Release Checklist

These are all for 1.4.0 release. There has been a 1.3.4 Windows/Linux beta release, and a 1.3.5 release for all platforms on May 8, 2008.

We are intending a 1.3.6 release on 26 May (when GSoC coding starts), with a string freeze on 19th, code freeze on 22nd, then start building rc's. Bethween then and 26th, only rc bugs will be fixed. 1.3.6 will be a modular build using wxWidgets 2.8.7. After that there will be frequent alpha releases during GSoC, but a final public 1.3.x as a 1.4.0 release candidate will not occur until after GSoC.

To take ownership of an issue, add your initials before it like so:

• [DM] for Dominic Mazzoni
• [LL] for Leland Lucius
• [JC] for James Crook
• etc...

Items added as Priority P1, P2 or P3 should be added to Known Issues. Former "Aim to" items from this page have now been moved to the top of Release checklist not aiming for 1.4. If you claim ownership of any items on Release checklist not aiming for 1.4, please cut them from there and and park them at the bottom of Release Checklist. Please ensure items on this page which have been cleared are moved to our new Release Checklist Done page, and where appropriate, moved down to the "Cleared in CVS" section of Known Issues. Testers should refer to Watching Brief (now on its own page) for intermittent/not fully understood issues. Please avoid adding your own custom font colours when commenting an existing topic.

Please also refer regularly to these pages:

Documentation Checklist, for documentation changes needed for 1.4 Manual and any developer recruitment drive.

Wording, where we track suggested changes to the exact words that appear on a dialogue

Pending website changes where we post suggested changes to our audacity.sourceforge.net and audacityteam.org sites (except the Wiki).

Unless indicated by discussion against particular items, these should be regarded as needing attention. When processed, please move them to the "Done" section of those pages.

• Patches are added and tracked on the Sourceforge Patch Tracker .

• There is also a page here where we discuss ideas for developing both this Wiki and the Manual Wiki, and monitor their progress. This includes security issues, bug fixes and enhanced functionality through installing additional extensions.

Essential changes

These are other changes to source code that are deemed essential. We will do all of these for final 1.3.x release candidate or 1.4.0 release as noted below.

• Help/Manual issues. These are needed for when we release the final release candidate Beta:
  • Script to extract html help from the Manual Wiki.
  • Installer to be modified to also install Html help. Consider giving Windows installer an option to install help for all users, not just current user.
  • Address documentation issues, including website updates.
  • For 1.4, "completing the Manual". Needed before we can release any versions of 1.4.

• For 1.4, finalise the default additional plug-ins provided with Audacity and make them available on all platforms. No special action is needed on Linux for Nyquist plug-ins, as any *.ny plug-ins from the plug-ins dir are installed, except those deleted when the tarball is created using scripts/maketarball.sh. This should be the contents of the Audacity Plug-Ins folder after a fresh installation on Windows or Mac:
  • beat.ny
  • clicktrack.ny
  • crossfadein.ny
  • crossfadeout.ny
  • delay.ny
  • equalabel.ny
  • GVerb.dll ++
  • Hard Limiter.dll ++
  • highpass.ny
  • lowpass.ny
  • pluck.ny
  • rissetdrum.ny
  • sc4.dll ++
  • SilenceMarker.ny
  • tremolo.ny
  • vocalremover.ny
  • vocoder.ny
  • (Under discussion: should we add a chorus plug-in? We have a Nyquist flanger/chorus plug-in available for review, or should we port the simpler multivoice_chorus_1201.dll from the Steve Harris LADSPA set to Win and Mac?)

Note:

++ These are not in source code but VJ and LL normally include them in Windows and Mac release builds

Rating Keys for Issues

All cross-platform issues are now given a Priority Rating of 1 to 5 as follows:
P1	Release Blocker - either a reproducible crashing issue and/or a very serious regression. See the discussion page for a guide to what may be deemed an essential fix that blocks release.
P2	To be release-noted if unfixed, considered very important.
P3	To be release-noted if unfixed, considered less important than P2 (for example, affects fewer users).
P4	Clear benefits from fixing, but not sufficiently important to release note. May include easy fixes giving considerable benefit relative to the time involved.
P5	Only just important enough to be fixed for release. It could be done in "spare time", or by someone learning the code.
Any items with a "$" after the priority rating are believed fixed but awaiting confirmation (preferably on at least two platforms).

