Audio File Replaced fully with Silence after Audacity Crash.

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Using Windows 7 X64
Audacity Version 2.1.3

Been using Audacity for close to 2 years, never had an issue like this.

Normally after a crash, Audacity will give the regular Missing Audio Data Block Files warning, and am able to reload the project before the crash. Worst case scenario, I’ll be able to revert back to a previously saved version and work back from there.

But today, I got about 3 minutes into editing a 2 hour file, experienced a crash while applying a mild Noise Gate.
After re opening got the error of "Missing Audio Data Block Files. Something I’ve seen before with no issues after crash.
Chose “Treat missing audio as silence”, Project opened, and the entire 2 hour Waveform is completely empty.

Keep in mind, Audio was saved as Audacity file after the initial recording, and was not saved by myself at any time in the 3 minutes up until the crash.

Shouldn’t the old version be saved?
Why has the crashed version replaced my entire file?

Thanks for your help.

2

Normally after a crash…

Normally, Audacity shouldn’t crash. System crashes are usually caused by a driver. An application can’t crash Windows. A flaky plug-in might crash Audacity.

Keep in mind, Audio was saved as Audacity file after the initial recording, and was not saved by myself at any time in the 3 minutes up until the crash.

IMO - It’s best if you export to WAV immediately after recording, whether you make an AUP project or not.

Shouldn’t the old version be saved?

I really don’t know… Crashes are unpredictable. Once it crashes, you (or the software) can’t control what happens.

Maybe it would have been better to save-as a new project so the old project doesn’t get messed-up, but I “feel better” about saving (exporting) to WAV as a “back-up”.