"Error opening file" problem not solved

[lowden023]

I'm not sure whether the problem I encounter at the moment is the same described in another post. I've been using 1.3.8 for a while on my 2.4 GHz Intel Core Duo Mac Book which I updated to snow leopard about two months ago. The first time I had this problem (Error opening file) was only two days ago. I imported a m4a file and edited and saved it as an audacity project in a folder on my desktop. The next day I couldn't reopen it anymore. I have tried it out at least ten times since then, and there is no way reopening any file that I save in whatever place.
On the other hand I've got some older files (made two weeks ago) which I even moved around more than once and they open normally. --- Is there anything I can do? Downgrade to a stable version again?
Greetings from Switzerland
Martin

[billw58]

The first step is to reset the preferences.

Go to <your home>/Library/Application Support/audacity.

In there you will find a file named "audacity.cfg". Open that file with TextEdit. Remove all content except the line "NewPrefsInitialized=1" and save the file.

Now try opening those files.

-- Bill

[lowden023]

Thanks for your quick answer, however --- it still doesn't work.
I use the german version. The message is: Fehler beim Öffnen des Projekts. Fehler: reference to invalid character number in Zeile 6 (Error opening file. Error: eference to invalid character number in line 6). There's still no way I can open neither new files nor the ones I couldn't open before. But I can still open the ones I could open before.

[billw58]

Ahhhh.
At some point you imported an MP3 file that had accented characters in it. Audacity doesn't know how to deal with those. You need to open the AUP file in TextEdit. You will see a block that looks something like this:

Code: Select all

	<tags>
		<tag name="id3v2" value="1"/>
		<tag name="GENRE" value="Country"/>
		<tag name="ARTIST" value="Emmylou Harris"/>
		<tag name="Composer" value="Gram Parsons & Chris Hillman"/>
		<tag name="TITLE" value="Sin City"/>
		<tag name="YEAR" value="1975"/>
		<tag name="ALBUM" value="Elite Hotel (Expanded)"/>
	</tags>

Somewhere in there are some characters that Audacity doesn't like (in your file, not in the example above). Delete the entire block from "<tags>" to "</tags>" and save the file.

-- Bill

[lowden023]

Bill, you're my hero! --- It works. I'm almost happy.
The file which I had imported was one of a series of files recorded with a flash mic. I had first imported them to itunes. There I had collected the files by giving them an artist name in the 'information' menu. I called it Zzz Radiochico (Radiochico is the name of an internet radio station my teenage girl works for in her free time, 'Zzz' because I wanted to find it easily. And I added an album title 'Reconciliation', which is the topic the interview files are about.
When I imported one of those files to audacity and saved the project it produced '&#x0002' after the name. It seems that audacity sometimes writes those characters behind the artist name, but sometimes also behind the file name or the album title. When I erase this (or these) &#x0002, I can open the file.
So far so good. But every time I produce a new file, even if I don't import but just record some noise through the microphone of my mac, audacity ads the artist name 'Zzz Radiochico&#x0002' or the album title 'Reconciliation&#x0002' or even the file name of the original file (04 Titel 04) followed by '&#x0002.

Is there any way to change the audacity preferences so that this information doesn't occur anymore?
Martin

[billw58]

But every time I produce a new file, even if I don't import but just record some noise through the microphone of my mac, audacity ads the artist name 'Zzz Radiochico&#x0002' or the album title 'Reconciliation&#x0002' or even the file name of the original file (04 Titel 04) followed by '&#x0002.
Is there any way to change the audacity preferences so that this information doesn't occur anymore?

I can't reproduce that here with version 1.3.8. So this is the only thing I can suggest. Go to File > Open Metadata Editor. You should see all the stuff there that you don't want. Click the "Clear" button, then the "Set Default" button, then the "OK" button. Then File > Save. Hopefully that will clear the "bad" metadata out of wherever it is being stored.

-- Bill

[lowden023]

Hi Bill --- Thank you for your answer. I just wanted to try to find the metadata editor when audacity produced a major crash. I'm serious!
It shut down and when I reopened audacity, everything had been reset (the information was some kind of 'welcome to audacity' and the software thought it was running for the first time on my device).
Everything works great now, and if ever the problem reoccurs I would now know how to deal with it!
Thanks again for your help! It's amazing how fast and qualified you work in this forum! Great job!
Martin

[76media]

Bill- when this happened before, I just gave up and re-did an hour's worth of work from a TimeMachine backup. This time, I luckily found your post. Thank you thank you thank you. Deleted the info between the tags in the AUP file with text editor, and it opened right back up. Soooo happy. Thank you.

Audacity team- if it doesn't like a character, have it change any characters in the tag to a character it will accept. Otherwise, your program is great- loving it for layering some tracks. Thanks.

[harryharia]

Bill.......U R D Man...... thnx man...