resized tracks on ntrack restart

ntrack bug again!

i have been having problem with the last few builds of ntrack in that when i save a song file and then close ntrack and reopen that same song file the wave file durations of certain tracks will be resized. like say track one is a wave file that is 1 min long. when i save the song and come back in, the duration of the wave on that track will be resized to something much smaller. the wave file its self wont be messed up all i have to do is stretch the wav file out again to its normal length, but as you can imagine if you have things cut and pasted in tracks and their sizes get off then you are screwed. has anyone else seen this? and flavio when are you going to fix it, cause its getting really really not cool!

if you want i can post screen shots too, if that would help, let me know.

kevin

Quote (kevinkreiser @ June 15 2005,20:11)
if you want i can post screen shots too, if that would help, let me know.

kevin

I wasn't able to reproduce the problem. Please email me a detailed sequence of steps that lead to the occurrence of the problem, including if needed wave files and .sng files that show the problem.

Regards,
Flavio.

ok let me see if i can get a relativlely small song and wave sample that i can send you. thanks for your quick response!

hi, to illustrate my point i have zipped a folder with a song and one track in it, the wave file associated with the track is 39 seconds long, but ntrack resizes it to about 18.5 whenever the sng file is reopened. you can drag the edge of the track so that it plays the whole wave file but even if you save it and exit ntrack and then reopen the sng file it will be resized to 18.5 seconds in length.

here is the url for the zipped file: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hemphrey/stop.zip

Kevin

’cos I was interested, I downloaded your song and had a look. Sure enough, I unzipped it, opened in N-track, and the waveform was shrunk BUT, I stretched it out, saved, re-opened and it was OK. I’m using 4.05 1825.

I wonder if you have a wierd permissions thing going on. Perhaps N-track can’t write the song file and peak file properly?

Quote (kevinkreiser @ June 19 2005,22:29)
hi, to illustrate my point i have zipped a folder with a song and one track in it, the wave file associated with the track is 39 seconds long, but ntrack resizes it to about 18.5 whenever the sng file is reopened. you can drag the edge of the track so that it plays the whole wave file but even if you save it and exit ntrack and then reopen the sng file it will be resized to 18.5 seconds in length.

here is the url for the zipped file: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hemphrey/stop.zip

Thanks for posting the test .sng file. Unfortunately although it shows the outcome of the problem I wasn’t able to use it to reproduce the occurrence of the problem. I’ve tried resaving the .sng file after extending the .wav file and the saved .sng file appeared correctly. I’ve also tried importing the .wav file into a new song, saving and reloading it and the problem didn’t occur. I assume that the .sng file was saved right after the .wav file was recorded, maybe something in the recording process creates some kind of ghost length that isn’t written to the .sng file when it’s saved. Again it would help to know the exact steps that lead to the occurrence of the problem, starting from a blank song and the default configuration.

Flavio.

aww man, oh well here is the step-by-step, with pictures:

first i just open up ntrack. then import a wave file, with some wave files it works fine i think, but with certain wave files it doesnt work correctly. i dont know if it has to do with bit depth or sampling rates, but i guess that could do it?


then i save the song file as test.sng in the same directory as the wave file that i imported. note that the track is as long as the wave file is before i exit:



now i exit the program and then start it up again. i go to the open menu and i select test.sng. and press open:



viola! the track is now shrunken. i dont know why and i dont know how, but it is…:


another theory that i have is that maybe whatever is reading the wave files is seeing whatever the final bits are at the end of a wave file to signify that it is the end of the file. i dont know too much about the wav format but that could be possible i guess.

if you need any more info please ask id love to get this resolved as it is very annoying to start up a song and have to resize the tracks to what they were, especially when they were precisely sized in the first place. also, i have the latest build of the program.

thanks
kevin

Hi kevinkreiser:
The track you posted, and, that I downloaded, played on my time-line… But there was only 39.05 seconds of the track to play… I extended the reselution of the track to as far as n-Track will allow… and I could get n-Track to play ~39.16-39.17 seconds of the file that you posted… Was there a reason for not posting all of the track? Mabey, that might explain the issues that are going-on…

Bill…

I played with the files, too, and the closest I came to the problem was by setting the .sng file to read-only. I would change the length of the wave clip, go to File/Save to resave the .sng (surprisingly, n-Track does not warn about the “read-only” attribute of the file), then re-open the .sng, but the clip’s length would still be at its original size, of course, since nothing was actually saved due to the .sng file being read-only.

