Problem with Aeneas for Synchronization on Introductions

[Andy_Weathers]

I have a problem when I’m trying to create a timing file by right clicking on the audio file in green and selecting “Synchronize using Aeneas”. This problem is only for Preface, General Intro and NT Intro, not for book intros that are chapter 0 for each book :

I’m not sure what is meant by “No tasks were created.” Could this be a problem with my sync-audio.bat? Here is what the file looks like:

@echo off
set STARTTIME=%TIME%
for /F "tokens=1-4 delims=:.," %%a in ("%STARTTIME%") do (
   set /A "start=(((%%a*60)+1%%b %% 100)*60+1%%c %% 100)*100+1%%d %% 100"
)

@echo.
@echo *** Audio-Text Synchronization with aeneas ***

@echo.
@echo No tasks were created.
@echo This might be because you have not specified any audio files.
@echo.

@pause
:End

I compared this with the .bat file in other project folders, and it looks quite different.

I will say that when I originally add the audio file to the Collections list, this automatically created this MP3 as chapter 1 of FRT (the Preface), but I knew that I had to associate the MP3 file with the INT file where the SFM has the correct text to create the Phrase files as part of the Aeneas process.

I had the thought that maybe the SFM files are not added correctly but they are in fact there, and that’s where I was able to place them in the correct order. The Preface and General Introduction (FRT, INT) are not part of any Group, but for the NT Introduction (OTH), I placed it in the NT Group, so that it will show up first in the New Testament list, directly before Matthew.

Any tips would be appreciated. I’m getting this same error for the General Introduction (INT) and NT Introduction (OTH) audio files, when I try to create timing files using Aeneas. None of my Scripture chapters have this problem, but for those I had actually already created the timing files from different app project, so it could be something related to this project settings.

This issue came up in a different thread, and I was asked to create a new thread since Aeneas Synchronization for Introductions is a new issue. If you want the background here is a link to the original thread.

Placement of introductory texts in SAB apps

We’d like to add introduction texts to our SAB app with Genesis with New Testament. In Paratext we used the INT book, with these sections: INT ch 1: Preface (at the very beginning) INT ch 2: General Introduction (overview of the Bible and includes an image of ancient Greek source text) INT ch 3: Introduction to the New Testament (obviously intended to come before the NT) In our print version of the book the Preface and General introduction come before the book of Genesis, then the NT Introdu…

[Andy_Weathers]

Just this week I updated to the latest SAB 9.0.1, but where should I check about the Aeneas installation? I could just download v1.7.3.0_2 from GitHub, but do I need to uninstall first?

@Jon_Barker do you think my issue is similar to a previous post you made on a different thread: Aeneas and Python version. In that thread you mentioned uninstalling Aeneas Tools and reinstalling it again, could you pass me on tips on how that is done? Oh, and Jon, one of the admins should be able to enable your ability to post links in your posts and replies.

@ChrisHubbard Do you think that the problem I described above is related the the Aeneas and Python 3 issue that what described in the other thread?

I just ran the aeneas install check and it seems to indicate that I already have 1.7.3 and that things should be working:

[Andy_Weathers]

Thanks for all the helpful suggestions well maybe just recording this is helping me process the issues, and might help someone else.

To check if Aeneas is working correctly I ran it on Genesis 1, and it does seem to be working just fine:

So now I’m wondering if this is really an issue with my phrase files, which can be problematic for introductions and sections that don’t have chapter and verses.

[Andrew_Shafe]

Hi Andy. I may be off base here, but I’ll share my experience and maybe it will help. I’ve had the “no tasks were created” error when I’ve added a book to my project, but not saved or built the app. SAB doesn’t seem to register new content added from within the project until both of these are done. For example, if I modify a book (in an editor outside of SAB) that has already been added and is in the project’s data/books subfolder, the updated file is not applied to the project until I save and rebuild the project. In comparison, if the book was added directly from an external source (i.e. a Paratext project folder), and then modified in that external folder, one can right-click on it in SAB and “Update from original source.” This works and the book is updated. The same occurs with art files and mp3s, as far as I can tell. You may have done it, but if not, save, build the app, and why not close and reopen your project and/or SAB!
Aeneas also has problems if there is no valid punctuation in the file. It should be fine on passages without chapter or verse markers.

