I am a relatively new user (since March) of Audacity, currently running Release 2.4.2 running on Windows 10 Home Version 1909 on a Lenovo All-In-One desktop. I am using Audacity to digitally record my old vinyl LP records using an audio-technica USB turntable, and for the most part, I am very pleased with the ease of use, functionality, and quality of the Audacity recording software. The Audacity project files, data files, and label files are saved to an Audacity project folder on my desktop, which is continuously synched to Microsoft OneDrive. My Desktop is one of the folders set to synch. After I have recorded the album, I typically save a complete unedited WAV file, and export multiple file WAV files, multiple file MP3 files, and a track label file to an external hard drive not synched with OneDrive. When I attempt to close Audacity after a recording session, I almost always receive a OneDrive notification stating that I “recently deleted XXXX number of files from this device. Do I want to remove them from OneDrive too?” The options are to “Remove” or “Restore files”. If I select “remove” them, which I did initially thinking they were no longer needed as the Project, data, and label files had been saved on my desktop and were not removed, then anywhere from 4 - 9 folders, including Documents, Excel, Word, Pictures, and several recently used folders were removed from my OneDrive (Not good!). Selecting “Restore files” seemed to preserve them and my Audacity files. Are there any settings in Audacity that can be changed to prevent this conflict or error? Thank you.
It’s not a conflict exactly. Audacity doesn’t work with network connected drives.
https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/write-project-to-network-drive/57854/1
Koz
iDrive and other network connected drives have the nasty habit of “snuggling up” to your regular system pretending to be a regular drive just like everything else you own. They’re not. They have all the same problems that other network connections do—delays, rerouting, collisions, and retries—and if the system isn’t ready for that, some very messy things can happen.
Audacity isn’t ready for that, particularly because Audacity tries to work in real time and that’s the last thing your network is good at.
Koz
Will “Pause synching” for OneDrive avoid the problem? Right-clicking the OneDrive icon gives the options to Pause synching for 2 hrs., 8 hrs. and 24 hrs. If one pauses it while working in Audacity, does that avoid the problem, or will it only recur when synching is resumed? Alternatively, does changing the default location of the Temporary Files Directory under “Preferences” to a location that is not synched with a network attached drive solve the problem? Thanks.
My preference is hardware solutions first because it hard to work around those in an underhanded manner. I’m fond of “air gap firewalls,” too.
Shut down the machine and disconnect the network. Start. That will do two things, it will tell you how connected you are to other products and services (whether you want to be or not) and the Audacity problems may vanish.
If you’re connecting through WiFi, then it might be harder. I don’t know how to shut down Windows Networking in The Control Panels.
Will “Pause synching” for OneDrive avoid the problem?
When you get through with testing all those connections and settings, collect your notes and you will be the Audacity Forum Expert.
This isn’t a help desk. It’s a forum with users helping each other, and there are a lot of people having similar problems.
Koz
It may, but I think it would be safer to work in a normal folder and only use OneDrive as backup storage.
I’d also recommend ZIP’ing the AUP file and _data folder into a single archive file before copying to OneDrive (web drives tend to be much more reliable for handling a single large file rather than thousands of tiny files).
I have found two solutions to this issue. One can save the Audacity projects to a folder in a location (the Windows Desktop in my case) but do not synch that particular folder with OneDrive. The other solution is to save the Audacity projects to an external drive, none of which is synched with OneDrive. Either one appears to resolve the issue.