I recorded a song, and when I went back days later to work on it, I got this error message:
Automatic Crash Recovery
Some projects were not saved properly etc.
Name of project: “Hello, Leo etc.”
I clicked on “Recover Project.”
This brought up the error message “Project check found file inconsistencies during automatic recovery.”
I clicked on “Help: Show Log.” The log showed the following:
“Error: failed to load shared library avformat-55.dll.”
“Error: failed to find compatible FFmpeg libraries.”
“Error: can’t open the file X (the system can’t find the file).”
“Warning: missing data file block file X.”
I have a folder with the name of the project (the song), containing a large number of data files with names like “e00001e7.au.” Some things I have seen in online Audacity forums suggest that I can rebuild the project from these. Is that true?
If recovery is still possible, please let me know the steps.
Those errors are not related. They are just saying that you don’t have the optional FFmpeg libraries installed.
That’s the important error. That is saying that it can’t find some of the audio data.
Automatic recovery is pretty good. If it is possible to recover the project, Audacity can usually do so “automatically”.
Manual recovery is sometimes possible for an unedited / unmodified recording. Projects that have been edited cannot usually be recovered manually (though automatic recover can usually recover all or most of the project).
The important questions are:
Was it a fresh, unedited recording?
How much data is missing (how many missing block files)?
If there are only a few missing block files, then your best course of action would be to let automatic recovery do its thing. Select the option:
“Treat missing audio as silence (this session only)”
Audacity will then recover as much as it can.
If the project looks reasonable, try playing it, and if it plays OK, save it somewhere with a new, unique name.