Audacity semi-frozen after long recording session

[Okieman]

I wanted a long sequence of songs so I could do some experimenting. I set Audacity to record "What You Hear," clicked the record button, and fired up a streaming online radio station. Problem was I got distracted on another project and only remembered Audacity was still running after about two hours.

But when I went back to Audacity, it had automatically (?) stopped at about one hour and 27 minutes. Oh well, no problem, I thought. I only needed an hour, so I selected the extra recorded material on the right side and clicked Delete. Nothing happened. I tried doing a delete under the Edit menu, but every function from Undo to Duplicate is grayed out.

I can scroll through the recording, I can change the view, etc. But I can't delete, save or add an effect. What's going on?

[Edgar]

It is hard to say without a lot more details! First, if possible, open the Audacity Log ( menu item Help > Show Log...); in the log window which should open select menu item Log > Save... and paste the resulting text into a reply here (use the "Code" button so formatting is preserved).

Next, tell us about your hard drive(s) especially the one to which you were recording--how big, how fast, how full & how recently defragged. Please also tell us if you have "Audio cache" turned on:

cache.png (40.73 KiB) Viewed 2490 times

It might also help us if you mention which OS & SP, CPU and amount of RAM (but these are not likely to be a problem with this symptom).

[Gale Andrews]

If the yellow Stop button is active, try clicking it.

If not, you can try and unfreeze Audacity at File > Exit. This may get Audacity out of its freeze and make it offer you the "Save Changes?" dialogue to save a project. Cancelling that dialogue might also let you continue normally. Obviously do not answer "No" to "Save Changes?".

Otherwise, IF:

• you do NOT have Audio Cache on
• you have a blue waveform on the screen with normal peaks and troughs
• your temporary directory has plenty of space (check in Explorer)
• your temporary directory contains a "project" folder, an "e00" folder, then a "d00" folder inside that containing lots of .au files
• AND you have an "autosave" file inside an "AutoSave" folder here

then it will "probably" be safe to force quit Audacity in Windows Task Manager and Audacity "should" recover the recording.

If you can't open Preferences to check the location of the Audacity temporary folder, look in audacity.cfg in the same place where the AutoSave folder is.

If Audacity stopped recording because it ran out of disk space then you will probably not recover everything fully.


Gale

[Okieman]

In backwards order, Audio Cache is turned on with 16 MB. The hard drive has 74.5 GB capacity with 47.5 GB free space. It's a Seagate Barracuda that runs at 7,200 rpm.
Here's the log, but I don't think it's the one you need. I had to turn of the PC last night when all this was happening. I did a normal Exit out of Audacity and it did not give me an opportunity to save. I suspect this log is for today when I started up Audacity to retrieve the Audio Cache information:

Code: Select all

14:14:11: Error: Couldn't find symbol 'MainPanelFunc' in a dynamic library (error 127: the specified procedure could not be found.)
14:14:14: Trying to load FFmpeg libraries...
14:14:14: mLibAVFormatPath ('C:Program FilesFFmpeg for Audacityavformat-52.dll') is not empty. Loading from it.
14:14:14: Looking up PATH environment variable...
14:14:14: PATH = 'C:Program FilesPC Connectivity Solution;C:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft SharedWindows Live;C:WINDOWSsystem32;C:WINDOWS;C:WINDOWSsystem32wbem;C:Program FilesPC Connectivity Solution;C:Program FilesCommon FilesGTK2.0bin;C:Program FilesJavajre1.5.0_11binclient;C:Program FilesImageConverter Plus;C:Program FilesCommon FilesiZotopeRuntimes;C:Program FilesQuickTimeQTSystem;C:Program FilesCommon FilesDivX Shared;C:Program FilesZipGenius 6;C:Program Filesecmd;C:Program FilesQuickTimeQTSystem;C:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft SharedWindows Live'
14:14:14: Checking that 'C:Program FilesFFmpeg for Audacity' is in PATH...
14:14:14: Warning: FFmpeg directory is not in PATH.
14:14:14: Temporarily appending ';C:Program FilesFFmpeg for Audacity' to PATH...
14:14:14: Checking for monolithic avformat from 'C:Program FilesFFmpeg for Audacityavformat-52.dll'.
14:14:15: Error: Couldn't find symbol 'avutil_version' in a dynamic library (error 127: the specified procedure could not be found.)
14:14:15: avformat not monolithic
14:14:15: Loading avutil from 'C:Program FilesFFmpeg for Audacityavutil-50.dll'.
14:14:15: Loading avcodec from 'C:Program FilesFFmpeg for Audacityavcodec-52.dll'.
14:14:16: Loading avformat from 'C:Program FilesFFmpeg for Audacityavformat-52.dll'.
14:14:16: Returning PATH to previous setting...
14:14:16: Actual avutil path C:Program FilesFFmpeg for Audacityavutil-50.dll
14:14:16: Actual avcodec path C:Program FilesFFmpeg for Audacityavcodec-52.dll
14:14:16: Actual avformat path C:Program FilesFFmpeg for Audacityavformat-52.dll
14:14:16: Importing symbols...
14:14:16: All symbols loaded successfully. Initializing the library.
14:14:16: Retrieving FFmpeg library version numbers:
14:14:16:    AVCodec version 0x342000 - 52.32.0 (built against 0x344802 - 52.72.2)
14:14:16:    AVFormat version 0x342400 - 52.36.0 (built against 0x344002 - 52.64.2)
14:14:16:    AVUtil version 0x320300 - 50.3.0 (built against 0x320f01 - 50.15.1)
14:14:16: FFmpeg libraries loaded successfully.
14:14:21: Attempting to load LAME from previously defined path
14:14:21: Loading LAME from C:Program FilesLame for Audacitylame_enc.dll
14:14:21: Actual LAME path C:Program FilesLame for Audacitylame_enc.dll
14:14:21: LAME library successfully loaded

