A Field Guide to your Files
A few of my friends occasionally run into problems caused by invalid file types. This can happen when someone accidentally types the wrong file extension on a file when saving it.
For example, my friend Beatrice, who does transcriptions, often receives audio files that are named “something.mp3”, but the files are not actually in the MP3 format. They’re something else, like AIFF or WAV. Other times, she may receive a file with no extension at all, and she can’t figure out what type it is.
When this happens, it can cause the software that is trying to use the file to complain (while other software mysteriously works fine). You can often fix these problems by figuring out the correct file format, and changing the file extension accordingly.
If you have run into this problem before, check out this Field Guide to Your Files, which shows you how to analyze and fix this problem.