Timer recording fails as does recovery

[Gale Andrews]

I started the usual recording yesterday (about 4 hours count-down with 2.5 hours recording time) but with out saving the project first. When I returned to examine the project, it had progressed to about 5 hours without the timer began to freeze on the 5th second. I killed the process using Task Manager. I then restarted Audacity and it began the crash recovery process. I allowed it to recover and saved the file. It seemed to work. I had to adjust the view of the tracks as they had compressed that into about 4 bars of one hour each - Zoom Normal fixed that.

I am not sure what you mean. I thought the usual waiting time was 1 hour? Do you mean the recording timer dialogue was still open and it had so far recorded 5 hours? If so, what were the elapsed and remaining times in the "Audacity Timer Record Progress" dialogue?

Are you using 1.3.13? Please do so (that should respect track zoom level and position when you recover). 1.3.12 does not.

Today, however, the same scenario happened - and the timer froze. I tried to click first on the X box in the upper right hand corner of the timer indicator box. Nothing. So I did the same with the "cancel" button on the timer indicator. Nothing. I then tried to kill the process using Task Manager but it said it was waiting for a response from me to an Audacity open dialogue box. That box asked whether I wanted to save the project before closing. I said yes. I pointed to a directory and I named the filename to save it with. It then began to save and opened a progress box showing the time elapsed. It froze after 5 seconds and stopped responding (with a label saying so in the upper left hand Audacity label area of the window frame. I think there was a dialogue box that said "close?" and I used Task manager to kill it instead. When I reopened Audacity no crash screen appeared. When I opened the project, only the last 1/5th of the project was saved. The first 3/5th of the track was blank.

Same (if you are not using 1.3.13, please do so). That has some possible fixes to improve crash recovery (but as I explained before, saving if the program is not responding may always be problematical).

Note that Cancel (and the red [X]) on the TImer Record Progress dialogue tells Audacity to discard what it has recorded - assuming Audacity was responding you would have to Edit > Undo to get the recording back. Pressing Stop (when Audacity is responding) stops and retains the recording.



Gale

[heseltine]

Hello, Gale,

Sorry, if I have not been clear. Let me explain what I am doing. I record BBC Radio 3's the proms to listen to next day at work - which necessitates I start the timer count-down upwards of 4 hours in advance as I leave for work (I am in Canada at the moment hence the time delay). I set it to record the length of the programme (usually 2.5 to 3.5 hours). On returning from work, the the count-down dialogue box has closed and the elapsed time dialogue box is open. However, it has frozen at some point in time. The last week, it usually froze at 5 seconds into the recording. Today, it froze at the 1 hour 43 minute mark. The red recording volume indicators are also frozen, but the audio track progresses to show recording is taking place. It required a forced closure. When reopened, the crash dialogue box opened and I selected to recover. As last night, the dialogue on the frame reported the project recovered. However, there is no waveform ie audio track displayed. I declined to save on close and all work was deleted.

I might add that I have noticed no freezing when using the record timer without count-down.

As for 1.3.13, I switched to 1.3.12 last night as when I opened up 1.3.13 it began a romp through all my files, listing them for no apparent reason. I do not understand what it is doing. Is this normal?

Okay, here are some scenarios I did last night (there was no method used apart from an effort to use random times to see what happens - hence the odd times) :

(1) 19 minute count-down; 16 minute record duration set (so as to pass over the hour); timer froze after 3 seconds of recording. Task Manager needed to kill process.

(2) 5 minute count-down; 1 minute recording duration; timer froze after 8 seconds recording. Used task manager to kill process. Recovery successful.

(3) As (2) but before count-down ended pressed cancel button. Successfully stopped the count-down.

(4) 12 second count-down; 15 minute recording duration set; timer did not freeze; successfully ended the recording at the allotted time.

(5) 58 second count-down; 2 minute recording duration set; timer did not freeze; successfully ended the recording at the allotted time.

(6) 1 min 58 second count-down; 2 minute recording duration set; timer did not freeze; successfully ended the recording at the alloted time.

(7) 2 min 52 second count-down; 2 minute recording duration set; timer did not freeze; successfully ended the recording at the allotted time.

(8) 5 min count-down; 2 minute recording; timer did not freeze.

(9) Today, tried longer countdown - 4 hour counter-down with 5 hour recording. Froze after 1 hour 43 minutes.

Last night I started a recording without count-down but with a 3 hour record duration. It completed properly.

I have come to believe that Audacity works well either in manual record mode or in timer mode where there has been no count-down before recording starts. However, when a countdown is required, one records at one's own risk.

If you advise that 1.3.13's romp through my system's files is okay, I'll carry on using it and try to create some more methodical tests. Any suggestions as to creating tests to try would be appreciated. I have a lot of patience. Audacity worked brilliantly for me last year.

Mark

[Gale Andrews]

Sorry, if I have not been clear. Let me explain what I am doing. I record BBC Radio 3's the proms to listen to next day at work - which necessitates I start the timer count-down upwards of 4 hours in advance as I leave for work (I am in Canada at the moment hence the time delay). I set it to record the length of the programme (usually 2.5 to 3.5 hours). On returning from work, the the count-down dialogue box has closed and the elapsed time dialogue box is open. However, it has frozen at some point in time. The last week, it usually froze at 5 seconds into the recording. Today, it froze at the 1 hour 43 minute mark. The red recording volume indicators are also frozen, but the audio track progresses to show recording is taking place. It required a forced closure. When reopened, the crash dialogue box opened and I selected to recover. As last night, the dialogue on the frame reported the project recovered. However, there is no waveform ie audio track displayed. I declined to save on close and all work was deleted.