[JEF]

Hi Andrew, this is Janet! I’m having this problem ‘no tasks were created’ for the miracles app that I’m reworking (I needed to improve the quality of the audio clips, so have started from scratch with the whole app). Until this afternoon, I was able to synchronize each audio clip corresponding to each page for each miracle. I was half-way through M3 when the synchronization no longer worked and gave me the ‘no tasks were created’. I uninstalled SAB and reinstalled the latest version 9.1. I checked aeneas was working correctly. I tried your fix of saving the project and building the app. But this hasn’t fixed it. Any other ideas of what I need to do to fix this?

[Andrew_Shafe]

Hi Janet,
Hmmm. There aren’t any special characters in the filenames or path names, I suppose? That usually causes problems. If not, can you send your project to me and I’ll have a go?

[JEF]

Hi Andrew, I found the solution to synchronize a page of text when there’s no punctuation (after getting some help on this from the community)! Sometimes it works to add a comma, but often that would not make sense. So, I have discovered that I can use a % character immediately after the word (no space between) where I want the highlighting to break. Then in the changes tab for the main collection I added a change to replace the % with \u200b (zero-width space). For the synchronization, I also added the \u200b to the list of punctuation that marks the end of phrases. And hey presto, now the illusive pages that refused to be synchronized work like a dream! I hope this solution helps you to help others!

[JEF]

The reason I couldn’t synchronize anything was that I had used a vertical bar instead of the %. I later realised that the phrases that are automatically created when you do the synchronization also have vertical bars added automatically before each phrase. Hence the reason that aeneas was not working at all. But changing the character from the vertical bar to the % solved the problem!

[Andrew_Shafe]

Great! Thanks for the info!

[Andrew_Shafe]

Just another comment about Aeneas having problems with pages or chapters with just a single line of text, no punctuation except the end of the sentence marker… e.g. "This is just a single line of text."
Running aeneas will not create a timing file (you’ll get an error or “no task” message) but will generate a phrase list for this sentence that will look like this:
|This is just a single line of text
Note: there is no phrase character (a, b, c…etc.)
Edit the file so it is the following:
a |This is just a single line of text
Note: there is a space between the a and the |, but no space after the |
Then, take a note of the length of the audio file for this phrase. Create a timing file by copying another valid one and renaming it for the page/chapter you’re on (or just create it from scratch).
For a 10-second phrase, put the following in the file:
0.00 10.000 a
Note: you MUST have tabs (not spaces) between the various elements–the two numbers and the a.
Of course, you’ll need to replace the 10.000 with the actual length of your audio file.
I know that seems like a lot of steps, but it’s actually very easy and quick to do.

[jeff_heath]

See this related post for another way that Aeneas can refuse to synchronize the audio for introductions:

Audio in Introduction

All of the references I have seen, here and in the Help PDFs are to individual book introductions. (And the reference saying that the book introduction has to be labeled chapter 0 is only in the Audacity PDF, not in the Aeneas PDF…) Can you include an audio of the Bible intro, the OT intro and the NT intro? Obviously naming them with chapter 0 doesn’t really make any sense, since they aren’t associated with an individual book. Trying to sync with Aeneas simply gives: [image] Those three intro…

Turns out that you have to set the chapter number to zero, either through the choice of file name, or right-clicking on the audio file and selecting Edit Audio, and setting the Chapter number to 0. This is true for Bible, OT and NT introductions as well - even though they aren’t associated with an individual book, they still have to be Chapter 0.

If you look in the screen shot in the first post on this thread, you will see that that actually was the main problem. The INT book has a Chapter number of 1. If it had been set to 0, I think Aeneas would have worked.