Norton causes project audio to disappear[SOLVED]

[kozikowski]

It looks to me like the filenames (with drive and folders) might be too long.

That might be. But you like us are stuck making a case why that would only lose some data but not all.

Drive failure, however, could certainly do that.

We can't wait for the results of the drive check.

Koz

[steve]

It looks to me like the filenames (with drive and folders) might be too long.

I thought that too, but doing a quick count it looks like around 150 characters and Windows should be OK up to 256 characters.

Do we have results on the drive tests yet?

[Theophilus20]

It looks to me like the filenames (with drive and folders) might be too long.

I thought that too, but doing a quick count it looks like around 150 characters and Windows should be OK up to 256 characters.

Do we have results on the drive tests yet?

No, No Drive test yet.
That will have to be done around next weekend.
All this weekend i was in Fire Training.

But, interesting News:
I did run the machine the Sun morn with one change.
I selected the option for Norton AV to run in "silent mode" for the duration of my use today.
I had no errors.
Everything saved to all destination folders with no error messages.
So, Norton may be a contributor to this problem.

[steve]

But, interesting News:
I did run the machine the Sun morn with one change.
I selected the option for Norton AV to run in "silent mode" for the duration of my use today.
I had no errors.

Yes, interesting.
Which version of Norton are you using?

[Gale Andrews]

I did run the machine the Sun morn with one change.
I selected the option for Norton AV to run in "silent mode" for the duration of my use today.
I had no errors.
Everything saved to all destination folders with no error messages.

I suppose we should have guessed that. Norton has been found to delete the blue waves as you record them on the screen and cause the error messages you saw when saving projects. See: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 46&t=75392 (there is a link to a web page where you can complain to Norton at the end of that topic).

But I see the "Cannot Save" problem for AUP and autosave file quite often (while I can export to the same location) and I don't use Norton.

This does not explain projects apparently being complete on the screen when you save them, but having audio silenced when you reopen them. If Norton had really been removing AU files in the saved _data folder, then Audacity should show you a warning about missing audio data block files.

I would guess or at least hope that the projects where audio was silenced after you reopened the project were already silenced when you saved them, but you did not notice.


Gale

[Theophilus20]

But, interesting News:
I did run the machine the Sun morn with one change.
I selected the option for Norton AV to run in "silent mode" for the duration of my use today.
I had no errors.

Yes, interesting.
Which version of Norton are you using?

360

[Theophilus20]

I did run the machine the Sun morn with one change.
I selected the option for Norton AV to run in "silent mode" for the duration of my use today.
I had no errors.
Everything saved to all destination folders with no error messages.

I suppose we should have guessed that. Norton has been found to delete the blue waves as you record them on the screen and cause the error messages you saw when saving projects. See: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 46&t=75392 (there is a link to a web page where you can complain to Norton at the end of that topic).

If i had to take a Freddy Kruger Swipe in the dark at this, id guess that Norton is auditing and checking different files in the background while im recording. And prob often comes upon the temp file im saving into. Because the audit is randomly generated, when Norton happens to trip across that particular file is the instant when the audio is lost. But, also, because the file check audit is in a random order. The time at which that temp file gets opened is a different time each week, which might be the reason that there seems to be no pattern to the length or when the audio loss starts.
This is a complete stab in the dark at this point.
But, if i remember, there is a way to exclude files and folders from being checked in Norton audits. I dont remember how this is done but will look into that and see if that makes a difference over the long haul.
With an offline computer and a small amount of files on that computer, the Norton audit is bound to hit that file in the course of an hour to and hour and a half

But I see the "Cannot Save" problem for AUP and autosave file quite often (while I can export to the same location) and I don't use Norton.

This does not explain projects apparently being complete on the screen when you save them, but having audio silenced when you reopen them. If Norton had really been removing AU files in the saved _data folder, then Audacity should show you a warning about missing audio data block files.

Honestly, i have looked in the past at the completeness of projects, but, cannot for sure remember if they were projects that had problems saving or not. Maybe the few projects that i have looked at, were complete and thoes didnt have problems saving. I have done it, but rarely. So, now i cant remember.

I would guess or at least hope that the projects where audio was silenced after you reopened the project were already silenced when you saved them, but you did not notice.

That is possible. i will have to look each and every time.


Gale

[steve]

I had a look on the Norton web site.
My guess is that the feature causing the problem is:
"PC Tuneup removes unnecessary files to free up storage space and improve hard drive speed and reliability."

It looks to me like Norton 360 is seeing the Audacity "temporary" files and, thinking that they are "unnecessary files", deleting them to free up disk space.
I have not looked further because I don't know which version of Norton 360 is being used. (there are 15 different versions listed on the "manuals" page: http://us.norton.com/support/cs/selectp ... anuals.jsp)

I would guess that it is possible to tell Norton to ignore the Audacity temp file.
If we know exactly which versions of Norton 360 this applies to, and how to set Norton to safely ignore the Audacity temporary files then we can publish that information for the benefit of other users.

[Gale Andrews]

Or we could lobby Norton for a more sane default behaviour.

The Audacity default temporary directory isn't a system temp directory. Even if it's not totally unreasonable to delete files in %USERPROFILE%Local SettingsTemp , Norton should not delete them within an hour of creation.


Gale

[kozikowski]

And that doesn't explain random insane behavior. We keep snapping back to that. The problem behavior is not sane. If Norton decided that it found evil, it would wipe out whole folders or file collections -- consistently -- and probably warn you it was doing it.

NORTON 360 HAS FOUND THE "DIRTY DIAPER TROJAN VIRUS" ON YOUR COMPUTER. WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE NORTON TO DO?

Koz