I just finished a very involved mix which I spent many many hours perfecting just to have Audacity crash (which it does all the time) although, this time when i went to re-open it… a dialog box tells me it can’t find the file. The .aup Audacity file now has an extention of .bak added after the .aup (.aup.bak). It’s gone I know it is… i’m hoping you might be able to suggest a solution… i better get to work re-creating it… What a drag!!!
Audacity has not written .aup.bak files for many versions now.
Take a look at the pink panel at the top of the page. Tell us what version of Windows you have and what version of Audacity you have now (all three numbers).
If you use the current 2.0.6 version of Audacity from Audacity ® | Download for Windows it won’t crash all the time unless your sound or video card drivers are broken. Also if Audacity 2.0.6 does not exit properly, unsaved changes will be recovered when you restart Audacity. You don’t have to go back to the last saved AUP file and lose your changes.
Even in 2.0.6 I suggest you export a WAV as a backup when you reach significant milestones in the project. Then if something happens to the project you can just import the latest WAV file and resume work.
By the way, I think you mean that Audacity cannot find the _data folder. The _data folder has to have the same name as the AUP (or AUP.BAK) file and has to be in the same folder that the AUP or AUP.BAK is in.
Gale