Automatic recovery of unsaved file .aup3unsaved doesn't work

[AK23]

I am new to Audacity, so please bear with me. I did a three-hour recording with my grandma about her life. Everything went well. At the end, I wanted to save the project, but Audacity crashed.

Right after the crash, I luckily copied three files from the “SessionData” folder, just in case. These are the files:
***.aup3unsaved 3,7 gb
***.aup3unsaved-shm 32 kb
***.aup3unsaved-wal 2,7 mb

When restarting the app, it says that the recovery process starts. Unfortunately, nothing happens. I just get an empty dashboard (at the top left, where usually the file name appears it just says “(recovered)”.

I also renamed the files (deleting “unsaved” from the file extension). I got the same result as with the recovery process. It says that it is unsaved work that is being recovered, but it doesn’t become visible as a track.

I spent quite a bit of time today searching through this forum. I understand that @jademan has helped people recover files but doesn’t do that anymore.

Given the file size, some data should be there, right?

What are the things I could try? Are there any great resources I could check? Anyone else had this problem?

Recovering this file really means a lot to me!!!

Any tips are highly appreciated.

Thank you!

[AK23]

Any help or hints would be greatly appreciated!! Thank you!

[jademan]

@AK23

I understand that @jademan has helped people recover files

So for whatever reason I have never had luck recovering unrecoverable .aup3unsaved files.

If I am recording directly into Audacity I now first create an empty project then save it. I open the empty project and record into it. I have had better luck this way.

For even more reliable recordings, use a dedicated device (I use an H2n) or even your phone (Voice Recorder on iphone).

[AK23]

Thanks for your response. So the data is permanently lost then!? That really sucks.

[kozikowski]

iPhone > Settings > Voice Memos > Audio Quality > Lossless.

Koz