wav files created by recent versions of ffmpeg can't be opened (upstream issue)

[AlisterH]

Create a file like this:
ffmpeg -i in.wav out.wav

Try to open the file in gwc and you get a WARNING window:

Failed to open /root/out.wav, 'Error : Cannot open file in read/write mode due to string data in header.'

This discussion might be useful:
https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/1843

sndfile-info shows this additional information in the header:

LIST : 26
  INFO
    ISFT : Lavf55.33.100

[AlisterH]

This discussion might be useful

Also see the associated ticket at http://sourceforge.net/p/pure-data/bugs/945/

And more importantly, this old discussion: http://music.columbia.edu/pipermail/linux-audio-dev/2004-August/009672.html

[AlisterH]

One workaround is to convert the file with mhwaveedit instead of ffmpeg

[AlisterH]

Link above is dead, here is a new one:
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/pipermail/linux-audio-dev/2004-August/009672.html

[AlisterH]

I neglected to note here that I later filed a ticket upstream which was closed on the basis that it is too much work: libsndfile/libsndfile#80
If anyone is reading this you probably just need to look at the information in that ticket and the link I posted there - the other links here are a bit more peripheral.

IIRC I thought that mhwaveedit must implement his suggested workaround, so they may have some code we could copy.