Can't import flac

[industrialarts]

Upgraded to 1.3.3 from 1.26 and still can't get FLAC to import properly. Gives me "importing MP3 files" and then the error message of "Audacity had to make a guess at the type of file. The audio may be bogus, dude."

"If the audio is indeed bogus, you should totally try renaming the file so that it has the correct extension before opening it." All my files have the FLAC extension.

Then it loads in a half second file that sounds like Martian broadcasts.

Oddly, the first time I tried to load a FLAC file in 1.26, it worked. Since then - nada.

WINXP S2 1.8g dual core HP PavillionDV5000, 1M,internal Conexant or external Griffin USB sound device.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Mark Springer
industrial arts

[waxcylinder]

possibly this is a bug - I don't use FLAC so can't offer advice based on experience, sorry.

The "Martian broadcast" is the well-kown screech that Audacity produces when it tries to play a file type it can't recognize.

Possible workaround: find a software convertrer to convert from FLAC to WAV and import the WAV

WC

[steve]

Try upgrading to Audacity 1.3.5
There have been some important changes in FLAC that may not be supported by Audacity 1.3.3

If you need information about a particular audio files format, the free format converter SUPER (by erightsoft) has an excellent analysis tool in it.

[industrialarts]

Thanks for the help, but it turns out I have upgraded to 1.3.5. But even though Audacity now claims FLAC support, it obviously doesn't.

The whole point was to not have to convert to .wav. In this instance I wanted to use Audacity specifically for editing music from my CD collection, which is all stored in FLAC.

The odd thing is it loaded it once in 1.2.6 and never again.

I just uninstalled and reinstalled Audacity, cleaning my registry in the process to make sure there wasn't any entries left over, and it still won't work.

I'll see what else I can find that might work.

Thanks anyway,

Mark Springer
industrial arts

[steve]

That's odd. I don't use FLAC very often, but whenever I have I've had no problems.
Try downloading this short file and see if audacity can import it correctly:
http://easyspacepro.com/audacity/examples/piano.flac

[industrialarts]

Thanks for the clue. It does play the piano sample just fine. So I was afraid that my backed up FLAC files on my server were all corrupt. But they all play fine on the music computer, which uses a program called 'Album Player' to play FLAC. So I kept checking and even copied some of the files I was listening to over to Audacity. It was hit and miss about which would play. Some do, some don't. No rhyme or reason that I can tell, I sampled from all over my library.

Oddly, Media Monkey, a program I use to play music on my laptop can't play ANY of the FLAC files, which it could before i upgraded.

So, I'm thinking there must be some inherent flaw in FLAC or how it's being implemented in other programs. Like I say, they all play fine on Album Player.

Thanks again to all for your help. At least I got to quality check my backup sever.

Mark Springer
industrial arts

[steve]

Since you are on Windows, grab a (free) copy of SUPER (from erightsoft). It has a great feature for analysing media file formats. If you analyse a few files, you may discover why some file play OK, and others do not.

[industrialarts]

I will indeed try that. Some further experimentation has shown that files ripped after a certain date or perhaps from a different drive - I'm not sure which yet - work OK. Some of the files I have recently ripped work OK. None of the older ones do. But I am fairly certain that there are files that were ripped around the same time and from the same drive w/same settings - and not all work ( I use EAC to rip to FLAC).

You are probably right in assuming there is some difference in the files, hopefully I will see that. But I still believe that there is something not quite copacetic in the way Audacity imports FLAC, since Album Player can play all of them.

I will let you know what I find and thanks for your advice.

Mark Springer
industrial arts

[industrialarts]

Tried Super8 - which plays all my FLAC files. Didn't give me all that much info on the files and what it did give showed that all the files are the same - except, of couse, for size. Re-installed Media Monkey and it plays all the files.

So it's a problem with the way Audacity handles FLAC.

Thanks everybody - I will try and post this thread as a bug report.

Mark Springer
industrial arts

[steve]

Super8

Super8 ? is that a typing error?
The program that I was talking about http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html will give you a detailed analysis of your media files.