Audacity does not respond before opening + Other problems

[JamesBranstonMusic]

Okay I'm having problems with all versions of Audacity. But specifically the newest beta for mac because its the only one that can export a multi-channel wav file and thats what I need (for later use in FMOD).
(I am also using Mac OSX 10.5.8)

What happens is I click the Audacity program in my dock or applications folder. In my tool bar up the top it changes to "Audacity" and nothing else. When I look in my force quit applications list Audacity is not responding somehow. If I wait for about a minute or so, it does load up. But when I try to import some .wavs it crashes. Also when I set it to full screen the arrange window (I dont know what else to call it... I'm a logic user ) it goes funny. I managed to import 1 wav into audacity but it didnt show. It could play, and when it played the waveform became visible. But only over the parts that had been played.

Ive never had any trouble with Audacity before and I have installed new plug-ins but they are all .component files for use within Logic
(Also they are the waves plug-ins, I also have some from voxengo)

I have re-installed many times. Reset the preference list by altering the .cnf file and deleted all the plug-ins it was finding in the plugins.cnf

Any ideas? Audacity is absolutely vital to my final project at university.
Thanks for your time

JBM

[billw58]

What Mac do you have? PPC or Intel?

You seem to have encountered the "slow startup on Mac with many plugins" bug. If you are running a PPC Mac running 10.5.8 you may have the "hang when scanning for VST effects" bug, but that one is usually fatal (Audacity never completely launches and must be force quit).

Try temporarily removing the recently-installed components from /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components and/or from ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components then start Audacity. If it starts OK, quit then add the components back one by one until you encounter the problem.

As for WAV importing, I have never encountered this before. Go to Audacity > Preferences then the Import/Export section and check "Make a copy of uncompressed audio files before editing (safer)" and see if that helps.

How are you resetting the preferences in audacity.cfg? Clearing plugins.cfg at the same time may cause Audacity to rescan for VST effects, which may be part of the problem.

The "arrange" window is called the project window in Audacity. Exactly how does it go "funny". What keyboard shortcut are you using to activate full screen mode? Normal behaviour is to hide the menu bar and dock in full screen mode. Clicking the green "zoom" button should respect the dock and menu bar.

-- Bill

[JamesBranstonMusic]

I'm on an Intel macbook running 10.5.8 (im not paying to upgrade to snow leopard haha)

I just tried moving the plugins folder from both areas where the audio plugins are stored, and then tried a clean install of Audacity.
The result was Audacity bouncing for a while whilst displaying "not responding" before loading up after a considerable amount of time (also I only copied over the actual application from the audacity.dmg)
After loading up it crashed again when importing 3 .wavs
I will see if I can make a recording of whats going on.

I've reset the preferences by removing everything but the first line. and the plugins.cnf I just deleted all the content as i removed them. But now is a fresh install so I will take a look at them again.

i'll have a look at the preferences when it finally loads.

Thanks

[JamesBranstonMusic]

HUZZAH Its working. I waited for audacity to load up then I selected the safer import method whilst unchecking ALL the boxes in the "effects" panel. That solved everything. The import problem and the slow start up. Also the graphical problem for some reason.

Thanks for your time Bill

[billw58]

unchecking ALL the boxes in the "effects" panel

James:

I should have thought of that

You can safely turn the "Nyquist" effects back on, and most likely the LADSPA effects as well. You can also put all your components back so you can use them in Logic!

-- Bill

[Gale Andrews]

Audacity bouncing for a while whilst displaying "not responding" before loading up after a considerable amount of time After loading up it crashed again when importing 3 .wavs

I waited for audacity to load up then I selected the safer import method whilst unchecking ALL the boxes in the "effects" panel. That solved everything. The import problem and the slow start up.

James,

We do have a very occasional crash problem importing WAV or AIFF that we have not been able to track down:
http://bugzilla.audacityteam.org/show_bug.cgi?id=35

Are the WAVs that crashed produced by Audacity?

I would hope not, but if you leave Audio Units and VST effects disabled but turn on "faster" import (which is used for WAV/AIFF longer than 30 seconds), do the crashes recur?

And if you are game to test a bit more, reboot the Mac, then turn on AU effects (not VST) in Audacity and restart the program. Do you get the slow launch? After it has launched, do WAVs crash on import (with the "faster" setting)? Do they also crash if you leave AU effects enabled but go back to "safer" imports?


Thanks



Gale