I am getting the following message when I try to start Audacity 2.0
“Automatic Crash Recovery.
Some projects were not saved properly the last time Audacity was run. Fortunately the following projects can automatically be recovered.” I then get the options of exiting audacity, do not recover or recover projects.
The list of projects will contain between 36 and 41 projects each 6 seconds long. Once they are on screen (recovered ?) some of them are blue sound waves others are black. I cannot do anything else but then end the task using Windows Task Manager as Audacity will not let me save them or anything else. I have spent many hours repeating this process and would be most grateful for some guidance.
My operating system is Windows XP.
Did you have 40 or more Audacity project windows open then Audacity crashed?
It is not recommended to have more than about 30 project windows open at a time on Windows. Ideally, only have a few projects open at the same time at the most. When you have finished one project, press File > Close to close that project before opening another.
Do you mean the black ones are a track with a flat horizontal line in the centre?
Is each project meant to have only six seconds of audio? When you want to reopen a saved .aup project file, go to File > Recent Files and open the .aup file. Do not open the .au files in the _data folder because each .au file contains only a few seconds of the project. If you open the .au files you will damage the project.
If the project does not look correct (it is meant to have more than six seconds of audio), choose Help > Show Log…, Log > Save… then attach the log here (use “Upload attachment” underneath where you posted your message).
Then force quit Audacity and wait for us to look at the log file you posted.
This is just for a project that looks correct (it is meant to have only six seconds of audio).
Press the yellow Stop button. File > Export the track as a WAV file. Drag the WAV file back into the same Audacity project you exported from. If the dragged-in file looks and sound OK, File > Close in that project window. Continue in the same way with the next project that looks OK.
If Audacity is unresponsive, force quit.
In Explorer, open Documents and SettingsApplication DataAudacityAutoSave. If you cannot see that folder, make it visible following these instructions .
In Documents and SettingsApplication DataAudacityAutoSave, Select and Cut all the autosave files except one. Go to your Desktop, right-click and Paste. This moves all the autosave files except one to the Desktop.
Now launch Audacity again. It should only see one project to recover. Follow the steps above to export, import and compare the imported files with the project, then File > Exit if the exported files are OK.
Then move one of the autosave files from the Desktop to Documents and SettingsApplication DataAudacityAutoSave and launch Audacity to recover the next file.
Did you have 40 or more Audacity project windows open then Audacity crashed?
Do not open the .au files in the _data folder because each .au file contains only
a few seconds of the project. If you open the .au files you will damage the project.
I was trying to open the back up/ data files for a project as the programme had told me the original could not be found.
Gale Andrews wrote:
Do you mean the black ones are a track with a flat horizontal line in the centre?
The black files are not flat horizontals and look like ordinary voice/music wavs. However the commands eg file , edit etc are greyed out.
Audacity doesn’t have any backups. The .au files for the project should be left alone.
What is the exact, complete error message given for “not found”? If you opened the .aup file and it said that the _data folder could not be found, it would be best to find where the _data folder is, so you can open the project properly. The _data folder must have the same name as the .aup file and must be in the same folder as the .aup file. This would be true when you first saved the project. You must not move or rename the _data folder.
So, if the project was called “my song.aup” and Audacity cannot find the “my song_data” folder it needs, you would find (or search your computer for) the folder called “my song_data” then put that “my song_data” folder back into the same folder that “my song.aup” lives in.
Note that if you had used File > Import > Audio or dragged the .au files into the same Audacity window, this would have saved Audacity crashing with too many project windows open.
As I said, you have to press the yellow Stop button. You cannot edit and save if you are playing or pausing playback.
If the problem was that Audacity was frozen again because you had too many project windows open, then if these were meaningful projects you would proceed as I explained - move all but one of the autosave files out of the way then recover the projects one at a time. But if these “projects” are just one .au file each, there is no point. If you did not have the .aup file you would just drag the .au files themselves into the same project window and try and piece them together in the correct order.
But as you have the .aup file (I presume), you should try to locate the _data folder as described above so you can open the .au files joined together in the correct order.