WAV file extension changes to "file", not WAV

[jcritchie]

Hi. I recorded some keyboard pieces with Audacity and exported them to a file in my computer. I got this window for all them them. This was for a piece called Invention No. 8.

"Warning. You are about to save a WAV file with the name "Invention No. 8". Normally these files end in "wav", and some programs will not open files with non standard extensions. Are you sure you want to save the file under this name?"

Then a window came up saying...

"Edit Metadata"... I didn't enter anything. I clicked OK.

I went to the file in my folder where it was saved. It doesn't say wav like it should but says "file" for the extension. A few did say wav and had the blue music notes on the icons like they're supposed to. When I click on them they automatically open with Windows Media Player and start playing. But the ones that had "file" for the extension had a window come up when I clicked on them, asking what program I wanted to use to play them with. I clicked on WMP from the list and then the file would play like the others.

When I clicked on WMP to play them, another window came up saying..." The selected file has an extension (8, ) that is not recognised by Windows Media Player, but the player may still be able to play it. Because the extension is unknown to the player, you should be sure that the file comes from a trustworthy source."

Why is my Audacity program not labeling some of my WAV files with the WAV extension like it's supposed to, but is saying "file" instead?

Thanks for any help.

[kozikowski]

I think the first thing you should do is force Windows to show you File Extensions so you have some idea what's really going on.

-- Hidden File Extensions
-- Start > My Computer > Tools > Folder Options > View > [ ] Hide Extensions for Known File Types (deselect)
-- Apply (to this folder) or Apply to All Folders
-- OK

Look at your music file with "new eyes" and see what happened. If your file really has a dot-8 extension, you need to be very careful windows doesn't damage it. Right-Click the file > Open With > Audacity. When it opens, export it again using these naming conventions:

Upper and lower case letters, numbers, dash and underscore only. No punctuation marks of any kind. I have to transfer files between hundreds of different computers so I don't use spaces, either. Just the filename. Audacity will automatically tack .wav into the end.

Koz

[Gale Andrews]

"Warning. You are about to save a WAV file with the name "Invention No. 8". Normally these files end in "wav", and some programs will not open files with non standard extensions. Are you sure you want to save the file under this name?"

Then a window came up saying...

"Edit Metadata"... I didn't enter anything. I clicked OK.

I went to the file in my folder where it was saved. It doesn't say wav like it should but says "file" for the extension.

If you said in response to Audacity that you wanted to save the file as

Code: Select all

Invention No. 8 

then it did what you asked. Windows sees the last dot (period) in the name and treats everything after the dot as the extension.

If you want to have dots in the filename, add the .wav extension at the end, in other words type this when saving in Audacity:

Code: Select all

Invention No. 8.wav

Audacity will not add the final dot and extension for you because for all it knows you may really want the file to have a .8 extension, or any other extension.

So it is nothing to do with hidden file extensions. Even if you hide extensions so that Explorer only shows a file as "Invention No", Windows Media Player knows it is really "Invention No. 8".



Gale

[kozikowski]

So it is nothing to do with hidden file extensions.

Yes it does.

When you're lost or confused, the worse thing you can do is let Windows hide things from you. Default Windows will show you Music.8.wav and Music.8 as the same file name -- but one them will be mysteriously broken.

Koz

[Gale Andrews]

So it is nothing to do with hidden file extensions.

When you're lost or confused, the worse thing you can do is let Windows hide things from you. Default Windows will show you Music.8.wav and Music.8 as the same file name -- but one them will be mysteriously broken.

Koz, by all means you can point hidden file extensions out, but they aren't the cause or the solution of the problem - the solution is to put the .wav at the end of the file name.

And although Explorer says both files have the same name (music.8), Explorer clearly distinguishes the "Type" of the two files, (wav or file) as you can see from the original post. Here is how it looks in Explorer:

music.8 and music.8.wav with hidden file extensions in Explorer

hidden_extensions.png (5.07 KiB) Viewed 1130 times

Anyway, if I or someone writes a FAQ about it, hidden extensions will get a mention.


Gale

[Gale Andrews]

And yes, I know icons view is usually default, not details as in my image, but even with icons, if you mouse over the file, it will show the file type as hover text.



Gale

[jcritchie]

I went to the WAV files that just said file and typed .WAV for the extension and they changed right away and said WAV on them and had the blue music note like they're supposed to. Thanks for all the help.