CRASHING, DEMOLITION OF HOURS OF WORK

I have just wasted an entire blankety day! Recorded for an hour, edited for two, saved it only to have it “eat” it and flat line. Went onto forum seeking similar disasters, thought it might be because I had tried to save to a usb, licked my wounds and spent another 3 hours re-doing it all, saving it in a wav file first, before editing. Tried to save it to the desktop, flatline crashed again…oh the words I am not using now. WTF is going on with this stupid program? I tried to learn another one, available on Foscurite, too complicated. I have a book I need to get recorded, auditions that are due, and not one frigging clue on how not to lose everything again, FOR THE THIRD TIME!!!

Any ideas Koz?

NilaB

Are you using the latest Audacity, version 2.2.2? If not, please get it from here.

Do you use File > Save or File > Save Project As for saves after the first one?

Can you import the WAV into a new project and continue editing? It seems you exported a WAV file after recording but before editing?

– Bill

saving it in a wav file first, before editing.

It’s good to know a lot more about that WAV file.

There is a known bug in Audacity before 2.2.2. 2.2.2 was rushed out when we discovered the damage being done by scrambling Save and Save As.

It’s possible not to run into this bug if you Save your work to the original file and Save As to a completely separate file. It’s when you Save As to the original file that Audacity can go crazy.

If you have a damaged WAV file, that’s very serious and we need to know about that pretty quickly. What was the exact filename? Do you have virus software on your Mac?

Koz

I just produced this for a different poster.

https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/saved-file-seems-to-have-lost-all-data/48519/3

Next three pages including graphic.

Koz

Thank you, one and all, I was in 2.2.1, just uploaded 2.2.2.

Use save first MOST of the time, and save as when I go final. I will make certain to do that in the future and to never try to save to a usb no matter how many gigs it has, and to quit putting spaces in my titles, and to save the project after recording (during, too, if need be) as a WAV, BUT BEFORE I EVEN DO THAT, COPY THE TRACK AND PASTE IT ON A NEW ONE JUST IN CASE! Then re-save frequently, using save as and version 1, 2, 3, etc.???

I was able to use the second failure’s original WAV to start editing all over again, and copied and saved it twice to other files before during and after the process. Finally able to get that chapter completed and several auditions out. Thanks again.

Nila

To be clear, this is what happened in 2.2.1 and was fixed in 2.2.2

  • make a new project, Save Project As and name it (for example) MyProject
  • do some editing
  • Save Project As (instead of Save), with name MyProject (that is, using Save Project As to over-write the project)
  • do some editing
  • Save Project As (instead of Save), with name MyProject
    – at this point the project was damaged beyond recovery.

Using Save Project As with different file names for different stages of the project was, and always has been, safe.

never try to save to a usb no matter how many gigs it has, and to quit putting spaces in my titles, and to save the project after recording (during, too, if need be) as a WAV, BUT BEFORE I EVEN DO THAT, COPY THE TRACK AND PASTE IT ON A NEW ONE JUST IN CASE! Then re-save frequently, using save as and version 1, 2, 3, etc.???

Saving to the USB may or not have been the source of your problem.

Spaces in titles are fine unless you want maximum compatibility to share you projects with Windows and Linux users, but even then spaces should not be an issue.

Exporting to WAV (or AIFF) immediately after recording is a good practice.

Duplicating the track within the Audacity project will not buy you any safety.

Re-saving frequently with version numbers will not only protect you from crashes, it will also allow you to go back to a previous version if you make some terrible editing mistakes and can’t use Undo to get out of them.

You have an external hard drive and have it configured as a Time Machine backup disk, right?

– Bill

second failure’s original WAV to start editing all over again

Exactly correct. Losing an edit is awkward and inconvenient; everybody’s been there. Your show will be late.

Losing the show completely is most serious.

I did gloss over several twists and turns. The first Project Event is Save Project and it should ask you for a show name. Then it’s Save Project that whole day. The next day is Save Project As and a new filename to divorce yourself from the first Project. Then throughout the day it’s Save Project. Got that? This is the convolution that caused the 2.2.1 bug. Only some of those steps were unconditionally stable.

copied and saved it twice to other files before during and after the process.

You should be super careful about those English words. You can change a WAV file’s name with Windows/Mac/Linux tools all day long, but you can’t do that to Projects. If you change a Project’s name outside of Audacity, the show will not open.

You can take Project files and copy them to multiple drives or folders. One filename, multiple locations.

A note about filename spaces. Have you noticed when you download some work or files or Apps, the names will many times not have spaces? Most computer systems will handle spaces “these days,” but there are still some internet transmission systems that have trouble. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) comes to mind. You can force FTP to transmit a file with spaces in the name, but it’s not pretty or recommended.

Koz

Exporting to WAV (or AIFF) immediately after recording is a good practice.

There is no sound quality difference between those two. AIFF has better support for extras such as show information. However, WAV (Microsoft) is unconditionally accepted across all three computer types. You may have trouble with AIFF.

With all this obsession, most of the shortcomings have to do with sharing the work with other people. If the work never leaves your machine, many of these rules vanish. We assume you’re not reading for yourself and your work is eventually going to have to leave the house. Now you got rules.

You can notify the client what you’re doing and that’s one way to tell how crazy you need to be (please note many clients will not know, or worse pretend to know). ACX posts very clear instructions for the work they will accept. Most of my works are first-layer copied to all three computer types before lunch and then additional client layers after that get lost, so I follow all the rules.

Koz