Audacity Forum

I ran a self-created macro against a collection of audio files (3,637 files), every time it locks the system up (Mac 10.13.6, Audacity 2.3.2). It's not always on the same file, the latest run stopped on file #98, so it's not making it in very far. I have a screenshot (taken with my phone) at the time of the latest lock, tried to attach but the forum says it's too large.

Here are the steps in my macro:

01 Normalize
02 Export as FLAC
03 END

To recreate:
- Tools > Macros...
- Select the macro (I named it Normalize to FLAC)
- Click on Apply Macro to Files
- Selected the audio files which are in a folder by clicking on the first file then scrolling down to the last file and Shift-Click on it
- Click on Open

It starts running, but somewhere after about 90 files it locks the entire system.

According to the manual: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/apply_macro.html

It is recommended not to process more than 500 files at a time.

Try rebooting your computer, and then apply the Macro to 500 files or less. Does that work?

Right now I am run-in them thru the old version (2.0.3) and it is well beyond where 2.3.3 locked up (340 files an counting). This will take ~15 hrs to complete, after that I will try 500.

There's a small Mac application called Max that will do this.
-- Bill

billw58 wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 26, 2019 3:06 pm

There's a small Mac application called Max that will do this.
-- Bill

Only it doesn't normalize the audio, which is what I'm trying to do.

Audacity 2.0.3 made it through all but ~600 songs when it tossed an error writing to the .tmp file for several songs. Not sure just what it is trying to do, but it looked like it added extra characters to the end of the file name and reached the character limit. I can't go any further, tried just doing those last few files, but it stopped at the same point each time.

If you are using APFS (Apple File System), according to Wikipedia, it has a file name limit of 255 characters.

steve wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 26, 2019 7:18 pm

If you are using APFS (Apple File System), according to Wikipedia, it has a file name limit of 255 characters.

Yes, I know that. Any way to get Audacity NOT to add on the extra characters?

[email protected] wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 26, 2019 7:21 pm

Any way to get Audacity NOT to add on the extra characters?

Not that I know of.
What characters is it adding? What was the original file name?

steve wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 26, 2019 7:39 pm

[email protected] wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 26, 2019 7:21 pm

Any way to get Audacity NOT to add on the extra characters?

Not that I know of.
What characters is it adding? What was the original file name?

Looking at the error message I posted the original file name is:

The Carpenters_ The Essential Collection (1965-1997) [Box Set]-05-Karen_Ella Medley (This Masquerade_My Funny Valentine_I'll Be Seeing You_Someone to Watch Over Me_As Time Goes By_Don't Get Around Much Anymore_I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart).ma4

Audacity was adding:

" - 2019-09-26 14-24-27 N-7.tmp"

That's a lot of characters to add when the file is being moved to a temporary folder anyway.

[email protected] wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 26, 2019 7:54 pm

That's a lot of characters to add when the file is being moved to a temporary folder anyway.

26 additional characters (".mp4" has been replaced by ".tmp"). That still allows you up to 229 characters for the file name.
The thing that concerns me most is that you say it causes Audacity to lock up. What happens if you click the "OK" button on the error screen?