Elements 2020 will not play .wav files

[DaveD44]

I just today downloaded and installed Elements 2020 trial on a Windows 10 system, Version 1909, build 18363.476 (latest), and converted my several catalogs to 2020 without error. One of my projects (catalogs) makes extensive use of .wav files that are saved with photos taken by a camera that records audio, and I use these audio files to identify details of the photos. Photoshop Elements Organizer never had a problem playing these files in the past but now the files will not play. They do open what appears to be an Elements player and they do produce noise. .wav files are no problem anywhere else in this system. I did import a mp3 file and it played fine. I can find no information searching this forum or anywhere in Adobe or outside concerning problems playing .wav files. Help please, and thank you. 

Update: I did some investigation of the problem this morning and found that only certain wav files fail to play properly. They are 8-bit, 8,000 Hz, mono. I have a second camera that records audio that I have used from time to time and the wav files from that one play correctly. Those wav files are 16-bit, 11,025 Hz, stereo.

I have found one item in the “Animate” forum titled “wav file not working” that leads me to believe that these problem wav files can be fixed with a wav editing program. But I have over a thousand of these unplayable wav files on one of my projects and a smaller number on another, so fixing them is not an option. If this problem cannot be fixed in Elements 2020, it is a show-stopper and I will have to kill the trial.

[DaveD44]

Anyone listening? Adobe staff? Does Adobe formally support Elements or are users on their own when code problems are found? 

This is a real problem. I have stated that wav file rendering fails with 8-bit files but works with 16-bit files and that they worked on a previous version of Elements Organizer. I have also discovered that I can update these same failing files to 16-bit and they work fine. (Please don't suggest that I update all my 8-bit wav files--there are many thousands.) Did Adobe issue a statement sometime in the past that 8-bit files are no longer supported? These 8-bit files are essential to my use of Organizer. Am I alone on this Earth with a problem playing these files? 

[Phinny]

Since mp3 also works for you, a solution you might consider is VLC to batch convert your many wav files.  

https://www.techjunkie.com/batch-convert-vlc/ 

[DaveD44]

Thanks, Phinny. I have VLC and it is my default media player. I looked at the link you provided but did not try to convert anything, reason being that it appears that I would have to go into every one of my Organizer items with an associated wav file and reassociate to the new MP3 file, one at a time. (That association is made from the Organizer audio player using the File>>Browse function.)

There is a really nice open source *free* audio editor available called Audacity. I installed and tried it, and it works well batch converting 8-bit wav files to 16-bit. Simply touching a wav file with Audacity's "Export as WAV" command as the single operation in a macro will convert to 16-bit and export the file to a subfolder off the one you are working in. Then a cut/paste to the original folder replaces all the old 8-bit wav files with the converted 16-bit versions. No reassociation is necessary in Elements Organizer. Batch conversion is simple enough--you apply your Audacity macro to a file list of all the wav files in the folder. My problem with using the Audacity conversion to solve this problem is that it can operate on only a folder at a time, and I have hundreds of folders and many thousands of photos. (In my original post I had sort of forgotten about a much larger Organizer catalog containing years of photos arranged in folders by vacation/trip/event, folders named and sorted by date. I have a few hundred of those, and all those that were created before several years ago when I got my latest camera have wav files in the older 8-bit format. Converting all that with Audacity would be a huge job!)

So while I do have a fairly efficient method to convert these files, this problem needs to be fixed. I hope Adobe is listening, but I doubt that they are.

[Phinny]

I'm tracking with you, Dave.  Certainly Conceivably, a method exists to overwrite the original without modifying it's file name or location but maybe not.  With so many 8 bit wav's affected, it might be well worth your time to look into it further.  Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.  Best regards.