Cross-Platform Issues

P1 (Release Blocker Issues)

None

P2 / P3 (Release Noted Issues)

P2	After closing all tracks, File > Save or Save Project As.. gives no warning. The user needs protection against inadvertently saving an empty project. Save Project As.. with no tracks open is legitimate if there have never have been any changes, so it's suggested the warning should be given only if there is an Undo history.
P2	Old projects open incorrectly. Reported by Monty. With CVS HEAD, sample project created in 1.1.0 now correctly identifying the real orphans (there are 10), but the waveform is still opening as blank. Needs more investigation. GA tried a 1.1.3 Project with envelope edits in 180907 build and it opened fine. There are no envelope points, but there aren't any after saving/reopening the Project in 1.1.3 either.
P2	Ensure all Edit menu items consistently enabled and work consistently. See here . JC: Is it really what we want? E.g click split-new twice, and we get four tracks. Is it not less confusing to leave it greyed out? GA: If you turn off select-all-on-none, select an area and "Split New" twice, you also get four tracks, so I think it is what we want. Now, if you have a track selected with no time area selected, nothing on the clipboard and click the Edit menu, all the edit menu is enabled except Paste. But if we click outside the track(s) so that none are selected, we lose ability to click on Split Cut, Trim, Delete, Split Delete, Silence, Join, Disjoin, Duplicate and Find Zero Crossings - yet we could still Cut, Copy and Split (FWIW) and Split New. I think that will be very confusing as it's a halfway house between Select-all-on-none and not. So all Edit menu items, and File > Export Selection to be available even if no tracks are selected and when clicking outside the tracks. David B. suggests longer term having two independent preference options for selecting all tracks and selecting all audio to give more control.
P2	All platforms to consistently force Project Rate to the rate of first imported file irrespective whether that rate is supported. As of 1.3.5.rc builds, this works on Windows but not for Michael on Linux. When done, add a Preference to always have Project Rate remain as per its Default Sample Rate Preference setting irrespective of the file being imported (this is currently "not aiming for 1.4.0").
P2	Tag import / export is only near complete for MP3, and in places non-orthogonal. No issues which were regressions on 1.2.6 remain. Some known specifics: Audacity "Year" MP3 tags not seen by Windows Media Player or Winamp, and "Year" OGG tags not seen by Amarok on Linux, or VLC on Windows or Linux. No FLAC tags are seen by VLC on Windows or Linux. WAV fields only seen patchily by other apps. as their support is patchy, but Genre tag consistently not seen though it is a valid WAV info tag. GA: Are we using ID3 V2.4 or 2.3? With the two main Windows players not currently seeing the Year tag, we may have a big reason for users not to upgrade from 1.2.6. Can we use v2.2 where WMP and Winamp see the year tag? GA: Leland thinks we can't hack further back than 2.3. The problem seems to be that Windows Explorer/Media Player and Winamp currently expect a frame called "TYER" to indicate the year of the recording. ID3v2.3 seems to recommend passing year as the "TDRC" frame in preference, which is what lame_enc.dll does, resulting in the Winamp/WMP problem. But if you use LAME.exe 3.97 for command line export and force ID3v2.3 with "--id3v2-only", "TYER" is used and WMP and Winamp have no problem. So is it possible to use "TYER", and is this less bad than the current situation?
P2	Shortcuts don't work when the focus is in any of the Selection Bar spinboxes or the project rate list. So for example if you are playing a track, click in the Selection Start spinbox, change the start time then double spacebar to stop and restart from the new time, the track just goes on playing.
P2	The preference for caching audio data may cause a crash either when making long recordings or opening large files or projects. Although it has been reworded to give a warning, consider a separate preference for caching recorded and other audio data. This lets users have the benefits of caching when recording without the more dangerous and possibly less generally useful caching of imported and changed project data. GA suggests the new preference for only caching recordings could discard the cache after recording stops since the data is already written to disk at that point.
P2	Better solution for making custom dialogues escape than setting focus on the OK button. The current fix means that keyboard users have to tab twice in Preferences and effect dialogues before they can work with them.
P3	Export Multiple fails with no export or warning if an empty label is encountered.
P3	When changing language in Preferences, some elements don't change until restart. Affects Audio Track at the top of the Track Drop-down menu, and the toolbars tooltips (except Selection Bar).
P3	Pressing Play (but not spacebar) in a second project when another is already playing stops playback of the first project (is a regression on 1.2.6).
P3	Calculation of "disk space remains for recording (time)" incorrect when recording in 24 bit quality. Macro now created by RA to return size on disk of 16/24/32 bit sample formats as 2, 3, 4 respectively as first part of a fix, but Audacity does not currently record in 24 bit.
P3	Beep on completing long process is not working on many systems. JC: Beep is using the wxWindows function wxBell(), which on some systems uses an internal speaker and does nothing on others. wxBell() seems only to call the system noise from pre-sound card days, not one of the system WAV files. This system noise is often reported to be inaudible when called by wxBell().

