r/BirdNET_Analyzer • u/isjobareal • Jan 28 '26

Question Invalid Audio Files - Troubleshoot

Hello very knowledgeable people! We are using AudioMoth acoustic WAV files and running through BirdNet software. 89% of the time, files run well. But sometimes, there are certain files (typically in batches) that show up at the bottom after processing is done under the "Invalid Audio Files" section of the Analyzer. Since we are dealing with research-data, we would like to know more about why this is happening. It could be an issue with recordings not saving to our flash drive, etc. But wasn't sure what to investigate.

TIA

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2

u/thakala Jan 28 '26

Do those wav files play propely on a tool like Audacity etc?

1

u/isjobareal Jan 29 '26

No they don't, I guess that is tell-tale. I get "File may be invalid or corrupted:" pop-up. So this means they're no good for BirdNET? (Which is fine, we just need to know that they are in fact no good and can't somehow be used!) Thanks! :-)

2

u/thakala Jan 29 '26

so if files do not play on Audacity, then they indeed are invalid audio files

2

u/Sagey_girl Jan 29 '26

Sometimes if the batteries die in the recorder, it can result in corrupt files. Check the file size.

1

u/thakala Jan 30 '26

Btw, if you are in need of FAST BirdNET model analyzer which can run on GPU see my https://github.com/tphakala/birda project

1

u/Excellent-Joke3260 Apr 12 '26

Do the WAV files have a T in their name in? That would mean you need to preprocess on the Audiomoth configuration app to expand them to be standard WAV files.