up your Project (use menu item File > Check Dependencies... and insure your Project is self-contained) post it to a file sharing service and ask a forum elf to inspect the Project.

You might want to shrink those illustrations less. I can just barely read them even with clever manipulation of the screen video drivers.

Koz

kozikowski wrote:You might want to shrink those illustrations less.

I'll keep that in mind in the future--I never know when I am wasting too much 'net with my pictures (they seem to be worth at least a few hundred words--from poster comments) and on my 1920x1200 monitor they are legible. I was guessing we should shoot for 800x600 screen size as Audacity does. FWIW, if you use your browser's ability to magnify the page the PNG files scale extremely well. Does the forum have any guidelines for best width on illustrations or any size limits?

@tbrantigan: What was the outcome of this? Was a partial file exported despite the error message? Could you export using another format?

* Exactly what is the "Save as type" in the Export File window? If you are not choosing "WAV (Microsoft) signed 16 bit PCM", please click "Options" in the "Export File" window and give us the options shown.

* Was this a recording or were you trying to export from an imported file?

* If it was an imported file, was it a WAV, MP3 or some other format? How long was the file? Can you upload it to a file transfer service like:

http://www.yousendit.com
http://www.megaupload.com
http://www.sendspace.com

and give us the web address where we can download it?

I have now seen one other similar report from a Windows user in 1.3.13 - they import a stereo MP3, export and they get the "Libsndfile says" message. That error message was added as far back as 1.3.12 Beta. Libsndfile is the native exporter for WAV, AIFF and uncompressed files. The specific check is whether the number of audio samples written in the exported file matches with the number of samples being exported. The check was added so that if Audacity could not complete the full export because it had run out of disk space, there would be an alert that the exported file was incomplete. So the message does not indicate necessarily that there has been no export at all.

Although this does not seem to be true in your case, there could be legitimate reasons why the export could not complete even if you have plenty of disk space. For example, there could be per-user disk space quotas set by an administrator, or the drive being exported to could be faulty.


Gale

Edgar wrote:Does the forum have any guidelines for best width on illustrations or any size limits?

As far as I know, the Forum just adds vertical or horizontal scrollbars to the image when a set height or width is exceeded (those set dimensions seem to be less than 800 x 600). But we should respect people with small screens I think and try to post images that are just large enough to avoid having scrollbars.


Gale

PS there are some Forum mods available (requiring user to have Javascript enabled in their browser) that resize too large images so they don't have a scrollbar, but let the image be clicked on to open at real size in a new window, or let the image be enlarged if you click on a magnifying glass.

Since tbrantigan didn't bother to reply to all these helpful folk, I will.

Had exact same error on 1.3.13-beta.

Couldnt save to existing file to same or any other filename as WAV format, MP3 etc was fine.

Used the "Getting The Job Out In Time" approach to copy audio data to new track in new project and it saved correctly.

Thanks

sipickles wrote: Had exact same error on 1.3.13-beta.

Used the "Getting The Job Out In Time" approach to copy audio data to new track in new project and it saved correctly.

It sure would be nice to have a broken project to test! Obviously, something is going wrong, but without some way of reproducing the problem, it is next to impossible to pin it down. If you still have the broken Project (and the time/desire) I would like a chance to inspect it.