Gale:
I did click the stop button, but it didn't have any visible effect, presumably because the recording was already stopped.
As for the Temporary files directory, I was under the impression it uses whatever space is available. I went into Preference just now, and just below where it showed the path to the Temporary files directory, there was the sentence "Free space 47.5 GB"
The AutoSave folder is there, and empty.

At this point, I want to start my little experiment over, but am waiting to hear from you folks what I need to do differently to make sure I don't get another "freeze."

[Edgar]

I'll let Gale deal with the details but you are right, I wanted to look at a Log from the failing Project. In the interest of debugging the problem, could you try the long record again without changing anything and see if the symptom recurs?

[Gale Andrews]

What three digit-version number of Audacity are you using (see Help > About Audacity)? What version of Windows?

If the yellow button was clickable, (it depressed when you clicked it) then that suggests Stop had not engaged correctly which would explain the Edit menus being greyed out. But there is also a known issue that editing tasks like Cut or Delete may hang in longer projects for a minute or more:
http://bugzilla.audacityteam.org/show_bug.cgi?id=406

This hang may be (somewhat) improved in 1.3.14 alpha, at least on some machines, but as is usually reported, you cannot click anywhere in Audacity while waiting for the hang to come to an end.

If you record with Audio Cache enabled, there is no Autosave file - hence no recovery possible - until the recording is stopped. The Autosave file would be deleted if you exited normally and did not save changes, or should be saved as the project .aup file then deleted if you exited normally and saved changes. I don't understand why Audacity did not ask "Save changes?" on exit - the only reason that should happen is if a project was already saved. I take it you are sure you did not successfully open a File > Save Project dialogue after trying to stop?

At 32-bit float 44100 Hz stereo, a 2 hour recording should take 2.4 GB. At 44100 Hz, projects may become corrupted if you record more than 13.5 hours, at 88200 Hz you have 6.75 hours to record into. It does not seen length or space is the problem.

So really it isn't very clear what went wrong. It might be worth looking if there is a "project" folder in the Audacity temp folder, just in case the recording has been left there.

As for preventing a recurrence, how much RAM does the computer have? I would suggest you shouldn't need to use Audio Cache unless you are getting dropouts in the recording. If it's a USB sound card, make sure it is connected to a spare USB port and not a hub. Record at 44100 Hz project rate (bottom left of the window) unless you need some other rate.

If you know in advance how long you want to record for, try Transport > Timer Record which should stop the recording automatically.


Gale

[Okieman]

I ran another test like you asked for, and once again it just stopped shortly before 90 minutes. As before, and options to "Save Project" or "Save Project As ..." are grayed out. As is Export. Here's the log ...

