Corrupt or Otherwise Broken Audacity Project Recovery

[lacuna_of_light]

Any idea what might be going wrong for me?

OK, I have looked at your .aup3 file. The first 1MB or so of the file have somehow been written over by a .WAV file, which you can see if you do File > Import > Raw > 16-bit PCM, Big Endian. Unfortunately, I don’t have any tools which could allow you to recover from this disaster. You can import the remnants of your .aup3 project as raw data, using File > Import > Raw > 32-bit Float > Default Endian, where you can almost see your project, but I suspect this will be useless to you.

Wow! That’s kind of amazing! Sucks that it can’t be recovered, but thank you for trying, I really appreciate you!

[thebaron]

So after a few hours of scrolling through this forum and trying all of the solutions posted, I’m convinced that my file is unrecoverable. This file is a 1hr50min-ish podcast episode I did with a friend I rarely see and after only 15 minutes of editing it, I got frustrated and decided to scrap the whole project and restart. So I clicked exit on Audacity and when the compiling window or whatever popped up I clicked cancel (because why not?) I just wanted to close Audacity and then reopen the original file and get a fresh start on editing (I’d already tweaked the sound settings and had clicked undo and redo a few times and I wasn’t sure which effects were still being used anymore).
Well, when I opened the original file back up Audacity told me “Audacity failed to read from a file in C” and I realized I messed up.
I tried a few things like deleting audacity and redownloading the newest version. I also ran this tool through all the steps a couple of times. The program will create a broken.recovered file but it comes back as a flat line when opened. It will say Executing query# xxxxx for a few thousand queries(?) and then I’ll get several thousand: Invalid block xxxx: Block not found - messages.

Anyways, here’s the link. Any help would be greatly appreciated. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uy-_xf1S2UlH3_0qIsJDmOW1NBV4xW2A/view?usp=sharing

[jademan]

The program will create a broken.recovered file but it comes back as a flat line when opened.

Sorry. That means you are out of luck.

[thebaron]

The program will create a broken.recovered file but it comes back as a flat line when opened.

Sorry. That means you are out of luck.

Is there any other possible way of fixing the file? Are there other professionals across the web that would be able to take a look at it? It’s really important to me

[releaseme]

I made it to step 9, but I am not getting the message “Project requires Audacity 3.0.0”. What could I have done wrong?

[jademan]

I made it to step 9, but I am not getting the message “Project requires Audacity 3.0.0”. What could I have done wrong?

Well, there could be a problem. I would first just continue and see what happens. Please report back.

[releaseme]

I made it to step 9, but I am not getting the message “Project requires Audacity 3.0.0”. What could I have done wrong?

Well, there could be a problem. I would first just continue and see what happens. Please report back.

I tried, this is what I got:

*Directory of C:\Users\noapotter\Downloads\AudRepair

09/03/2022 07:27 PM .
09/03/2022 07:27 PM …
01/27/2022 02:27 PM 1,419,160 audacity-project-tools.exe
09/03/2022 10:55 AM 1,087,438,848 broken.aup3.aup3
01/27/2022 02:27 PM 1,199,512 sqlite3.exe
3 File(s) 1,090,057,520 bytes
2 Dir(s) 30,894,555,136 bytes free

C:\Users\noapotter\Downloads\AudRepair>audacity-project-tools -drop_autosave broken.aup3
database disk image is malformed

C:\Users\noapotter\Downloads\AudRepair>dir
Volume in drive C is Windows
Volume Serial Number is 3870-1938

Directory of C:\Users\noapotter\Downloads\AudRepair

09/03/2022 07:29 PM .
09/03/2022 07:29 PM …
01/27/2022 02:27 PM 1,419,160 audacity-project-tools.exe
09/03/2022 10:55 AM 1,087,438,848 broken.aup3
09/03/2022 07:29 PM 32,768 broken.aup3-shm
09/03/2022 07:29 PM 0 broken.aup3-wal
01/27/2022 02:27 PM 1,199,512 sqlite3.exe
5 File(s) 1,090,090,288 bytes
2 Dir(s) 30,893,539,328 bytes free

