I have been using audacity for some time now. Recently when I have completed recording and selected "export to mp3" the process locks up and eventually I get a message saying that it has timed out. This happens even with a 4 second file which I had no trouble exporting before. I have uninstalled/reinstalled audacity several times. I have used system restore and run Registry Booster. Occasionally it will work but out of the blue it freezes up. I check on the windows Task Manager to see if any file is using up a lot of resources, but no luck.

I lose the file. When I restart it will tell me I have temporary files and that I can manually restore them but I can't seem to find the temporary files. Any help much appreciated.

Interesting.. audacity version.. is it the one that installs gtk2 as well.. if so the temp files will be in .audacity/temp sub-directory.

Thanks.
I could not find audacity temp files anywhere. I went to audacity/edit/preferences/directories. It showed where the temp files should be but I could not find that directory. I used the Choose function to place the temporary audacity files in the usual temporary folder. That now shows up ok but there are no files there at present. I will wait for the next crash and check it out :-)

I haven't solved the problem of timing out while the export to mp3 task is selected.

Sorry I forgot to mention I am using audacity 1.2 Last night I also installed 1.2.6.

Have you tried reloading Lame into Audacity?

I have uninstalled and reinstalled lame a couple of times. It's not in the same directory as audacity but audacity does link to it.
I tried the newer version of audacity yesterday and it worked. I'm not sure what's going on but I will stick with the newer version for the time being and keep my fingers crossed. Still I would like to know what has been causing the problems for future reference. What is curious is that I have used the older version for quite some time without problem and only recently it started timing out when exporting to mp3.

Crash or excessive processing time on export

If Audacity crashes or hangs when exporting MP3s, or the export takes a long time to process, the usual reason is that your chosen Project Rate (the sample rate bottom left of the Audacity screen) is very different from the sample rate of the audio track on the screen (as shown in Hz on the Track Panel above the mute/solo buttons). As a result, resampling has to be done while exporting, which can create problems on long tracks. Try resampling the track to your chosen Project Rate before exporting as MP3. To do this, select all the track by clicking in the Track Panel, then Project > Quick Mix in 1.2.x or Tracks > Mix and Render in 1.3.x versions. If there is any silence added to the end of the track as a result of the resampling, you can select and delete it. Now when you export the MP3, the process should go smoothly and quickly. If it doesn't, there could be a number of reasons, e.g. if you have a virus scanner set to scan all created files, this will slow the process of writing the exported file considerably. The higher the bit rate you export at, the larger the file will be, so giving a greater time penalty if you enable virus scanning.

Hi Varnull,

Thanks for that. I was aware of the problem outlined in your post. My project rate and the sample rate are the same. I was having timing out problems even with a 4 second track. What I don't understand is that I have been using audacity for quite some time and it has worked perfectly. Just recently it has been hanging. I have had the same virus software for a few years so I don't think that is the problem.

I had another problem on Saturday. I was recording a file of about 1 hour. For some reason the computer must have turned off and back on while I was out of the room, causing me to lose the work. Since I changed the Temp directory I was able to find the files. At the time I simply re-recorded the track as that was the easiest thing to do then. It worked ok. This is on the newer version. I'll keep at it, but thanks again for your post.

No probs. I came across that and thought it was relevant.

Mine just works, so I don't know what the problem could be. I hadn't used it before tonight, but it seems happy to convert 120k to 320k with no problem...and everything else to mp3 as well (using lame3.97 - libmp3lame.so.0.0.0) It might be an idea to try a few different lame versions.. It was unsure about the version I am using, but no problems as it turns out. Try possibly posting on their forums or bugtracker. I'm sure the audacity team would appreciate the feedback, and what sounds like an interesting bug in the windows version.

Just one thought.. Jack is notorious for causing odd conflicts. Audacity doesn't need it as there are alternatives.. If you have by any chance Jack installed try removing it and see if it makes any difference.