Audacity Forum

Zom-B wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 07, 2019 8:00 am

[...] is an Advanced Audio Coding file. Audacity cannot open this type of file. You need to convert it to a supported audio format

I don't think it's possible for software to tell the difference between a corrupt file and an unsupported file type. In both cases, what the software sees is that it is unable to open the file. The error message "could" say something like:
"Audacity cannot open this file. It is either not a supported format or is damaged. You need to convert it to a properly formed audio file of a supported type"

However, the last part of that is surely superfluous - nobody would expect Audacity to support corrupt files. So that just leaves the addition of "or is damaged". In the vast majority of cases, the problem is not due to the file being damaged, but due to the file being an unsupported type.

What would you suggest the error message should be?

First off, Audacity telling it can't open "Advanced Audio Coding" files when it clearly can, is wrong. It suould state it cannot open "damaged Advanced Audio Coding files" or rather "damaged mp4 containers", depending on where the ffmpeg actually failed to read the file and it's error code (if any).

Then on a similar note, I have two more 'correct' (not damaged) files which differ from 4 other 'openable' files only in the header:
These files are not truncated, instead it looks like the header is a lot smaller. FYI all of them are created with VLC from the same radio station. I think I may have toggled 'save all streams' a few too many times so that may have caused the difference between the files.

In any case, all other programs that I have that support mp4 play these files, as well as the truncated ones, correctly. I don't know why Audacity has to be the exception.