Audacity 3 scrambles FLAC files

I am hoping that somebody can help me with a problem I am encountering with Audacity 3. I use Audacity to edit FLAC files, mainly with tracks that I have recorded from Spotify Premium using the Applian Replay Music software. It has all worked well until I updated Audacity to Audacity 3. With this version the FLAC files are scrambled and the waveform appears as a series of vertical blue strips. I have attached a screen snapshot to illustrate this. I have uninstalled and reinstalled Audacity 3 several times, including cleaning out all Audacity files on my pc and in the registry, but the problem remains. I have a partial solution to the problem, as I have reinstalled Audacity 2.4.2 and all of my FLAC files work perfectly with this version of Audacity. I am raising the issue on the forum because I assume that there will come a time soon when Audacity 2.4.2 is no longer supported and I will have to upgrade to Audacity 3. One other piece of information, that may be relevant (I don’t fully understand all of the ins and outs of FLAC), is that I am recording in 16 bit. Neither 16 or 24 bit works with Audacity 3.
FLAC file scrambled.jpg

Select Waveform instead of Spectrogrram in this drop-down menu:
2021-12-03_123708.png

Robert2, many thanks for the feedback, which is appreciated. I am probably being dumb here, but why does changing the view from spectrogram to waveform make a difference to how the Flac file plays? I have just loaded a FLAC into Audacity 2.4.2 and changed the view to Spectogram and the track plays clearly without any scrambling, just the same as it does in the waveform view. I don’t want to update to Audacity3 to test whether this is the problem there unless I know that it is probably this small view change that is causing the fault. The FLAC files in Audacity 3 have been playing the music in a scrambled form. Uninstalling Audacity 3 is time consuming because of the registry edits that need to be done to remove it completely, so I hope that you will understand my reticence to do this without understanding better what is causing the problem in Audacity 3.

@davej64 , can you share a short FLAC file that has this problem? (I can’t reproduce the issue here).

Steve, many thanks for looking into this. I have attached a short extract from one of the Flac files that is scrambled in Audacity 3, but plays perfectly in Audacity 2.4.2.

@davej64, on my system FLAC files play normally in Audacity 3. What I meant was that the Spectrogram view looks very much like your screenshot, but maybe this is unrelated to your problem.

Thanks Robert2.

That plays fine for me in Audacity 3.0.2, 3.1.2, 3.1.3 alpha, and 3.2.0 alpha.

Try this:

  1. Launch Audacity
  2. “Help menu > Diagnostics > Show Log”
  3. Clear the log
  4. Drag “Fortune Teller-3.flac” into Audacity
  5. Copy the entire contents of the log window and paste it into your reply.
  6. Close the log window
  7. Quit Audacity.

Steve, I had to reinstall Audacity 3 to get the updated log, as the sample that I submitted to you plays OK in Audacity 2. I have dragged the Fortune Teller track into Audacity 3 and the log file is:

15:23:16: Audacity 3.1.2
15:23:16: sqlite3 message: (1) no such table: project in “SELECT 1 FROM project LIMIT 1;”
15:23:20: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avformat-58.dll’ (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
15:23:20: Error: Failed to load avformat-58.dll (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
15:23:20: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avformat-57.dll’ (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
15:23:20: Error: Failed to load avformat-57.dll (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
15:23:20: Error: Couldn’t find symbol ‘avio_context_free’ in a dynamic library (error 127: The specified procedure could not be found.)
15:23:20: Error: Couldn’t find symbol ‘av_packet_alloc’ in a dynamic library (error 127: The specified procedure could not be found.)
15:23:20: Error: Couldn’t find symbol ‘av_packet_free’ in a dynamic library (error 127: The specified procedure could not be found.)
15:23:20: Error: Couldn’t find symbol ‘avcodec_free_context’ in a dynamic library (error 127: The specified procedure could not be found.)
15:23:37: File name is D:\Music\Replay Music Recordings\Sugar - Fortune Teller.flac
15:23:37: Mime type is *
15:23:37: Opening with libsndfile
15:23:37: Open(D:\Music\Replay Music Recordings\Sugar - Fortune Teller.flac) succeeded

Does it play correctly in Audacity 3.1.2?

No it is scrambled in 3.1.2. It is OK in 2.4.2, as are all of the Flac files. Audacity 3 is scrambling them - all of them.

In Audacity 3.1.2, please do these steps with the “Fortune Teller-3.flac” file:

  1. Launch Audacity
  2. “Help menu > Diagnostics > Show Log”
  3. Clear the log
  4. Drag “Fortune Teller-3.flac” into Audacity
  5. Copy the entire contents of the log window and paste it into your reply.
  6. Close the log window
  7. Quit Audacity.

This is the latest log file:

15:59:09: Audacity 3.1.2
15:59:09: sqlite3 message: (1) no such table: project in “SELECT 1 FROM project LIMIT 1;”
15:59:09: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avformat-58.dll’ (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
15:59:09: Error: Failed to load avformat-58.dll (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
15:59:09: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avformat-57.dll’ (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
15:59:09: Error: Failed to load avformat-57.dll (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
15:59:09: Error: Couldn’t find symbol ‘avio_context_free’ in a dynamic library (error 127: The specified procedure could not be found.)
15:59:09: Error: Couldn’t find symbol ‘av_packet_alloc’ in a dynamic library (error 127: The specified procedure could not be found.)
15:59:09: Error: Couldn’t find symbol ‘av_packet_free’ in a dynamic library (error 127: The specified procedure could not be found.)
15:59:09: Error: Couldn’t find symbol ‘avcodec_free_context’ in a dynamic library (error 127: The specified procedure could not be found.)

Sorry, this is the log:

16:02:20: Audacity 3.1.2
Log Cleared.
16:02:56: File name is D:\Music\Replay Music Recordings\Sugar - Fortune Teller.flac
16:02:56: Mime type is *
16:02:56: Opening with libsndfile
16:02:56: Open(D:\Music\Replay Music Recordings\Sugar - Fortune Teller.flac) succeeded

That’s not the same file that you posted.

What is drive D: ? Is it an external drive? Is it a cloud drive?

The D drive is my data drive. My PC has two drives. The C drive has the operating system and program files on it and the D Drive is for data.