Reload not working as hoped for audio clips

Help/How To
1

Background : I am modifying/extending my audio voice over file (mp3, exported from Audacity) while I am building my video.

I was hoping I could use the reload button in the properties of the mp3 file to refresh it after I have re-exported the modified (longer) file in Audacity.

However this seems to not work as expected, if I do reload, nothing seems to happen, the clip stays the same.

I can understand that the length stays the same by default, automatically modifying to the new length it would create havoc in different situations.

But for my way of working, it would be interesting if there was way to do it ?

But even if I manually adjust the length in the duration field in the properties, nothing seems to happen.

But after doing that I can grab the end vertical line of the clip in the Timeline and extend the clip.

The extra part does not show any waveform though (just a flat line at the bottom) but if I play I can hear the new added audio. So there is a graphical representation issue.

After closing an restarting Shotcut, the graphical representation of the waveform is still not updated.

It seems this graph is somewhere cached, and from what I can tell only regenerated when you remove and readd the audio clip, not on a reload ?

This is with version 26.1.30.

Am I misunderstanding the purpose of the reload button or is this a work in progress.

To summarize the question: Is there any procedure I can follow in 26.1.30 to reload an updated audio file with a new longer length , and get an updated graphical representation of it ? Besides remove/readd ?

Sideremark:

I also noticed that apparently Shotcut is holding a lock on the file , I cannot delete the file (at least not without using an unlocker).

For a while I thought the problem was Audicity was not able to successfully do the export and I was just reloading the old file, but it seems somehow Audicity goes around the Shotcut lock when writing the file because if i play the new file I get the updated audio.

(I would think there is no need to hold a lock as long as the file is not being actively played ?)

2

You need to right click the clip on the timeline and choose Rebuild Waveform. I’ll try to get around to add automatic rebuild on reload.

As for the file locking, it is intrinsic in Windows; we do not explicitly lock. On Linux and macOS there is no automatic locking.

3

Thanks for the feedback!

It indeed shows an updated waveform if I do right click + rebuild.

But then if I change the length of the audio clip by grabbing the end with the mouse and moving it, it reverts to the old incorrect waveform.

I am also a bit confused by the Duration and Timeline fields in the properties of an audio clip now after playing some more with it.

The Timeline field is non editable in text, but it is updated when I change the length with the mouse length in the timeline.

Duration can be edited in the text field, but it does not do anything on the Timeline from what I can see, and does not match the actual length of the clip either. So I have no idea what the field is actually for, except that when you initially add an audio clip, it will show the actual length.

So it would seem more logical to make one of the fields not editable, and let it always show the actual length of the underlying audio file (so it is updated when you do reload).

And then make the other field field editable both via text, and via mouse dragging.

I explicitly not name which field should do what because naming them is a bit difficult, using Duration for the non editable actual clip length and Timeline for the editable one would make sense here, but then there is a mismatch with eg the Duration property of an image (where duration == length on the timeline). You would need something like “File Duration” and “Timeline Duration”.

Or maybe I misunderstanding the idea behind these fields (as mentioned, I am confused by them now :smiley: )?

>As for the file locking, it is intrinsic in Windows; we do not explicitly lock.

I don’t have any recent windows programming experience so I am absolutely in the dark here, but I would have expected if you close the file handle after initially reading it , any lock would be released ?
In any case it does not seem to be an issue for Audacity at the moment to overwrite it while locked, so it is not an issue at the moment…

4

It doesn’t read entire files into memory! But neither does it hold every possible file in the project open all at the same time. It is in between those two extremes.

confused by the Duration and Timeline fields in the properties

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