P4 / P5 Other Issues (not release noted)

P4	When using disallowed shortcuts during playing or recording with "select-all-on-none" enabled, audio is selected. All the project audio is selected when playing, or that from the recording cursor to zero if recording. If you had a selection region, it can't be restored in any way.
P4	Tab order of controls in SelectionBar is incorrect.
P4	When selecting a region over a label and cutting or copying, ensure label text, not the system clipboard content, is pasted into the text of the label. Regression on 1.2.6, and the 1.4 manual would need amendment if we can no longer cut/copy and paste multiple labels except by means of the Label Editor. System clipboard is pasted because creating a label enables Paste in the edit menu (though this does not consistently happen, and Darren's observation of Paste flickering on Linux might be tied in with this).
P4	When selecting a region over a label that denotes a selection area and cutting or copying, ensure the pasted label is of the selection region, not a cursor point. Regression on 1.2.6.
P5	Memory leak in Effect::CountWaveTracks that could cause problems. Reported by LL.
P5	Firefox does not interpret "#" character in inner text URLs. For example the link to "Super" (http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html#Dnload ) does not go to anchor.
P5	Links from built-in text to Wiki to be locally over-ridable in the same way that links from built-in text to external html files can be. This way we can have a local copy of the relevant Wiki pages, if we want to.
P5	Generate effects do not fit in window, whereas opening and importing audio does. Regression on 1.2.6, and presumed undesirable for most users. Serious nuisance if you want to create very short tones for analysis.
P5	Dependencies Dialogue: If click on "Copy Selected Audio Into Project" in error, the copying cannot be cancelled from the progress dialogue.
P5	Re-enable file writing within Nyquist so that Nyquist plug-ins can remember user settings. Be careful about permissions with file writing, and whether and when we allow over-writing of existing files. Needs someone with detailed LISP knowledge to look at it. Assumption is that we need to re-enable code intentionally disabled, not write new code. JC: xlisp functions such as xwrchar, xprint and xopen :OUTPUT seem to be already present and correct. Can't find disabled code. DS hypothesises it is code missing in 'the bridge', whatever that is.
P5	When writing a file as a result of a Nyquist prompt, file either is not written or is written to a location that is not asked for. See here  for details.

Platform-Specific Issues

Windows

• Welcome Message: On some systems/browsers, links are not brought to top. Some screen readers that otherwise work well with Audacity cannot read its text.

Mac

LL considers that the below issues don't prevent releasing Mac Betas at the same time as other platforms because they in many cases not reproducible on all combinations of hardware and Mac OS version. They will never be fixed (if they even still exist) until we can get more feedback from more people, which won't happen if we don't release a new version for people to try.

