I recorded something of critical importance from the radio. I had to hurry from where I was to another location. I forgot to create a “project” - and besides, I was simply going to edit the audio file (4 hours of nonrecoverable content) and save as .wav - a few hours later my computer decided to do a Windows 11 update (despite having disabled automatic updates). I was concerned, seeing all programs had shut down, so Googled what to do to recover Audacity files (in case there was an issue with this crucial recording). It said it should autorecover when I opened it but to be safe, first to check temporary Audacity files. I did and there were no session data files or temp files. So, I opened Audacity and there was no automatic backup. No prompt to keep saved files.
Why does Audacity apparently not have this fundamental and critical functionality?
Ah, you just do 4 hours work without pressing Ctrl-S at least once? Mh…
Your settings might have been automatically changed during a previous “update”. Or another user (with enough privileges) changed your settings. Or…
If the operating system decides to just close an application (or shut down the computer) without leaving enough time to the applications to write their data to disk, this is not the application’s fault, I’d say.
When this has happened to me I’ve been nowhere near my laptop while it was recording. I would not have been able to hit Cntl+S. But I wonder: why does every other application on the planet in 2025 have the capability to autosave, but not Audacity? If it crashes, Audacity properly autosaves. But when there are Windows Updates it does not autosave, and it wipes out the session data. I have posted this same issue in this forum, as have many others, yet Audacity hasn’t fixed this. Blaming the user for not manually saving is very 1995. People used to say things like that re: WordPerfect.
For future reference I suggest that you consider using Audacity’s Timer Record for such situations. This has the advantage that when you set up the recording you can set it so that at the end of the recording Audacity will save the project and/or export an audio file (I export WAVs as a safety copy).
And for future reference I would suggest Audacity get its act together and look at this issue. You-all have ignored it for many years. The issue is this: if there is a sudden crash or a power outage the backup/autorecovery works. If there is a Windows Update the backup/autorecovery does not work. There is something that happens with the first scenario that does not in the 2nd scenario, or vice versa.
Telling users what workaround they should employ or steps they should have taken is immaterial. The auto-save/recovery function should work with all of the above use cases. The size of the files has nothing to do with it. If Audacity is able to save a recording of any file size when a computer crashes it should be able to when a stupid Windows 11 update kicks in. Again: I have disabled Windows updates but sometimes, somehow, it breaks through anyway.
This is my scenario too. I had to leave my computer on while I went and did the thing that was being recorded, and when it was done had to hustle onto the next thing, and by the time I opened my computer a rogue Windows 11 happened and wiped everything out. This isn’t user error. People in the 21st century rely on the software they use to have autorecovery. This seems to be a major bug.