FAQ:Errors
- Ed 10May12 IMHO approval (of the page concept) should come before proofing <grin>!
- Ed 10May12 checked for spelling & grammar
- Gale 10May12: The content pretty much has my approval, given I had already edited these as individual FAQ's :=)
- Invalid token FAQ: In the shortened version which lacks the instructions for fixing a corrupt ANSI-created .aup file, I think it may still be good to show an example incorrect line and an example corrected line. It wouldn't take much extra space. I would propose linking in the first bullet point to a Wiki page that explains how to correct the corrupt ANSI file. I am unclear where that page should go but I think http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Win98 (which is out-of-date and needs a bit of work). So if we agree this is the best approach, I'll need a bit of time to fix the Wiki page.
- Peter 11May12: I have added in the two example lines in a note. And yes I agree with the link you propose - so over to you for fixing up the Wiki page Gale (remember this page's talk page has an archive of the fuller solution which may be useful to you).
- I found a bug FAQ: I segued Feature Requests into this as this is obviously important and somewhat related, but FR's are not an "error". I'm thinking perhaps we should either have a new FAQ for FR's in the "About Audacity" section, or possibly work it into an expanded "How can I help to improve Audacity?" in that section. Views?
- Peter 11May12: I'd vote for it moving to "How can I help to improve Audacity?" as that FAQ is a little thin anyway, being just a link to the SF site.
- Invalid token FAQ: In the shortened version which lacks the instructions for fixing a corrupt ANSI-created .aup file, I think it may still be good to show an example incorrect line and an example corrected line. It wouldn't take much extra space. I would propose linking in the first bullet point to a Wiki page that explains how to correct the corrupt ANSI file. I am unclear where that page should go but I think http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Win98 (which is out-of-date and needs a bit of work). So if we agree this is the best approach, I'll need a bit of time to fix the Wiki page.
- Peter 11May12: So are we good for publication of this page now?
- Bill 12May12: Good to go after my one last edit in the second advice box.
|< Index of Frequently Asked Questions
Contents
Why do I get "Error while opening sound device"?
This error message asks you to check the input or output device settings and the Audacity project sample rate. If the message mentions "input device", it means there's a problem with your Audacity, operating system or sound device recording settings, and if it mentions "output device", it means there is a problem with your playback settings. Either message can suggest a problem with the drivers of the sound device.
The input device message most commonly occurs on Windows Vista or 7 when one of the sound device inputs is not properly enabled or otherwise cannot respond to Audacity's request to start recording.
Check Audacity Settings
- Set the project rate bottom left of the Audacity window to the standard rate of 44100 Hz (or if your sound card only supports a particular rate such as 48000 Hz, set the project rate to that). should show the rates the device claims to support.
- Try turning off (this should never be enabled if recording computer playback).
- Try turning off because recording while playing could stress your sound device or computer. If this solves the problem, read the Wiki pages Updating Sound Device Drivers and Managing Computer Resources and Drivers for advice on how to make your sound device or computer more capable.
- Check in Device Toolbar that the output and input devices are correctly and explicitly selected.
- On Windows, don't choose "Microsoft Sound Mapper" or "Primary Sound Driver" which point to the current Windows default device; choose the required device by name. Try selecting "Windows Direct Sound" as the "Host" instead of "MME".
Check operating system settings
- Windows: Go to the system control panel and follow the Wiki instructions for Windows 2000 or XP or Vista or 7 to ensure all available inputs are listed and enabled.
- In Sound, right-click over or select the recording and playback device in turn, choose "Properties", then the "Advanced" tab
- Set Default Format to the same sample rate, bit-depth and number of input channels as in Audacity
- Put a checkmark in both Exclusive Mode boxes (this allows Audacity to directly request the sample rate from the sound device if the "Host" in Device Toolbar is set to "Windows Direct Sound" as above).
- Mac OS X: In Finder, choose . In "Audio Devices", select in turn the required Input and Output devices. Set "Format" to the same sample rate, bit-depth and number of input channels as in Audacity.
