Error message with exporting

[dddleary]

I downloaded the lame library file and was able to locate it successfully, however every time I try to export a file it states "unable to open target file for writing". Did I download lame library incorrectly? What am I doing wrong?

[bgravato]

Maybe you don't have write permissions in the folder you're trying to export the file. That or there's not space left on the device.

[dddleary]

So what should I do to see if I have the write permissions on my lap top? To make sure I am clear when you say no space left on the device do you mean on my laptop? So I need more memory? I have a trial of "twisted wave" downloaded on my system could that be taking up space and preventing audacity from fully working? I am not sure what I need to do so I can use audacity fully.

[bgravato]

So what should I do to see if I have the write permissions on my lap top? To make sure I am clear when you say no space left on the device do you mean on my laptop? So I need more memory? I have a trial of "twisted wave" downloaded on my system could that be taking up space and preventing audacity from fully working? I am not sure what I need to do so I can use audacity fully.

Which Audacity version do you have? To find out go to Audacity menu -> About Audacity...
It should tell you something like "Audacity 1.3.13-beta".

Can you export to another format such as WAV for example?

When you export as MP3, select your desktop as the target. Type a filename containing only letters and numbers (no spaces, no accented letters, no symbols...). Does it work?

Which OS-X version does your laptop have?
On finder (if you go to your desktop on finder) it should tell you the available disk space at the bottom of the finder window.

[dddleary]

Wow! So I tried it again and took out the spaces and exported it to my desktop and it worked! Was also able to export it as a WAV file. Thank you. Your instructions helped to solve the problem. I have a Mac OS X 10.7.2 and version of audacity I downloaded was Audacity 1.3.13

So it appears that I will have export audacity files to the desktop and then move the files to another place so my desktop will not get crowded correct?

[bgravato]

Well it could be either the location you were writing to, or the spaces/symbols in the name.

It's always good policy to restrict filenames to alphanumeric characters.

Try exporting directly to the folder you want but keep the file name free of spaces/symbols and see if it works.

[Gale Andrews]

Wow! So I tried it again and took out the spaces and exported it to my desktop and it worked! Was also able to export it as a WAV file. Thank you. Your instructions helped to solve the problem. I have a Mac OS X 10.7.2 and version of audacity I downloaded was Audacity 1.3.13

It could be a permissions problem if you were exporting to a system or shared folder. These problem can occur for other reasons too for example if you are overwriting the same file and another application has it open and locked.

If spaces were preventing the export, it's a bug somewhere.

Latin characters, numbers, dashes and underscores only are much safer if distributing the file to someone else or putting it on a portable application that runs some mobile operating system.

Nonetheless on Mac, the only character that cannot be legally used in file or folder names/paths is the colon (:). There are a few Audacity bugs that forbid other characters ( "/", "*" and "?" in Export Multiple, "" when saving Audacity projects).

So ^ $ £ ) ! @ ~ #.wav should work in iTunes.


Gale

[bgravato]

If spaces were preventing the export, it's a bug somewhere.

He said he's on Lion, so could be an Audacity-on-Lion kind of bug...

dddleary, I just thought of another thing... you're not running Audacity from the dmg and trying to export to the dmg image disk are you? That wouldn't work either.