2.0.2 on Vista - Clicking black merge line crashes Audacity

[TheKMan]

Please see attached screen shot. This does not happen everytime, but about 60%.

Windows Vista SP2, Audacity version 2.0.2.

Audacity - 2013-10 - Merge line crash issue.jpg (96.72 KiB) Viewed 1908 times

The good news is, most of the time I get the option to recover the project I was last working on.

[Gale Andrews]

2.0.2 is obsolete - please upgrade to the current 2.0.5: http://audacityteam.org/download/ .

The project audio is probably corrupted - such issues are usually a single-sample clip that you can't see until zoomed in to see all the samples.

I suggest exporting as a WAV file. If you had more than one track you would have exported each track as a WAV by clicking above the Mute/Solo buttons on each track then File > Export Selection. Then restart Audacity, import the WAV file(s) into an empty project window and save the project as a name you haven't used before.

If you know the steps to produce the split line in that place and that always produces a crash in a fresh project, please let us know.


Gale

[TheKMan]

2.0.2 is obsolete - please upgrade to the current 2.0.5: http://audacityteam.org/download/ .

The project audio is probably corrupted - such issues are usually a single-sample clip that you can't see until zoomed in to see all the samples.

I suggest exporting as a WAV file. If you had more than one track you would have exported each track as a WAV by clicking above the Mute/Solo buttons on each track then File > Export Selection. Then restart Audacity, import the WAV file(s) into an empty project window and save the project as a name you haven't used before.

If you know the steps to produce the split line in that place and that always produces a crash in a fresh project, please let us know.


Gale

Very simple - you should know how the black line is produced - you work for Audacity.

The merge line appears when pasting audio from one wave form into another, or, as in the case of my screen shot, generating silence(1.2 seconds of it above) or noise.

Also should I remove Audacity 2.02 before downloading and installing the newer version?

[Gale Andrews]

you work for Audacity.

No-one works for Audacity. We are all volunteers.

The merge line appears when pasting audio from one wave form into another, or, as in the case of my screen shot, generating silence(1.2 seconds of it above) or noise.

The split line appears in other ways too, such as explicitly adding it with CTRL + I, or after using certain effects in a selection that includes white space. We can't see the History of your project to know how the split line came to be there or what audio may have been there before.

There is no general bug (even in 2.0.2) where generating silence at the start of the track then clicking on the resultant split line creates a crash.

So if this crash happens again in 2.0.5 in projects created in 2.0.5, and you can tie it down to a set of steps leading up to the merge and crash, please let us know. Otherwise there is nothing we can fix (at least without getting hold of the actual project AUP and _data folder).

Also should I remove Audacity 2.02 before downloading and installing the newer version?

No need to do that. Please see http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/FAQ: ... ug-Ins#exe .


Gale

[waxcylinder]

If you know the steps to produce the split line in that place and that always produces a crash in a fresh project, please let us know.

Very simple - you should know how the black line is produced - you work for Audacity.

Just to amplify what Gale has said: when reporting a bug it is very important to be able to tie it down to a very explicit (and hopefully short - though not always possible) "Steps to reproduce" the fault - and this should be repeatable (by you - and by us). In particular the developers need the "Steps to reproduce" in ordered to analyze and fix the bug. "Steps to reproduce" is one of the key fields in the Bugzilla bug-tracking system that we use at Audacity.

It does get harder when something like that only happens sometimes, and not others, and no-one can figure the surrounding circumstnces that caused it - these get classified as "moon-phase bugs" - bugs that "depend on the phase of the moon" to occur ...

Thanks,
WC

[TheKMan]

If you know the steps to produce the split line in that place and that always produces a crash in a fresh project, please let us know.

Very simple - you should know how the black line is produced - you work for Audacity.

Just to amplify what Gale has said: when reporting a bug it is very important to be able to tie it down to a very explicit (and hopefully short - though not always possible) "Steps to reproduce" the fault - and this should be repeatable (by you - and by us). In particular the developers need the "Steps to reproduce" in ordered to analyze and fix the bug. "Steps to reproduce" is one of the key fields in the Bugzilla bug-tracking system that we use at Audacity.

It does get harder when something like that only happens sometimes, and not others, and no-one can figure the surrounding circumstnces that caused it - these get classified as "moon-phase bugs" - bugs that "depend on the phase of the moon" to occur ...

Thanks,
WC

There's a first for everything, and I can state personally that it sucks being the first! lol

Well, my typical Audacity sessions are pretty mundane:

RECORD/IMPORT AUDIO
GENERATE SILENCE
Click to remove black splice line
AMPLIFY
ANALYZE/EQ
or COMPRESS
AMPLIFY
EXPORT
<Repeat>

In mostly that order.

Occasionally I may copy audio from one import/recording into another, which also generates the splice lines on either end of the imported piece. I then click to remove those lines.

The crashing after clicking to remove the black lines occurs mostly after a session has lasted at least one-half to one hour; sometimes longer.

Question: Should I just ignore the splice lines and get on with my sessions?

[steve]

Question: Should I just ignore the splice lines and get on with my sessions?

There's probably no need to remove the split lines, though if a track has lots of split lines you can "join" the splits all in one go by selecting the track then press Ctrl+J.
"Join" is also in "Edit menu > Clip Boundaries > Join".

RECORD/IMPORT AUDIO
GENERATE SILENCE
Click to remove black splice line

I don't get split lines from doing that. Have you updated to Audacity 2.0.5?

[Gale Andrews]

If you record or import then generate silence at zero (as I assume the poster does) or at the end of the track, a split line is produced.

The poster says

Crashing after clicking to remove the black lines occurs mostly after a session has lasted at least one-half to one hour; sometimes longer.

So presumably any number of the effects that the poster listed have been run across that split line (or across the removed split line). Which is it? A crash immediately you remove that split line after generating silence? Or a crash an hour after removing the split line? If so, why do you attribute the crash to the removed split line?

Or are you removing that split line an hour later?


Gale

[steve]

If you record or import then generate silence at zero (as I assume the poster does) or at the end of the track, a split line is produced.

Generating silence (or generating any audio) at either end of an audio clip will leave a split line between the generated audio and the original clip.
If I follow the instructions exactly : 1) Record some audio 2) Generate Silence, then I get silence on a new track (no split lines), so I assumed there must be other steps between 1 and 2, such as clicking on the recorded track or selecting part of it.

[Gale Andrews]

I was just interpreting what the poster may have done according to the screenshot.

All this is proof that unless the user lists every single action in order 1, 2, 3... that precede a crash, we may not be able to reproduce any problem at all.


Gale