After Mac Update all tracks are inreversibly muted

[Alex]

Hi guys! I hope you are having a fantastic day. I am looking for help!

I have been working on a very long and large Audacity project, that I havent opened in a while. Some time ago I did an update on my MacBook (now I have MacOS Monterey 12.6.2). Now I opened my Audacity project and I see, that all of the tracks (songs, recordings…) are kind of muted. The tracks are still there, but there is no information behind the clips. So if I try to enhance the volume, there is nothing, no data. Just like an “empty clip”. I didnt move the original files or anything, the “only” thing was the update. Does anyone have an idea, if I can “reput” the clips? My Audacity version is 2.3.1.

The project is an audiobook with soundeffects of about 8 minute length and a lot of work went into it

[jademan]

@Alex

are kind of muted. The tracks are still there, but there is no information behind the clips.

This could happen in older 2.x.x versions of Audacity when the associated _data directory gets separated from the .aup structure file. Generally there is some kind of a message when this occurs. See: Audacity 2.x AUP Projects - Audacity Manual

[Alex]

I didnt receive any message or error.

So, should I update Audacity to a newer version or what would be the best to do?

[billw58]

@Alex

what would be the best to do?

Look for a folder with the same name as the project, with “_data” added at the end.

For example if the project is “myproject.aup” then the folder would be named “myproject_data”.

The AUP file and the _data folder must be in the same folder.

[Alex]

Thank you! Both already are in the same folder, so unfortunately that was not the problem.

[billw58]

Look inside the _data folder, then inside one of the folders inside it. You will find many files with a “.AU” extension. Most should have a file size of 1MB. If the file size is very small then the audio is probably gone.

Audacity 2.4.2 is the last version that used the old _data folder to store the audio. You could upgrade to 2.4.2 then try to open the project. Make a copy of the folder containing the project file and the _data folder before you try this.

Audacity 2.4.2 is available here: Old Audacity versions download

[Alex]

Thank you very much! I will try that!

[Alex]

I updated to 2.4.2 and it works! Opened the project and all the clips all are there and online again. Thanks a lot for the help! Have the best of days!