- Linux: You can choose devices in alsamixer or by installing Pulse Device Chooser on Ubuntu or many other Linux systems.
Check sound device drivers and firmware
The computer's built-in sound device should usually have the latest drivers for your operating system, supplied by the motherboard or computer manufacturer. A PCI or external sound card should usually have the latest drivers and firmware supplied by the manufacturer of the device. See Updating Sound Device Drivers on the Wiki for help with correcting driver issues.
Check PCI card or external sound device settings and connections
If you use a high-end PCI sound card or external USB or Firewire interface, you must make the sample rate, bit-depth and number of input channels the same in all possible places. This is especially important if you are recording Multi-Track Overdubs where you play and record at the same time. Settings must match in:
- the Audacity Project Rate
- the track(s) in Audacity (to resample tracks to the Project Rate, select each track in turn then choose ).
- all inputs and outputs in the operating system sound control panel or application
- all inputs and outputs in any software or hardware control panel the sound device may have.
Why do I get "Error: not well formed (invalid token) at line x"?
This usually means that the AUP project file contains an unexpected non-English, accented or control character at the line quoted in the error message. There are two main causes.
- The project contains non-English or accented characters and was created in an ANSI build of Audacity, where Windows was running in other than English. ANSI builds are not properly Unicode aware, so do not support creating or re-opening projects containing non-English or accented characters.
- All recommended downloads of Audacity fully support Unicode. You can check your Audacity version at .
- The project contains imported files whose metadata (like artist or genre) contains control characters. This mostly occurs with iTunes files on OS X where the project was created in an older version of Audacity.
- Bill 11May12: What are we talking about in the box below? Is it when Audacity crashes without completely writing the AUP? I've seen one of those on the forum where the AUP file just stopped without closing a number of tags. "In some cases"? Doesn't Audacity wait to delete the temp files before it completes writing of the saved file? What does "if this does not happen" mean?
- Gale 11May12: Bill, thanks for picking up on this. It is intentionally vague. Yes, this is usually when there is a crash on saving, but I have seen a number of cases where there was no (reported) crash; Audacity just writes an .aup file that terminates prematurely in nulls (or is even completely nulls). So this latter case is really moonphase saving problems as per what used to be called bug 137.
If the crash occurs at the last step of saving (when (re)writing the .aup itself) this will almost certainly result in "invalid token" if the .aup is opened. The question is not I think what happens to the temp files - if the project was never saved before, the temp files (I believe) are moved to a newly created _data folder for the project in the early stages of saving. The question is whether the autosave file that recovery depends on is retained until the .aup file is correctly written.
From user reports I have seen, a crash that leaves a corrupted .aup file will sometimes initiate a crash recovery and sometimes not, possibly because there is no proper test of whether the .aup is valid before deleting the autosave file (that is speculation). This behaviour is probably one of a number that should be follow-up moonphase bugs branching out from bug 137.
- Bill 11May12: Tried rewriting it.
|
Very rarely, Audacity may crash when saving a project, resulting in a corrupted AUP file. In some cases, when that happens, the next time you start Audacity it will offer to recover the project as it was just before you attempted to save it. If auto-recovery does not happen, opening the AUP file may produce the invalid token error. Please either ask on the Audacity Forum for help (attaching the .aup file as it is) or see if you can recover the project manually. |
Solution
- Make a copy of the AUP project file and open it in a text editor like Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac).
- Turn word wrap off in the menus (or in TextEdit, drag the window horizontally so that lines do not wrap).
- In the line indicated in the error message, look for one of these:
- projname=
- name=
- value=
- title=
then remove all characters inside the quotation marks that follow which are not a number or an A to Z letter. You could also change those characters to a number or A to Z letter. For example, a string of control characters you would want to remove or change might start with &# followed by four numbers and a semi-colon, such as &# 0 0 1 3 ;.
- Save the changes to the .aup file.
- If you re-open the project and an error occurs at another line, repeat the steps above in the new line indicated in the error message.