Is this in 1.3.12 or 1.3.13? The fixes we need to test out are in 1.3.13.

As for 1.3.13, I switched to 1.3.12 last night as when I opened up 1.3.13 it began a romp through all my files, listing them for no apparent reason. I do not understand what it is doing. Is this normal?

Please explain exactly what happens or provide a screenshot. Is it a progress dialogue listing .dll files? If so it's trying to scan for VST plug-ins. This can happen (we think) when plugins.cfg is empty (meaning Audacity has scanned once for VST plug-ins and found none). This may stop happening after you launch only 1.3.13 for a while.

Okay, here are some scenarios I did last night...
I have come to believe that Audacity works well either in manual record mode or in timer mode where there has been no count-down before recording starts. However, when a countdown is required, one records at one's own risk.

I've recorded many times with a countdown without a problem, but when waxcylinder returns who also has this problem he can tell us if he always uses a countdown.

It is important you test with 1.3.13 not 1.3.12 (it ought to be completely reliable at recovering the recordings if you force quit, but if it still isn't that will help us work on it). The most useful thing though would still be to compile Audacity Unicode Debug, run it from MSVC and catch the bug happening.

Clearly you still have a tendency to freeze almost immediately recording starts which makes me think a spike in CPU use might be something to do with it (CPU use would tend to peak when starting a recording then settle down). It would be worth having Windows Task Manager open to see if you can spot any behaviour in there that coincides with the freeze, but running Debug from within MSVC would be even better.


Thanks


Gale

[heseltine]

Thanks for the reply, Gale,

I am using 1.3.13. I deleted it and reinstalled it. No more dll searches.

At any rate, I thought I had a work-around: simply starting straight into a timed recording without a count-down. That worked once. Today, I saved a new empty project, started it to record for x time. And it completed. I then saved it and closed it. I started it up but the blocks were identified as orphans. So, effectively, I lost the project. Have to do it again. Very disappointing. I should have tried to listen to it first. That seems to have some sort of fixing effect.

I worked with Audacity for 2 full months last summer and I don't think there was a failure. Bit frustrating. However, shall carry on.

I'll start figuring out how to do the debug.

Cheers,

Mark

PS Since posting this reply, I attempted to bring up yesterday's recording which I thought was secure only to find, like today's recording, Audacity identifying all of its blocks orphans. Another long recording of the Proms trashed. This is heartbreaking.

[Gale Andrews]

Today, I saved a new empty project, started it to record for x time. And it completed. I then saved it and closed it. I started it up but the blocks were identified as orphans. So, effectively, I lost the project. Have to do it again.

PS Since posting this reply, I attempted to bring up yesterday's recording which I thought was secure only to find, like today's recording, Audacity identifying all of its blocks orphans. Another long recording of the Proms trashed. This is heartbreaking.

Mark, changes recently made in SVN which will be in 1.3.13 alpha (Unicode) for Windows 2000 or later dated July 30th or 31st 2010 have caused a problem. The changes were aimed at fixing problems with the dependencies dialogue. If you open a project (saved by any version of Audacity) in a build of those dates, it looks as if it is emptying the _data folder when you close the project, even if you make no changes to it. I'm sorry about that, especially as I was urging you to use 1.3.13. There is always a small risk of this sort of problem occurring in an alpha (or possibly even in a Beta) though this is completely exceptional.

Providing your disk is not too full and you have a spare disk to recover to, Pandora Recovery will possibly be able to recover the data. I have lost data too testing this, but fortunately it's already backed up.

However if your alpha comes from before July 30th you will probably still have the data - the message about orphaned (rather than missing) blockfiles suggests this.

Your future testing with 1.3.13 would be appreciated. I have taken 1.3.13 alpha (Unicode) for Windows 2000 or later down. The 1.3.13 alpha (ANSI) does not have this problem, but doesn't contain most of the project recovery fixes that were working until yesterday. I'll post back when there is a 1.3.13 alpha (Unicode) that is safe to use.

Re the Proms broadcasts, these are available for a week on BBC iPlayer, but only to users in the UK. Is there anyone in the UK who could grab them for you?



Gale

[Gale Andrews]

1.3.13 alpha (unicode) is safe now from deleting the _data folder.


Gale

[heseltine]

Hi Gale,

Many thanks for the explanations. I've been preoccupied at work this past couple of weeks but am back now so will continue testing 1.3.13. I will download today's version of 1.3.13 and will regularly update it as you make changes. I think it now time to figure out how to do the debug testing.

Mark

[Gale Andrews]

Hi Gale,

Many thanks for the explanations. I've been preoccupied at work this past couple of weeks but am back now so will continue testing 1.3.13. I will download today's version of 1.3.13 and will regularly update it as you make changes. I think it now time to figure out how to do the debug testing.

Mark

Thanks, Mark. The dependencies routines and things to do with blockfiles and project re-opening are still being worked on though, so please export as WAV before exiting to be completely safe.

Another user I have been corresponding with by e-mail is finding these Timer Record freezes occurring very regularly too, and he never sets a waiting period, so that doesn't seem to be relevant in his case. He could possibly debug too, but it sounds as if he doesn't have the time.



Gale