• Portable settings aren't picked up, and the default settings (in the default location) are always used. (Release Noted)
• Fix: Mac CoreAudio crash when input device's sample rate is 44100 and the output device's sample rate is 48000.
• $ Problem with inability to launch Audacity on non-admin accounts on Network Home ( see here) and on managed accounts - see here .
  • BP: The problem with the 1.3.3 build is that it was built with permissions of rwxr-x--x. Therefore, anyone not in the group staff (non-admin accounts) would not have the ability to read the file (ie: could not launch it). CVS HEAD sets permissions correctly, and should solve this. Does it solve the Network Home issue? The link above suggests CHMOD 755 does not solve it?
• Test MJS's fix for: Fix crash on restart when noisegate.nrp is present (the nrp only seems to be written when in Clean Speech mode). Crashing on launch replicable in 1.3.3 on Windows and Linux when CleanSpeech enabled and .nrp present. Possibly related crashes reported on Mac when starting Noise Removal (1.3.2 on Windows crashes in this way - not on launch - when in CleanSpeech mode with nrp file present). See here  for more details.
  • MJS's fix seems to have worked to stop crashing on Windows and Linux. Still needs testing in a new OS X build. NRP file has its own directory in the user's folder for application data - need to make sure it actually gets written there. NRP file still only written for CleanSpeech mode at present
• The old issue of envelope points not restoring properly when reopening never quite seems to go away on Macs -see here . This report says the bug was found in 1.3.3 on a Mac OSX 10.4.10 on a PowerBook G4, July 15, 2007. MJS made some fixes for Windows. Perhaps they help here too?
  • BP: Unable to reproduce on 1.3.3 - 10.5.2; Head - 10.5.2; 1.3.3 - 10.4.11, Intel iMac on 28 Mar 08.
  • BP: Reproduced on 1.3.3 - 10.5.1, PPC iBook G4 on 28 Mar 08.

Mac *and* Linux

• [LL] Fix: Random bits of silence during recording (non-Jack version of this problem). [Mac only?]
  • Progress: Udo tried smaller blocksize in linux/jack version of this problem and can now fault after 4 mins. Perhaps small blocksize will help us track down the problem on non-Jack set ups too. However, perhaps Udo's progress is only relevant to using Jack and no help to Mac?

Linux

• Reproducible problem reported by Michael Schwendt on Fedora 8 test rpms of Audacity CVS from 11 January 2008. "Open..." a sufficiently long audio file, start playback. then while playback is still active, "Open..." a second file of any size. Audacity GUI is locked for a long time. A long series of messages on the console is printed until playback of the first file is nearly done. Then everything returns to normal.
    Expression 'ret' failed in 'src/hostapi/alsa/pa_linux_alsa.c', line: 1034
    Expression 'AlsaOpen( hostApi, parameters, streamDir, &pcm )' failed in
    'src/hostapi/alsa/pa_linux_alsa.c', line: 1066
  • This could be demoted to a lower category if other Linux users can't reproduce it.
  • Jim Cline finds the same error message on console when starting audacity built in debian testing, 31 Jan. 2008. Causes same delay in GUI whenever trying to do anything. I don't know if it interferes with functions since I am just starting to use audacity, and don't know whether its failure is due to this or some configuration problem.

• Reproducible (but not entirely consistent) crashes reported by Darren on Ubuntu Gutsy 7.10 with 2.5 GB projects when using Undo command. Darren further reports that adding a Label Track in any projects causes Edit > Paste to flicker (the code does currently enable it), then closing the Label Track causes a crash every time irrespective of the actions taken before. None of these crashes are reproducible by Gale on Windows XP, but retained on "Watching Brief" just in case (it could affect Mac as well?)
• Fix: Recovery action if project rate not supported by card. OK on Windows.
• Support for OSS not functional (crashes).
  • If we are releasing the tarball, as it looks like we will at least as beta, how do we address this? Do we need better release notes, something in the build system or what? We don't want zillions of repeat reports of a known limitation, or Linux users wasting their time trying to make Audacity do something it won't.
  • OSS issue/crash reported by SIEGERSTEIN: 'failed in 'src/hostapi/oss/pa_unix_oss.c', line: 1206'
  • Address Mihail's issue: PA19 uses oss; without load/compile oss support in alsa (snd-pcm-oss), audacity crashes on init PA19.

Not aiming to do for 1.4.0

This has moved to release checklist not aiming for 1.4 and now includes former "Aim tos" from this page. Many of these "Aim tos" are relatively small items but could nonetheless make a worthwhile difference for the time involved. Please do not forget them.

If you claim ownership to items in "Not Aiming", please cut them from that page and park them here: