Hello,
I am using an elan file which already contains two videos. When I try to add another video, ELAN crashes immediately. It is not dependent on the video file. I have tried several different videos and the problems is the same. If I start a new eaf file with, for instance, the three videos I would like to use, ELAN has no problem at all and displays all of them fine. I am using Mac OS Catalina, but the problem also occurs on the PCs my student assitants are using…
Thanks for reporting this; I’m afraid I’m able to reproduce the problem. At least on macOS, so far I didn’t see it on Windows.
The system report produced by macOS after a crash, doesn’t really help me to discern what the cause of the problem is. It’s my impression, based on some quick testing, that the “6.2 bug-fix” version for macOS (available on the ELAN download page, both a version for (older) Intel macs and a version for the new Apple “M1” systems) performs better when changing the linked files. Although I don’t know if the two functions that have been disabled in that version have anything to do with the crashes, it might be worth to give it a try.
Otherwise there are only bad alternatives that I can think of, e.g. editing the XML of the eaf, by adding a third (in this case) MEDIA_DESCRIPTOR element for the video to be added.
Hello,
I have the same problem: I was previously working in Elan6.1 with an mp3 file - the 6.1 (or was it 6.2) version back then showed me the waveform.
Now i am on a new computer and am trying to work in Elan6.3 M1, and now the waveform of the mp3 is not shown. So I made a wav file of the mp3 and I import it to the eaf session. When I try to play the audio the program crashes. It doesn’t matter whether I leave the mp3 file in or remove it from the session.
I am new here, so maybe I have missed something.
Best,
Andrej
Hello Andrej,
Yes, the situation around waveform visualization on macOS is a bit unsteady. Until and up to ELAN 6.0 a .wav file was always required for waveform visualization. ELAN 6.1 introduced waveform visualization from video files and non-wave audio files (on Windows and macOS). When it turned out that this feature could freeze/hangup the application on some macOS systems, this function was disabled in ELAN 6.2.
Now, in ELAN 6.3 there is a checkbox to enable/disable this function; in Edit->Preferences->Edit Preferences->Platform/OS there is a checkbox with label “Use this framework to extract audio samples etc.” which you can enable at your own risk. This setting has an effect in windows that are being opened after changing it.
It is peculiar you are confronted with crashes after converting .mp3 to .wav. Maybe it helps to first add the .wav and remove the .mp3, save and close the ELAN file and then open it again.
Otherwise maybe this media encoding guide can be consulted for conversion settings to .wav?
Thank you, Han, for the solution, and also for a very quick reply! It does work, after I reopen ELAN, the waveform is there and is stable so far.
In case it will prove unstable, I will try the other option.
Thanks also for the media encoding guide, haven’t worked with videos so far, but I just might after that
All the best,
Andrej
