1.3.9 sometimes export partly crashed AIFF

[Nitta]

I'm using Audacity everyday. Thank you very much for developers.
My usage is recording RADIO program with 16bit 48kHz using timer, listen to the recorded sound,
and sometimes save it as AIFF.
I have started using Audacity from version 1.3.6.
I always try to update it to the newest experimental version whenever I noticed the new release.
My version history of using Audacity is:
1.3.6 => 1.3.7 => 1.3.6 => 1.3.7.1 => 1.3.8 => 1.3.9 => 1.3.8
I feel version 1.3.6, 1.3.7.1 and 1.3.8 are stable as long as my usage.

I encountered following problem soon after when I updated 1.3.8 => 1.3.9.
Just recording seems to be no problem. I can listen to the recorded RADIO without any problem.
When I exported it to AIFF file, no warning, no errors, but part of the saved AIFF collapsed.
Few minutes of the sound are distorted, clamped with full amplitude, or strange pitch.
This phenomenon occurs on rare occasions.
Sometimes 5 hours of saved AIFF was OK. But sometimes 1 hour of AIFF have few minutes of collapsed part.
I felt it is possible that the phenomenon may have some relationship with that I have operated my Mac
while Audacity was processing exporting job in background.
The phenomenon seems to be disappeared after when I returned to version 1.3.8.

My environment is:
PowerMacG5, 1.8GHz, 2.5GB, HDD1TB, MacOS 10.4.11.

[kozikowski]

I experiment with the higher versions and I've been known to do feature testing, but for day to day production tasks, I use 1.3.7 on both Macs. I did early updates to 1.3.8 and immediately rolled it back to 1.3.7 when the Mac acted funny and wouldn't open some sound files and failed to manage the Mac sound services.

Is there any reason you feel you need to constantly update to the Very Latest Version? The versions are frequently unstable when they're first issued and you can get seriously burned by doing that.

Also, do you do a clean install each time -- delete the preference files? Does it ask you "English?" each time you put a new one on?

Koz

[Nitta]

Thank you for your reply.
I update my copy of Audacity to the newest one because I'm curious about possibly best sophisticated version.
My usage is not a very important recording, so I can try new version any time as long as I have time to try.
Now I have no problem as long as using 1.3.8, I do not have any particular reason that I should go to 1.3.9,
but I'd like to know if someone else have similar trouble while using 1.3.9.
I had not deleted any preference file when I updated my copy of Audacity.
My System language is Japanese.

[kozikowski]

If you leave the Audacity preferences files alone, all your customizations and settings will travel with you from version to version. If you think you may have a damaged Audacity, then it's best to destroy everything and start over.

You know when you are starting absolutely from the beginning when Audacity asks you for a language when it starts. If it doesn't ask, then you still have your old preferences.

Go > Home > Library > Application Support > delete the whole audacity folder.

If you're happy with your installs, then leave it alone.

I think it was the trip from 1.3.7 to 1.3.8 where they decided to automatically load all special effects plugins on startup. Everybody in the world with bad or unknown plugins got a bad Audacity. It was not popular. I upgraded two machines and one didn't work. That one had another sound program introduced special effects plugins and didn't tell me.

It's scary to watch the update conversations and see all the patches and mistakes and errors that go by. It's like medicines. We changed the plugins to make that work better and wrecked the startup process.....

If you have an Intel Mac with Leopard or higher, there is no working 1.2 for us, so finding a stable unstable 1.3 is critical. There is a discussion about not calling them "Stable" and "Unstable" any more for just that reason.

Koz

[Nitta]

Thank you very much for the information.
I had deleted the preference file when I had upgraded from 1.3.6 to 1.3.7.
But I had not deleted the preference file after that.
I might have been using the same preference file from 1.3.7 to 1.3.9.
I'll try to delete it.

[Gale Andrews]

I've seen similar issues with corrupted AIFF imports or exports in 1.3 when the user had the Stable 1.2 version in the past (in which case 1.3 still uses stored 1.2 preferences where they are common to both versions).

I assume you have only ever used 1.3 versions, but preference settings can and do get corrupted sometimes. If there is any suspicion that settings are causing a problem, and in all cases where you have run 1.2 in the past, the best advice is not to delete the .cfg file, but initialise it. Do this by exiting Audacity, then open audacity.cfg in a text editor and remove all the content except "NewPrefsInitialized=1" at the top. See:
http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... reset_beta

Initialising the .cfg file has sometimes made a difference for me in testing, even on a machine that has no 1.2 settings file. I don't exactly know why that should be the case, but bear it in mind.


Gale

[kozikowski]

<<<the best advice is not to delete the .cfg file, but initialise it.>>>

Why? What benefit do we gain from that over what happens when we make Audacity build a new one?

Koz

[Gale Andrews]

<<<the best advice is not to delete the .cfg file, but initialise it.>>>
Why? What benefit do we gain from that over what happens when we make Audacity build a new one? Koz

Because if user has ever used 1.2 (often they won't tell you that) and deletes audacity.cfg, 1.3 will then restart using the settings from 1.2 for those settings that are common to both 1.2 and 1.3. To demonstrate that, on a fresh system:

* Install 1.2, launch it in French, set sample rate in Quality preferences to 96000 Hz (default is 44100 Hz), and exit
* Install 1.3 to a different directory
* It will launch in French without asking you for language and the project rate will be 96000 Hz
* Change language in 1.3 to English and quality preferences to 44100 Hz and exit
* delete audacity.cfg
* launch 1.3 and it will start in French without asking you and your project rate will be 96000 Hz.

Or, user can delete the 1.2 preferences and then they only need to delete audacity.cfg. We strongly discourage Windows users going into the Registry to delete the 1.2 registry key for obvious reasons.

Plus (as I said) there are subtleties I don't understand that mean if you're trying to cure quirky behaviour in 1.3 (with no 1.2 installation), deleting .cfg will not cure them but initialise it will. I had one such example recently with MP3s exporting as complete noise until .cfg was initialised. For more information please see:
http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... reset_beta


Gale

[billw58]

Or, user can delete the 1.2 preferences and then they only need to delete audacity.cfg.

Does anybody know where Audacity 1.2 stored its preferences on Mac OSX? I have a recollection that it was in ~/Library/Preferences/ and then possibly in an "audacity" folder in there, but I long since got rid of mine and can't remember

If we have Mac users that want to be quit of 1.2 forever, we could tell them how to get rid of that file.

-- Bill

[Gale Andrews]

Or, user can delete the 1.2 preferences and then they only need to delete audacity.cfg.

Does anybody know where Audacity 1.2 stored its preferences on Mac OSX? I have a recollection that it was in ~/Library/Preferences/ and then possibly in an "audacity" folder in there, but I long since got rid of mine and can't remember . If we have Mac users that want to be quit of 1.2 forever, we could tell them how to get rid of that file.

Locations of the 1.2 settings for the three platforms are in the same Preferences article on the Wiki, higher up.


Gale