I tried to open a recent AUP file and it gave me the message about importing directly from WAV. This confused me, thinking I clicked the wrong file, so I clicked copy directly – this gave me a 1 second clip where there should have been a full project file. Yes it did have the correct project name at the top. I closed audacity and when I tried to open the file again, I got a message to send a bug report, followed by the program closing. I’m sorry to say I did not copy the message and I’m afraid to open anything right now – in fact, I have two windows open in Audacity right now that will not close. After the first bug message, I tried two other projects and the same thing happened, but unlike the first time, both windows froze when I tried to close them.
So I’m afraid to do anything at this point. What does this sound like to you?? FYI, I looked at my projects folder in windows explorer, and they are all still there and appear to be the right size. The data folders are intact too. I seriously hope this is a case of uninstalling/reinstalling or something simple and my projects are ok.
I thought the same thing, so I cancelled it, but sure enough it was trying to import a project file!!
I’m going to uninstall/reinstall unless anyone has any better ideas
EDIT: One thing I just thought of was the file pathname. Where normally I would use dashes and underscores the whole way through (I heard this was safer) this project was in a folder named “new folder”. That really shouldn’t cause a malfunction in opening OTHER projects though
I reinstalled Audacity, but the message I am getting for project #1 is: “Error Importing: (filename) is an Audacity project file:” – I am NOT importing the file, no matter how I try to open it (through recent files, or clicking on the project in the folder) I get this message.
Project #2 gives me this debug report, but I can’t find the folder or the file listed for some reason. (attachment below)
Nothing else but the two projects were effected, apparently, although it didn’t save changes I made to another project.
The “AppData” folder is hidden by Windows.
Try manually typing the address “C:\Users\Jim Gourd\AppData\Local\Temp” into the address bar of the Windows File Browser. From there you should be able to navigate to the bug report.
Thanks. I will check it out when I get home. Unfortunately I did some reading on other Error Importing messages people have run into and I doubt either of these files is recoverable. I did back up everything in WAV about a month ago, but I had done quite a bit of work since then. I was actually in the process of a backup when the crash happened. I will most likely complete my projects in FL Studio, which I’m just starting to learn, from now on — Audacity has been great in learning the basics of recording & mixing, and the support here has been great, but the amount of bugs and crashes is becoming unacceptable at this point.
OK perhaps this is something that can be fixed for the most part? At least maybe I can access some of the project? I see “;” in the file path name and I don’t think that’s supposed to be there
04:58:07: Audacity 2.3.2
04:58:07: Error: Couldn’t find symbol ‘AudacityModule’ in a dynamic library (error 127: The specified procedure could not be found.)
04:58:10: Trying to load FFmpeg libraries…
04:58:10: Trying to load FFmpeg libraries from system paths. File name is ‘avformat-55.dll’.
04:58:10: Looking up PATH environment variable…
04:58:10: PATH = ‘C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0;C:\WINDOWS\System32\OpenSSH;C:\Users\Jim Gourd\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps;’
04:58:10: Checking that ‘’ is in PATH…
04:58:10: FFmpeg directory is in PATH.
04:58:10: Checking for monolithic avformat from ‘avformat-55.dll’.
04:58:10: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avformat-55.dll’ (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
04:58:10: Loading avutil from ‘’.
04:58:10: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘.dll’ (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
04:58:10: Loading avcodec from ‘’.
04:58:10: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘.dll’ (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
04:58:10: Loading avformat from ‘avformat-55.dll’.
04:58:10: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avformat-55.dll’ (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
04:58:10: Error: Failed to load FFmpeg libraries.
04:58:10: Error: Failed to find compatible FFmpeg libraries.
13:09:07: Audacity 2.3.2
13:09:07: Error: Couldn’t find symbol ‘AudacityModule’ in a dynamic library (error 127: The specified procedure could not be found.)
13:09:09: Trying to load FFmpeg libraries…
13:09:09: Trying to load FFmpeg libraries from system paths. File name is ‘avformat-55.dll’.
13:09:09: Looking up PATH environment variable…
13:09:09: PATH = ‘C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0;C:\WINDOWS\System32\OpenSSH;C:\Users\Jim Gourd\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps;’
13:09:09: Checking that ‘’ is in PATH…
13:09:09: FFmpeg directory is in PATH.
13:09:09: Checking for monolithic avformat from ‘avformat-55.dll’.
13:09:09: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avformat-55.dll’ (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
13:09:09: Loading avutil from ‘’.
13:09:09: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘.dll’ (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
13:09:09: Loading avcodec from ‘’.
13:09:09: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘.dll’ (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
13:09:09: Loading avformat from ‘avformat-55.dll’.
13:09:09: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avformat-55.dll’ (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
13:09:09: Error: Failed to load FFmpeg libraries.
13:09:09: Error: Failed to find compatible FFmpeg libraries.
I think the semicolons are correct. “PATH” is a list of directory paths that the computer uses to find executable programs. The list uses a semicolon to separate the list of items, so in the above case, the list of directories is:
Something you could try, is resetting the Audacity Preferences. The easiest way to do that is to reinstall Audacity from the .EXE installer (https://www.audacityteam.org/download/windows/) and watch out for the option to “Reset Preferences”. Select that option when it appears, and on first run, confirm that you wish to reset preferences.
