Audacity not recognizing things it should recognize

[Sarcutus]

This is a two-part question.

I just installed a two-terabyte solid state drive. I am using Ubuntu 20.04 (yes, I'm living dangerously, using it before debugging). I am running the latest version of Audacity (2.3.3). I installed my distribution's release.

I used Audacity on my previous hard drive with no problems.

Here's the Number One.

I want to open .flac files to amplify them. Audacity doesn't seem to be able to find my secondary SSD, an M.2 with all my vinyl recordings on it. I don't know what to do to get it to see that drive.

Here's the Number Two.

As an alternative, I tried dragging from Files and dropping into Audacity. Now Audacity says it can't recognize .flac files, and to try installing FFMpeg. I installed FFMpeg. No dice.

I'm assuming I'm doing this all wrong. What's going on?

[steve]

Audacity doesn't seem to be able to find my secondary SSD, an M.2 with all my vinyl recordings on it.

An M2 drive for data storage? That's unusual. Is your Linux system also on that drive? Is the drive mounted at boot time?

As an alternative, I tried dragging from Files and dropping into Audacity. Now Audacity says it can't recognize .flac files

What happens if you drag a FLAC file to your SATA drive (I assume that you also have a SATA drive), and then try to import into Audacity from there?

[Sarcutus]

Funny you should say that. I'd never heard that using an M.2 drive to keep stuff on was ... unusual. It's storage space after all, is it not? And it certainly did an admirable job before I switched SSDs.

In any case, I later thought to do exactly what you've just suggested. I simply moved the files from the M.2 to the main (SATA) drive (and I have my operating system on my main drive, since you ask). Audacity read them just fine after that.

Funny how that works.

But I'd still like to keep my vinyl collection on that M.2. Is there a way, or is it a loss?

[steve]

I don't have an M2 drive to test, but I'd have expected that it would be possible to keep your vinyl collection on there.
How are your drives partitioned?

[Sarcutus]

Oh, I actually just have each formatted as one big partition. So, the SATA is one big partition, and the M.2 is another partition. The simplest thing to do.

I'm thinking of simply formatting the M.2 and seeing what that could do. Maybe I should take this to AskUbuntu.com ...

[Sarcutus]

Okay, the bigger issue seems to be that Audacity can't locate my M.2 drive, so I can't save recordings directly to the drive. I also just tried importing by drag-and-drop and got the same "we don't recognize this type of file" error. Audacity is absolutely refusing to get along with this secondary drive of mine.

Any help would be appreciated.

[steve]

So, the SATA is one big partition, and the M.2 is another partition.

Probably not.
By default Ubuntu installs to an ext4 partition and also creates a swap partition. On modern hardware there is usually also a separate /boot/efi partition.

Is your SATA drive a SSD or spinning disk hdd?
How big are the drives?
Which drive is Ubuntu installed on?

[Sarcutus]

[Probably not.
By default Ubuntu installs to an ext4 partition and also creates a swap partition. On modern hardware there is usually also a separate /boot/efi partition.

Is your SATA drive a SSD or spinning disk hdd?
How big are the drives?
Which drive is Ubuntu installed on?]

All my drives are solid state.

The new SATA is two terabytes. It has Ubuntu installed on it.

The M.2 is 250 gigabytes. Audacity can't find it, even though Files knows it's there and I have it set to mount automatically on boot.

[steve]

It's more usual to install the system on the M2 drive so as to maximise the speed of boot up, launching and running applications. Putting your home directory in a different partition or different disk has the major benefit of making upgrading simpler and safer. If you put your home directory on the SATA drive, I would expect that to resolve the problem, and also it would mean that in the future you will be able to do a complete operating system upgrade without touching your user data. Backups are also easier when user data is in a separate partition.

For machines that have plenty of free disk space (as in your case), there are advantages to leaving a substantial amount of unused space. For example, if at some future time you want to switch from Ubuntu to Debian, and you have half of your M2 drive free, you can simply install Debian into the free space and check that it is working correctly before removing Ubuntu.

There are many options when it comes to partitions. It sounds like you have a very high spec computer with loads of fast drive space. It would definitely be worth reading up on what options are available to you with the powerful tools that you have.

Unfortunately I'm not able to help with anything specific to M2 drives, as I don't have one and I've never used one. I do know that mounting a NVMe is different from SATA, so if ever I get one, I will be sure to read up about it.

[Sarcutus]

That's an ... interesting take. I'd no idea M.2 drives ran faster than other solid state drives. I'll have to find a way to put your advice into action. I'm sure Google and YouTube will be of assistance.

Thanks much.