Code: Select all

14:14:11: Error: Couldn't find symbol 'MainPanelFunc' in a dynamic library (error 127: the specified procedure could not be found.)
14:14:14: Trying to load FFmpeg libraries...
14:14:14: mLibAVFormatPath ('C:Program FilesFFmpeg for Audacityavformat-52.dll') is not empty. Loading from it.
14:14:14: Looking up PATH environment variable...
14:14:14: PATH = 'C:Program FilesPC Connectivity Solution;C:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft SharedWindows Live;C:WINDOWSsystem32;C:WINDOWS;C:WINDOWSsystem32wbem;C:Program FilesPC Connectivity Solution;C:Program FilesCommon FilesGTK2.0bin;C:Program FilesJavajre1.5.0_11binclient;C:Program FilesImageConverter Plus;C:Program FilesCommon FilesiZotopeRuntimes;C:Program FilesQuickTimeQTSystem;C:Program FilesCommon FilesDivX Shared;C:Program FilesZipGenius 6;C:Program Filesecmd;C:Program FilesQuickTimeQTSystem;C:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft SharedWindows Live'
14:14:14: Checking that 'C:Program FilesFFmpeg for Audacity' is in PATH...
14:14:14: Warning: FFmpeg directory is not in PATH.
14:14:14: Temporarily appending ';C:Program FilesFFmpeg for Audacity' to PATH...
14:14:14: Checking for monolithic avformat from 'C:Program FilesFFmpeg for Audacityavformat-52.dll'.
14:14:15: Error: Couldn't find symbol 'avutil_version' in a dynamic library (error 127: the specified procedure could not be found.)
14:14:15: avformat not monolithic
14:14:15: Loading avutil from 'C:Program FilesFFmpeg for Audacityavutil-50.dll'.
14:14:15: Loading avcodec from 'C:Program FilesFFmpeg for Audacityavcodec-52.dll'.
14:14:16: Loading avformat from 'C:Program FilesFFmpeg for Audacityavformat-52.dll'.
14:14:16: Returning PATH to previous setting...
14:14:16: Actual avutil path C:Program FilesFFmpeg for Audacityavutil-50.dll
14:14:16: Actual avcodec path C:Program FilesFFmpeg for Audacityavcodec-52.dll
14:14:16: Actual avformat path C:Program FilesFFmpeg for Audacityavformat-52.dll
14:14:16: Importing symbols...
14:14:16: All symbols loaded successfully. Initializing the library.
14:14:16: Retrieving FFmpeg library version numbers:
14:14:16:    AVCodec version 0x342000 - 52.32.0 (built against 0x344802 - 52.72.2)
14:14:16:    AVFormat version 0x342400 - 52.36.0 (built against 0x344002 - 52.64.2)
14:14:16:    AVUtil version 0x320300 - 50.3.0 (built against 0x320f01 - 50.15.1)
14:14:16: FFmpeg libraries loaded successfully.
14:14:21: Attempting to load LAME from previously defined path
14:14:21: Loading LAME from C:Program FilesLame for Audacitylame_enc.dll
14:14:21: Actual LAME path C:Program FilesLame for Audacitylame_enc.dll
14:14:21: LAME library successfully loaded
18:40:45: Attempting to load LAME from previously defined path
18:40:45: Loading LAME from C:Program FilesLame for Audacitylame_enc.dll
18:40:45: Actual LAME path C:Program FilesLame for Audacitylame_enc.dll
18:40:45: LAME library successfully loaded
18:44:37: Attempting to load LAME from previously defined path
18:44:37: Loading LAME from C:Program FilesLame for Audacitylame_enc.dll
18:44:37: Actual LAME path C:Program FilesLame for Audacitylame_enc.dll
18:44:37: LAME library successfully loaded

This is Audacity 1.3.13-Beta (Unicode) on Windows XP Pro SP3. Not sure the Cut, Delete hangs you mentioned are related. They were minutes. This has been hung most of today. Nope, never did any kind of save or was even able to such a dialog box. Two GB of RAM.

[Gale Andrews]

I ran another test like you asked for, and once again it just stopped shortly before 90 minutes. As before, and options to "Save Project" or "Save Project As ..." are grayed out. As is Export. Here's the log ...

Unfortunately, there is nothing useful in the log. At what point do you access the log? I would suggest using the 1.3.14 alpha Nightly Build (which has better logging for Read and Write errors which Edgar is looking for), and opening the log before you start recording. That way it might still be accessible when Audacity is frozen.

To use the "Nightly Build", extract the contents of the zip to a new folder and double-click audacity.exe from that new folder to launch it. It will not remove any installation of your current Beta version.

This is Audacity 1.3.13-Beta (Unicode) on Windows XP Pro SP3. Not sure the Cut, Delete hangs you mentioned are related. They were minutes.

That's bad enough - please see if 1.3.14 is any quicker at finishing Cut or Delete.

Is this a USB recording device - or the motherboard sound device? What project rate (bottom left) are you recording at?

I'm still not very clear about the exact symptoms.

When you find that Audacity has stopped recording, is there still a red recording cursor in the waveform or a red recording triangle in the Timeline above the waveform? Is the yellow Stop button bright yellow or grey? Try playing a snippet of audio to see the difference.

And at this point you do I understand you can use the Cut button to cut a section (after a hang) but most of the menu items are greyed out except File > Exit? But Edit > Delete is not greyed out?

Are you sure you do not have a selection drawn? If you have Transport > Overdub (on/off) checked and a selection present, recording will stop at the end of the selection.



Gale