<tag name="GENRE" value="Drama &# 0 0 0 9 Comedy"/>
And the same line corrected so that the two words can be read into the project:
<tag name="GENRE" value="Drama, Comedy"/>
"Drama 0009 Comedy", though meaningless, would also enable the project to be opened correctly.|
|
If you had to rename "projname" in the AUP file, rename both the AUP project file and the corresponding _data folder so that they have the same name as "projname" in the AUP file. |
Why does the computer reboot or show a blue screen stop message when I play or record in Audacity?
This isn't Audacity's direct fault because it does not have kernel privileges to stop or restart the computer. The only general advice we can give is to update the drivers of the sound device you are using, and to examine the memory dump for any further information as to the faulting module or library.
It mostly affects Windows computers. Even if the problem occurs on updating to the latest Audacity version, it isn't directly an Audacity problem because Audacity does not have the kernel privileges to stop or reboot the computer. Faulty or out-of-date drivers (usually for a sound device) are usually the cause. Inappropriate drivers can also cause Audacity to crash during playback or recording, without necessarily crashing the computer.
The computer's built-in sound device should usually have the latest drivers for your operating system, supplied by the motherboard or computer manufacturer. A PCI or external sound card should usually have the latest drivers and firmware supplied by the manufacturer of the device. See Updating Sound Device Drivers on the Wiki for help with correcting driver issues.
If necessary the exact driver or module causing a computer crash can be pinpointed on Windows by examining the memory dump made when the crash occurred. You can find the dump by right-clicking over or , then click the "Advanced" link or tab, then under "Startup and Recovery", choose "Settings...".
If your best available sound card drivers prove to be incompatible with current Audacity, we may not be able to take any direct action, but do let us know:
- the exact make and model number of the sound device
- the exact driver and firmware model numbers
- the exact operating system you are using, including the Service Pack if you are on Windows.
|
If you encounter Audacity or computer crashes when recording, do not enable "Play and/or record using RAM" in Audacity's Directories Preferences. If RAM caching is enabled, recordings that crash in progress will be permanently lost. |
"I found a bug!" or "Feature X is not good enough or is missing!" now what?
- Bill 10May12: Below is an advice div as opposed to a template and thus does not have the icon. Does this deserve "advice" status, and if so does it deserve the icon? Perhaps it should be a note?
- Ed 10May12 IMHO it is a bulleted list and part of the preceding sentence; the bullet points should not be separated from the rest of the sentence--either make it all an advice or a note:
- Personally, I think it deserves an advice not a note.
- Peter 11May12: now looking at it again in the light of this discussion I think it deserves neither a note nor an advice - it's no more important that the rest of the content in this FAQ.
- Gale 11May12: I tried it without "advice" formatting and the bullets are just lost in the text otherwise and those bullets are critical, otherwise user will probably just have to resubmit the report. I agree that the advice formatting should include the previous sentence. I would like to go with the below.
- Ed 11May12 +1
- Peter 12may12: I take your point Gale - and it is better with the intro. sentence included in the advice note. So this is now fine with me +1.
Bugs
The most important things when reporting a bug are to be as specific as possible and check first in the Release Notes if we already know about the problem.
If the bug is not known about, please give us enough information that we can reproduce the bug ourselves on the correct operating system. Otherwise it's unlikely that we'll be able to fix it.
|
|
Please include the following essential information in your report:
|
If you can make the problem happen consistently, tell us the exact sequence of events, step-by-step from launch of Audacity that causes the bug to occur.
If you see an error message, be sure to send us the exact text of the error message, or attach an image. If you are on OS X or Linux a crash report is useful too.
When you have your bug report ready, please e-mail our feedback address.
Feature Requests
You can also send your ideas for new or improved features to our feedback address. Again, be as specific as possible, and feel free to suggest your preferred way of achieving the functionality you desire. If you are a regular visitor to our Forum, you can instead post your suggestions on the Adding Features to Audacity board.
Thanks for all your reports, suggestions and patches! All of these help us make Audacity better.
