Error message 'One or more audio files changed in length!

I'm getting the error message 'One or more audio files changed in length!'

I have a new Mac mini running Catalina 10.15.6. with Logic Pro X 10.5.1. On Disk Utility, it says hard drive type APFS volume. (Should be original factory settings, as I didn’t make any changes.) I didn’t have any problems for the first month or two that I used this system and program, but I just started getting the file length message. Wondering if there’s a fix to prevent future errors… Thank you.

Here's what this error means:

When you work in a Logic project and use an audio file (recorded or imported), the Logic project doesn't actually contain the audio file. The audio file is stored somewhere else on your HD. Let's say you record a song called "Stay With Me" and organize your project as a folder, your audio file is stored inside an Audio Files folder inside the Stay With Me project folder. To playback the audio as expected, the Logic project file keeps track of: multiple things including (along with examples):

1. The audio file name (Bright Vocals.aif)

2. The audio file location on your HD (Macintosh HD/Users/AlexJT/Desktop/Stay With Me/Audio Files/)

3. The number of samples in the audio file (372767)

... and, for each audio region referring to that audio file, the sample number where that region starts and the sample number where that region ends....

4. Region start (023148).

5. Region end (249953).

When you open the Logic project file Stay With Me.logicx, it looks at the location (#2) on your hard drive to find the audio file (#1) so that it can, when you play the project and the playhead reaches the audio region on the track, playback the audio data inside that file starting at sample number (#4) and ending at sample number (#5).

However in your case, the file is no longer 372767 samples long as Logic remembers it was when you last saved that project file, so it pops up that alert.

One typical reason of this error occurring is that you've saved and closed your Stay With Me.logicx project and continued to edit the audio file in another project (or even another app), unbeknownst to Stay With Me.logicx. For example you had save a copy of the Logic project called Stay With Me 2.logicx and opened that, then changed the size of the audio file Bright Vocals.aif in that project so that it's no longer 372767 samples.

Hi David. I apologize for my late response to this, I've been unable to get to it due to some other pressing commitments.

I haven't saved and closed my project and edited elsewhere, to my knowledge. (I am new to this so it is possible I've done something inadvertently)

I have used a track alternative on this project but I'm sure that wouldn't trigger the error message would it?

I spoke to Apple support, and they suggested I change security preferences so 'logic could read the full disk'... so I did this for logic in 'security and privacy'. The message hasn't reappeared since doing this. Does this make any sense to you?

Apologies once again for my late response.

Thanks for your time.

Alex

I spoke to Apple support, and they suggested I change security preferences so 'logic could read the full disk'... so I did this for logic in 'security and privacy'. The message hasn't reappeared since doing this. Does this make any sense to you?

Many things don't make sense in Catalina...

I haven't saved and closed my project and edited elsewhere, to my knowledge.

It's not the project but the audio file that you're being alerted about. This happens when you edit the audio file destructively without the Logic project's knowledge.

I have used a track alternative on this project but I'm sure that wouldn't trigger the error message would it?

Yes it would, if you edit the audio file destructively in one of the alternative then you will get that message when switching back to the other alternative. Example. You record a 2 bar audio file in Alternative 1 and save it. Create Alternative 2. In Alternative 2 you destructively edit the 2 bar audio file to make it 1 bar long (an example of that would be you open the audio file in the Audio File editor and trim it, but there are many other ways to destructively edit an audio file), save Alternative 2.

Now Alternative 1 was saved with a reference to a 2 bar audio file but when you open it it finds a 1 bar audio file instead. So that triggers the alert

In fact I just tried what I said and got this:

I spoke to Apple support, and they suggested I change security preferences so 'logic could read the full disk'... so I did this for logic in 'security and privacy'. The message hasn't reappeared since doing this. Does this make any sense to you?

No. I'm not even sure which preference you're talking about but it's most likely not related, you just haven't destructively edited an audio file this time, that's why you haven't gotten the error message.

Hi,

I just had this error after a vocal recording with multiple takes. I closed the song opened another unrelated one. When I re opened this song again I got this error and the master track had a few wrong takes so I had to find and adjust the correct ones. The bad thing is initially I had not done any manual comping, just punch in outs, so it was hard to correct it back to how the recording was made as some parts were very wrong with pre punch in material replaced the intended one.

This happened on Mojave with Logic 10.5.1