C:\Users\noapotter\Downloads\AudRepair>audacity-project-tools -drop_autosave broken.aup3
database disk image is malformed

C:\Users\noapotter\Downloads\AudRepair>audacity-project-tools -recover_db -recover_project broken.aup3
Database is badly broken. Running recovery…
Using ‘sqlite3.exe’ for recovery
Executing query #1054 (PRAGMA writable_schema = off;)…owid_", “name”, “seq”) VALUES( 1, 'sampleblocks)…
Project requires Audacity 63.153.6
Unsupported project version
*

[jademan]

Database is badly broken.

Project requires Audacity 63.153.6

So obviously you have serious problems with this database. It may be totally unrecoverable. If you care to, zip it up, upload it to a public file sharing facility, make it sharable, then post (or PM me) a link. I’ll take a look at it, but probably not before Monday as I have a busy weekend.

Note: See also related thread (now locked): Unable to open project

[releaseme]

Thank you so much! Someone was thankfully able to do it for me from their computer. It worked out in the end!!

[jademan]

Thank you so much! Someone was thankfully able to do it for me from their computer. It worked out in the end!!

Glad to hear you are all sorted!

[Nvinther]

Hi jademan,

I have a broken file and have tried to run the repair directory for the repair tool. The steps end at the “-drop_autosave broken aup.3” step with the message “unable to open database file”.

Could you please help me recover the file? I have a deadline for a podcast episode release this Monday and my weekend is blocked with a covid-ill wife.

Let me know how to proceed.

Thanks in advance.

Kr, Niels

[jademan]

The steps end at the “-drop_autosave broken aup.3” step with the message “unable to open database file”.

The recovery tools do not have well vetted error messages.

You could get this error, for example, if the file “broken.aup3” simply does not exist. This has tricked me on at least one occasion. Please double check all of your spellings and make sure you haven’t accidentally created a file “broken.aup3.aup3”, as the last user had.

Do you wish to post a screen shot?

[Nvinther]

All right. Will try. I am running a version 2 of Audacity because the version 3 doesnt work with my system. Can I still use the repair tool when it is a version 2 file?

[Nvinther]

Sorry, It doesn’t work. Please help me recover the file.
Thanks a lot in advance

[Nvinther]

I have done a low-practical action to get around and fixed it myself. Recorded the track from one computer to another and created a whole new sound file.

[jademan]

I am running a version 2 of Audacity because the version 3 doesnt work with my system. Can I still use the repair tool when it is a version 2 file?

No. It only works on the .aup3 file databases created by Audacity 3.0.0 and later.

I have done a low-practical action to get around and fixed it myself.

I am glad you have a solution to your issue.

[danner]

Dear all, dear Jademan!

I’ve tried everything, used the “tool”, but after few hours of waiting I received the same old error message with incompatibility.

https://budapestcast.hu/unnamed.png

I’ve lost the file while the software froze in the middle of performing an undo operation. It’s more than two hours long with some modifications already, so the file size is around 14 gB.

Could anyone help me out and double check if the file is save-able?

I would really appreciate.
Best,
Daniel

[jademan]

I’ve tried everything, used the “tool”, but after few hours of waiting I received the same old error message with incompatibility.

In that case, there is probably little I can do but verify the issue.

However, if you wish, zip up your project, upload it and post a link to it. I’ll take a look at. Be forewarned, I am currently quite swamped with other issues so it will be at least 24 hours before I can get back to you.

[danner]

Hi Jademan!

Thanks in advance, here is the file in zip:

[jademan]

Thanks in advance, here is the file in zip:

OK, that is a big project - but I’ve worked with many still larger ones.

After I downloaded your file, I received a checksum error trying to unzip it. On the off chance there was some communications hiccup. I downloaded your file a second time with the same results.

So I am unable to get to the underlying .aup3 project file to check it.

Do you want to try zipping it up and uploading it again ?