Can't open WAV audio file in Elan 5.2 for Mac

ELAN
1

I know that someone else has had this problem, but I can’t find any fix. I’ve just downloaded Elan 5.2 for Mac and tried to open a WAV audio file for the first time. I get the error message:

‘No player could be created for: [file name]
The Cocoa QT Player can not handle the file.
quicktime/QTException’

I’ve tried opening it from Finder instead, but that doesn’t work…

2

If you go to View->View Log… after the error message you mentioned, is there any more information about the wav file and why it is not supported?
Is the waveform visible, after the message?

-Han

3

Thanks for the reply. There’s no waveform after the message. The log says:

31/07/2018 05:32:51.827 JavaApplicationStub[21596]: Error code -2048 Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-2048 “noMovieFound” UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=The file is not a movie file.}

4

Could it be there really is something wrong with the WAV file? Can it be played in the QuickTime Player (also in QT Player version 7 if you have it installed)?

In the first message, I don’t see any output from the JavaSound Player. What happens if you go to Edit Preferences, to the Platform/OS section and choose Java Sound as the preferred player? Open the wave file again after changing this setting. There might be different error messages in the log now?

5

There’s nothing wrong with the WAV file because it plays in Audacity and Express Scribe (not in QT because I never use it so haven’t downloaded the Windows Media Components thing). I’ve just tried changing the settings as you’ve advised but when I try again to open the WAV file I get exactly the same error message as in my original post.

6

Although WAV is a relatively unproblematic format, it might still be possible to encode WAV files in a way that is not supported by all players. The Quick Time Player is usually a good application to test if a media file will work in ELAN. For playing WAV files in QT Player it is not necessary to download any additional components. It’s just a quick way of testing (and I’m not sure whether you tried in QT and it failed or whether you didn’t try it in QT yet; the message in your post #12347 seems to be quite specific).

Alternatively you could download e.g. this WAV file and open it in ELAN and see if you get the same error message.

If so, there might be something wrong with the installed ELAN somehow, in which case again the log messages might give a clue (the whole log doesn’t need to be posted here, it can be sent to me (han.sloetjes AT mpi.nl)).

7

I just downloaded the example WAV file and it works perfectly in ELAN. I checked my original WAV file and it doesn’t open in QT either, only other programmes. So it must be the specific file. So have I run out of options?

8

I guess there’s no alternative to re-encoding the file in a format that is supported by ELAN. The Export window of Audacity probably has something like “WAV (Microsoft) signed 16 bit PCM” or similar as one of the options; that should work.