Huge file - can't see or delete, but created by Audacity

[andrewa]

Hi there-

There was a post in the Mac forums on someone leaving recording on overnight (Crash - No temporary files), and this may be related.

This is concerning Audacity (1.2.6) running on a Windows XP machine.

I fired up an iPod, and using a patch cord, plugged it into the microphone jack, and fired up Audacity, and turned on the 'record' option. Then, I hit the *pause* button. In this way, I could hear through the sound through the speakers. Kinda crude, but it worked. All pleased with myself, I continued onwards.

After a few hours, I closed Audacity, and then discovered my hard drive's free space was about 5Gb less (this is on a 80Gb laptop, not trivial).

I didn't know where Audacity stashed its temporary files, and a regular search using File Manager looking for huge files that are that size, or even near it (searched for files > 1 Gb) turned up nothing. HOWEVER, when I used the program WinDirStat, I was able to find a file close to that size, but it had the tag of <Unknown> - no other information available.

I don't know of any tools to try and find/delete this file.

Thoughts?

[andrewa]

Additional info:

When I do a search for this huge file, I get a popup:

String File Error

Error reading string file "NAMESPACE" The file couldn't be opened (missing?) Row=-1 String=-1

I'm wondering if this is Windows trying to find this missing file.

I also found that the System Volume Information takes up 4.6 Gb, but there is still is a missing 1.2 Gb or so that WinDirStat shows.

In any event, I've got less space than I started with, and am wondering where it might have gone!

[kozikowski]

The first thing I'd be doing is telling Windows to show me everything.

In file and folder options, it should be possible to uncheck "Hide File Extensions" and "Hide Critical System Files" and I think there are one or two others. These "valuable options" are Microsoft's idea of helping you. They seriously get in my way and they get in a lot of people's way, but they don't realize it. How many Windows users think that all sound files are MP3 files because they can't see the MP4 filename extension, etc.

After you turn off all the Microsoft help, it may be possible to see all the files on your system and not just the "pretty " ones.

Then dip into Drive > Properties > Error Check and Defragment. If you have mystery files on your machine, I would expect either or both of those to fail.

Koz

[kozikowski]

Just a note. Did you try to create a Project or Job with punctuation marks in the file name? That will drive most computers nuts. A favorite mistake is putting a date in the filename. 05/05/09 may look like today's date to you, but to Windows that's a file inside two nested folders. Use 20090505.

Upper and lower case letters, numbers, underscore and dash. That's it. no other characters. I don't use spaces, either because I work in a shop with all three computer types and some of them handle spaces a little oddly.

Koz

[andrewa]

Thanks for the quick reply!

Nah, I jiggled the handle already; hidden files shown, extensions shown, etc. I didn't save anything, and if I did, I would figure it would show up in a search through Windows, or via WinDirStat.

I've looked into the matter more, from the WinDirStat folks' side. When you get an <Unknown> area, this is the difference between what can be seen in the file system, and what the disk reports. I know that *some* of this is due to the System Volume Information, but again, there's that pesky missing 1+ Gb. I think they mentioned glitches in hardware can do this too.

An aside, but perhaps important: Does Audacity create any files when you are recording, but hit the pause button? I'm tempted to try this tomorrow, and see if the drive loses more free space. I would think *not*, but then again, that's what I thought last time!

The only other thing I can think of is that some other thing was happening at the same time, and that's what caused this problem.

[kozikowski]

Root Kit Virus?

Do whatever the Windows version of make a disk image on a second drive, reformat, and blow it all back over. If the OS can't see it to make the image, it doesn't transfer.

Drives always report capacities smaller than theyr'e rating. Sometimes much smaller. My 80 GB system drive reports 74 GB for actual use. My 750GB backup drive is much smaller than that with nothing on it.

Koz

[steve]

One way to find "invisible" files is to boot a Live Linux CD, then have a look. Knoppix is pretty good for that sort of thing - it may be invisible to Windows, but it will be visible to a NIX operating system.

[kozikowski]

I see nowhere did you use the words "I performed a Properties > Error Check on the drive."

Koz