Stops saving to desktop after awhile

[cazorla]

Audacity stops saving files to desktop after a random amount of time. It works fine at first then nothing appears on the desktop after I export the file. If I save the file to a folder on the desktop then that will work but not directly on the desktop. Using latest version 2.0.3. and Win 7 64. I don't remember experiencing this with the previous version.

Edit: Spoke too soon. It also stops saving to folders on desktop after while as well.

[kozikowski]

How many files and events do you have on your desktop? What did you call the file -- the exact name if possible? What kind of file? What's a typical folder name?

Koz

[kozikowski]

How full is your hard drive? Start > My Computer > C: > Properties.

Koz

[cazorla]

I have 21 files/folders on my desktop. I don't know what you mean by "event". There were various files that I tried to save but there was nothing out of the ordinary about them. They were all .wav files. Some of the filenames were "shotgun_fire_1.wav", "pistol_fire.wav", "rifle_slideforward_1.wav". I used the default names for my folders like "New folder", "New folder (1)", etc.

I have about 8 GB left on my SSD drive.

I'm wondering if this is not just limited to the desktop but anywhere I try to save.

[kozikowski]

We have to get the obvious out of the way first. Nothing like loosing the hounds and alerting the papers for what turns out to be a dead simple problem.

OK, so you're doing everything completely correctly. That is too bad. So much for low-hanging fruit.

I don't know that I can come up with any other kind of fruit. Do you get an error message or code?

I don't think Audacity natively runs in 64 bit. One of the other elves will be along.

Koz

[cazorla]

No there's no error message. After I click export and save, nothing happens. No file.

I downgraded to 2.0.2 just now and the problem also happens on that version.

Another problem that I just experienced but happens a lot less frequently is when I drag a file into Audacity it gets deleted. The file just disappears from its location. Audacity gives me an error message saying the file can't be found or something. I have Audacity set to read the file directly from original.

[kozikowski]

So you have very serious destructive activity on your Windows machine. When was the last time you did one of those virus scans where you can't use your computer for about a half-hour?

I think Microsoft still has their free on-line scan, too.

http://www.microsoft.com/security/scann ... fault.aspx

You can also try reinstalling Audacity.
http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/fa ... _uninstall

Koz

[steve]

I don't think Audacity natively runs in 64 bit. One of the other elves will be along.

Audacity is a 32 bit application. 64 bit operating systems can run 32 bit applications.


cazorla, try this test.
1) Reboot the computer.
2) Launch Audacity.
3) Generate menu > Tone. Generate a 30 second tone.
4) Export to your Desktop as test-tone.wav (select "WAV" as the export format).

Does that work?

[cazorla]

When was the last time you did one of those virus scans where you can't use your computer for about a half-hour?

Unless I have a virus that only uses Audacity to screw with my computer I'd say it's ok. Nothing else is wrong with my machine. I'll try uninstalling and reinstalling Audacity. Maybe it's just a quirk of the program and my computer.

cazorla, try this test.

Yes I can create a test tone.wav. I didn't need to reboot my pc. If I quit Audacity and open it again the problem goes away. But if I use it long enough it comes back. I think I was using Audacity for a couple hours at least until the problem occurred. When it stopped saving directly to the desktop I saved it to a folder on the desktop. When saving to that folder stopped working I was able to save it directly to the desktop again. Strange. This is more of a minor inconvenience really. Not a big deal to close the program and restart but if there's a fix for it that'd be nice.

[steve]

If I quit Audacity and open it again the problem goes away. But if I use it long enough it comes back. I think I was using Audacity for a couple hours at least until the problem occurred. When it stopped saving directly to the desktop I saved it to a folder on the desktop. When saving to that folder stopped working I was able to save it directly to the desktop again.

I'm not sure exactly what you are doing, but I suspect that the problem may be to do with the amount of disk space that is being used.

While an Audacity Project is open, Audacity maintains an "Undo history" of each operation. This allows "unlimited" undo levels.Each time you do something that changes the audio data, a new copy of the audio data is made so that it is possible to "undo" back to the earlier state. Of course the number of undo levels is not really "unlimited" because eventually you run out of disk space.

When a project is closed, the undo history is deleted, which then frees up the disk space that was being used by the temporary "undo" files.

If you are working with large projects, the temporary data can grow to several GB in size. Could this be an explanation?