Makes me wonder if, like Mark A was thinking, it might be permissions-related? I’m not on XP–I’m on W2K Pro–but as an experiment, I disabled “Everyone”'s write access to the folder containing the files, and I DID get warnings related to the lack of write permissions every time, so that doesn’t sound like the problem (kevin didn’t say anything about getting warnings). So the closest for me is still the read-only .sng experiment.

However, I don’t see how a new file can be saved as read-only (like kevin’s test.sng file in his example), so there’s a big hole in that part of the theory, but perhaps there’s another permissions-type situation that is going on?

Oh well, just my two whatevers… :D

Tony

yeah i didnt upload the bigger wave file cause its lke 30 megs and thats just too big, plus it did the same thing with the smaller file both of them are the same file anyway one is just shorter and converted to a different bit depth and made mono. that was all done so i could upload it and it wouldnt be 30 megs. anyway ntrack resizes it on both of them. there must be somethign wrong with my install although i have uninstalled and reinstalled it a million times. as far as permissions go, i am an administrator on my computer i can delete and write to any place on my hard drive that i want. my account and the guest account are the only other accounts besides the actual administrators account. and the file is not read-only. maybe if i go through the registry adn delete all the ntrack entries and then reinstall ntrack. i dont know.

i deleted some ntrack registry values after i uninstalled ntrack and then i reinstalled it and it seems to be working correctly. ill let you know after i test it further. maybe there shouldl be a program that cleans the registry of ntrack stuff i dotn know.

Quote (kevinkreiser @ June 21 2005,07:53)
i deleted some ntrack registry values after i uninstalled ntrack and then i reinstalled it and it seems to be working correctly. ill let you know after i test it further. maybe there shouldl be a program that cleans the registry of ntrack stuff i dotn know.

This makes me wonder if n-Track actually does a complete un-install when asked, or does it leave bits lying around in the registry?

How about a "Remove absolutly everything when uninstalling" option?
:D

Quote (kevinkreiser @ June 21 2005,04:14)
as far as permissions go, i am an administrator on my computer i can delete and write to any place on my hard drive that i want. my account and the guest account are the only other accounts besides the actual administrators account. and the file is not read-only.

Yeah, I knew there were holes in the permissions theory, but that read-only thing is as close as I could get to reproducing the problem…strange…
Quote (kevinkreiser @ June 21 2005,04:14)
i deleted some ntrack registry values after i uninstalled ntrack and then i reinstalled it and it seems to be working correctly. ill let you know after i test it further.

It would be interesting to know exactly which registry values you deleted, but the main thing is that you’re back in business again–glad you got it working… :D

Tony

Quote (John @ June 21 2005,05:40)
This makes me wonder if n-Track actually does a complete un-install when asked, or does it leave bits lying around in the registry?

Last I looked, it did leave some things. I think one thing it leaves is the registration info, so you can do a simple uninstall and reinstall without having to re-enter your codes.
Quote (John @ June 21 2005,05:40)
How about a “Remove absolutly everything when uninstalling” option?
:D

I have used Total Uninstall, a utility which tracks registry and filesystem changes during the installation process. A freeware version is still available at the site (here). Be forewarned that it can damage things or cause odd problems if you’re not careful. For example, I installed a program once which added a virtual drive to the system, and when I uninstalled it with Total Uninstall, some of my real drives didn’t work anymore! I ended up reinstalling and uninstalling the virtual drive program without TU to fix the issue. Also, I tend not to let it continue to scan after an installer reboots the system, but I know those who have without issues.

For n-Track, though, I’ve used it many, many times without problems.

Tony