"File size limit reached" error when recording to daisy chained drive

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"File size limit reached" error when recording to daisy chained drive

Hi all,

I'm having a problem recording a track to a daisy-chained FW800 drive. I have two connected to my iMac. When recording to the drive that is directly connected to the computer, there is no problem. However, when I copy the same garageband file over to the daisy chained drive, open it and record, I get these 2 error messages:

"Audio record path not found! Please set it in the following dialog!

I click "OK" and then get this:

"File size limit reached: Audio recordings are limited to a file size of 2 gigabytes. This recording has reached the file size limit. Recording will stop, and the recording up to this point will be preserved."

This is a fairly small file with about 5 tracks and 60mb at the most. It's funny, when I open the file for the first time from the daisy chained drive, it will let me record as many times as I want to, but as soon as I save the file and then hit record again, I get the error messages every time and it won't record. I have swapped the drives in the chain to make sure that it is not the drive. Whichever drive is second in the chain gets the error. I am using two brand new OWC mercury quad drives, one 500gb and one 1tb. I have the latest Garageband and a new iMac running Lion. This is very frustrating because I don't know if it is Garageband or faulty Firewire ports on the drives or even my iMac.

Anyone experience this?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.1), i5 2.5ghz

Posted on Sep 20, 2011 6:24 PM

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Answer 1

léonie

Level 10

200,651 points

Sep 21, 2011 6:02 AM in response to brickisred

How is your external drive formatted? Make sure it is an MacOS -Extended and not MSDOS (FAT) or another formatting scheme that restricts the File size to 2 GB. Reformat your disk with the disk utility, if necessary.

That helped me with a similar problem.

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Answer 2

brickisred Author

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Sep 21, 2011 6:28 AM in response to léonie

Thanks for the reply. These are OWC mac-ready drives and I'm pretty certain they have already been formatted macOS extended. I don't get the error when either drive is connected directly to the computer, only when daisy chained. If it were a formatting issue, wouldn't I get the error constantly?

Also, I have been using one of these drives for time machine. Even though the drive is daisy-chained while using time machine to back up to it, it copies fine with no errors. The problem for now seems to occur only in Garageband. I'm going to try iMovie next.

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Answer 3

brickisred Author

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Sep 25, 2011 9:13 AM in response to brickisred

An update: I contacted Apple and they said this is a limitation in Garageband. Somewhat disappointing, and I've left them feedback about it on the developer web page.

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Answer 4

léonie

Level 10

200,651 points

Sep 25, 2011 9:18 AM in response to brickisred

I am glad you found the answer, even if it is somewhat disappointing 😟

Léonie

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Answer 5

brickisred Author

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Oct 7, 2011 10:42 AM in response to brickisred

Another update:

I replaced the two daisy chained firewire drives with new ones of the same brand and type (for a different issue). Now I don't have a problem recording to the drive that is daisy chained. I get the feeling that apple care dropped the ball on this one and either didn't know how to solve my problem or didn't want to deal with it because it involved third party hardware. So they passed it off as "normal operation".

Puzzled about this whole situation...

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Answer 6

Oct 7, 2011 6:29 PM in response to brickisred

i think this is one of those things for which there is no definitive answer - you just have to try things until something works (or doesn't). for example, i've read contradicting advice about which should come first in daisy chaining a FW audio interface and FW drive - e.g. plug drive into computer first, then interface into the drive, or vice versa. if there is "conventional wisdom," whatever drive you have might not know it.

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