I am trying to save a montage and Wavelab won’t let me. I have previously saved this montage but now I want to save a new version of it with a different name. In the save dialog (I’m on a Mac) to the right of the Location field I choose “Select Destination Folder” and I choose the same folder the existing montage is in. However I get the message which I’ve attached saying in need to enter a valid path. What am I doing wrong? Thanks for any help.
This sort of problem seems to happen to me pretty regularly seemingly at random, sometimes it’s saving a montage, sometimes it’s rendering a file. I never had any of these problems with Wavelab 10 or 11. V12 seems to fight me at every turn with invalid file paths. Is there a way to simply set all of that back the way it works in V11?
There is probably a blank space hiding at the end of a folder/file name, or an illegal character somewhere in there.
This kind of error is basically never wrong, but is also not always revealing as to where the error is and we need to see the absolute full pathname and sometimes, the proposed rendered file names to help point out the issue.
Possible idea:
On Mac, in the preferences (Global / Format), there is an option named “Create Windows Compatible File Names”.
This option is ON by default. And it is strongly advised to have it set as such, because if you want to exchange files with anybody who works on Windows, this is the only reliable way.
If you use names with invalid Windows characters, you might get this kind of error message.
Thanks both, I’ll check the path when I’m back in the studio tomorrow. What’s odd though is that the first time I saved the montage it didn’t complain. It only complained the second time but both times it was the same directory (chosen using the browse button in Wavlab so it’s not a path I typed in or changed by hand). If it’s the path name or file name surely it would have also complained the first time I saved it?
I know what you mean. I can’t recall my exact scenario and I know I reported it to PG but I’ve had cases where WaveLab will let me save a montage one time, but not again, or a Save As…
I am pretty sure that in my scenario, the save path involved a semi-colon because the album title was something like “Greatest Hits: The Collection” so there was a folder with that name in the save path because my folder structure is usually artist name/release title/original files or something like that.
Once I removed the semi-colon the issue went away.
It would be interesting to see your full path name to make sure the hard disk or any folders involved don’t have any illegal or problematic characters, and no folders/files end with a blank space which can be hard to notice.
FWIW, my experience is that 100% of the time I have seen this message it is … as previous posters have suggested … a user created file name error.
Typically, a file name from a client that uses OSX and there’s an unnoticed (by me) forbidden character or a space at the end caused by a careless copy>paste.
Coming from a Post background, I would rather have to deal with an error message than a potentially corrupted path later.
Ok I’ve tried switching off (Global / Format), there is an option named “Create Windows Compatible File Names. But I’m still unable to save the file, either as save or save as without getting error message.
I copied and pasted the file path from the Wavelab dialog box where I was trying to save. I got this file path by using the Select Destination Folder option in that dialog box.
/Volumes/Mixing and Mastering HD 2/Mixing and Mastering/ Heron Island Studio/Video Mixing Tracks/Jason Lyon Recollections/02 Wee Small Hours
I can’t see anything wrong with that file path can you?
I just did a test case with an empty space at the start of one of the involved folders and got the same error so I think it’s 100% safe to say that’s the problem.
However, as I noted awhile ago, WaveLab DOES let you save this montage initially so it’s surprising that doing any further saves triggers the error message.
In my opinion, it should not let you do the initial save if it’s going to be a problem for the next save. And also, a clue about the problem could help.
Here’s a screen shot of the initial successful save with the paths visible, and the error message on the attempted re-save.
Thanks for this. Yes I do intentionally put blank spaced before directory names sometimes so that they appear at the top in list view, very handy. I don’t understand why Wavelab would not allow that. I totally understand why files names I sent to clients need to be windows compatible, but I’m never going to sent them any part of my directory folder structure. I was hoping turning off that windows compatibility setting would solve this but it doesn’t seem to have an effect. Anyway thanks for pointing out the problem!
_Heron Island Studio could clear up some issues while still keeping it at the top.
Remember that for nearly two decades, WaveLab was Windows only so there could be some deeper things that are still Windows centric, even in the Mac version. PG can say more to that but generally speaking, I avoid blank spaces at the start or end of folder/pathnames because you just never know what the future (or past) will bring.
Yes, inserting a space at the beginning of a filename is problematic on both macOS and Windows, and it is strongly not recommended.
While technically possible in some scenarios, it often leads to unexpected behavior, compatibility issues, and errors.
On Windows
On Windows, the operating system’s shell and many applications are designed to automatically ignore or trim leading (and trailing) spaces in filenames.
File Explorer: If you try to rename a file in File Explorer and add a space at the beginning (e.g., changing report.docx to report.docx), Windows will typically save it as report.docx, silently removing the space.
Command Prompt/PowerShell: The command line has a hard time interpreting the space. It sees a space as a delimiter that separates a command from its arguments. While there are special syntaxes to force the creation of such a file, it’s not standard practice and will likely cause the file to be inaccessible to many programs.
Application Compatibility: Most Windows applications are not built to handle filenames with leading spaces and will fail to open or save them correctly, often resulting in “File Not Found” errors.
In short, Windows actively works against you creating or using files that start with a space.
On macOS
macOS, being a UNIX-based system, is more permissive than Windows and will allow you to create a filename with a leading space using the Finder. However, this is where the problems begin.
Command Line (Terminal): This is the biggest source of issues. In the Terminal, a space is a special character used to separate arguments. To work with a file named my document.txt, you must either:
Escape the space with a backslash: cat \ my\ document.txt
Enclose the name in quotes: cat " my document.txt"
Forgetting to do this is a very common source of errors and script failures.
Sorting Behavior: Files starting with a space will appear at the top of lists when sorted alphabetically. Some users do this intentionally to force certain files to the top, but it can be confusing and is not a reliable practice.
Cross-Platform Compatibility: If you share the file with a Windows user or use it in a cloud service like Dropbox or a version control system like Git, the leading space can cause synchronization errors or other unpredictable problems.
Summary and Best Practice
Even though macOS technically allows it, a leading space in a filename is a bad idea on any platform. It breaks conventions and creates unnecessary complications.
If your goal is to make a file appear at the top of a sorted list, use a different character that is universally safe, such as:
Thanks for this. With filenames or shared folders I never use spaces at the start. But we’ve been using spaces at the start of folder names on Macs for 20 years day in and day out without any problems. Wavelab is the first time I’ve had a problem with this. Cubase, Pro Tools, Logic, Photoshop, Resolve, Final Cut and countless other Mac apps we use daily here are fine with space at the start of folder names. Seriously, 20 years of running a multi-media studio, many hundreds of jobs, and this is the first time I’ve hit this.
Still I can see that it’s a good safeguard to never use spaces at the start. We’ll use underscores from now on.
On this point I’ve noticed that in recent years some clients are starting to use underscores in all the spaces in file and folder names, not just at the start when they send files. This is a relatively recent phenomenon and I’ve been wondering what it’s about. I know programmers have always done it, but a lot of our music clients have started doing it. Any one know why?
