A few weeks ago, I completed an interview with my grandfather. It was 6 minutes long, and today I went to open it. However, it says “Unable to find interview.aup” followed by “Unable to load interview.aup.” What can I do? I need it for a project 
Thanks for the help!
I presume that you were trying to open it from “File menu > Recent Files”?
I presume that you’ve forgotten or did not notice where you saved the interview?
What operating system are you using?
If you are using some version of Windows, have you tried using the Windows search tool to search for “interview.aup”?
Note that there are two parts to an Audacity project - the “.aup” file and its associated “_data” folder. Both parts must be present (see here for more information: Audacity Manual)
I know where I saved it, and it simply will not open. The “data” folder says “Will not play.” I need a step-by-step instructions. I am using Windows.
Topic moved to the Windows forum.
Which version?
Which version of Audacity? (look in “Help menu > About Audacity”)
How (exactly) are you trying to open it?
Have you tried: “File menu > Open” and then browse to the “interview.aup” file and select it.
Audacity 2.0.3 and I am opening it by clicking on the file that is saved in my Social Studies folder.
- Which version of Windows?
- Have you tried: “File menu > Open” and then browse to the “interview.aup” file and select it.
2b) If “File menu > Open” fails, please state the exact error message.
Windows 7, and yes I have tried.
The error is the same, "Couldn’t find the project folder “Interview.aup” followed by “Could not load file”
That is not what you said the original message was.
As explained here Audacity Manual the “project folder” is the folder that contains the audio data.
For a project called “interview.aup”, the data folder will be called “interview_data”.
As the data folder contains the audio, without the data there is no chance of recovery.
If you have deleted the data folder, it may still be in your recycle bin, in which case you should be able to restore it.
If you have deleted the data folder and emptied the recycle bin, then the chances of successful recovery are slim and you will need to use data recovery software such as recuva.
Well, you didnt help at all! My folder is still accesible, it just repeats that message though.
Wish u couldve helped, I need the audio tomorrow!
How can you say that when you haven’t answered the questions he asked? For example did you find the data folder he told you to look for?
Some people plain don’t want to be helped.
Sorry but when you provide incomplete or incorrect information it slows down the process of resolving the issue.
Please follow these steps and hopefully I will be able to see what is going wrong.
- If Audacity is open, close it (shut it down completely).
- Launch Audacity.
- “File menu > Open” and select the “interview.aup” file.
- Make a note of the full and exact error message.
- Dismiss the error message.
- “Help menu > Show Log”
- Select the full contents of the log window and copy it into your reply.
The AUP file and the _DATA folder have to be named exactly the same and they have to be in the same place or folder to open. Further, they have to be named the exact thing you called them when you made them. If you renamed them, they won’t open. If you don’t remember what you called them, open the AUP file with a text editor and look for a listing called projname="
Koz
Under open, it responds "Couldn’t find the project data folder “interview_data” then “'could not load”
Help menu; show log…
Error: Could not parse file
Error: Could not load file
Oh, did I ask you Zebedee’s Mustache? I dont think so. And yes, I had found it!
If you followed the instructions, that is NOT the full contents of the log window.
We are not able to help you without your cooperation.
Log window:
13:44:31: Audacity 2.0.3
13:44:32: Trying to load FFmpeg libraries…
13:44:32: Trying to load FFmpeg libraries from system paths. File name is ‘avformat-52.dll’.
13:44:32: Looking up PATH environment variable…
13:44:32: PATH = ‘C:Windowssystem32;C:Windows;C:WindowsSystem32Wbem;C:WindowsSystem32WindowsPowerShellv1.0;C:Program Files (x86)QuickTimeQTSystem’
13:44:32: Checking that ‘’ is in PATH…
13:44:32: FFmpeg directory is in PATH.
13:44:32: Checking for monolithic avformat from ‘avformat-52.dll’.
13:44:32: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avformat-52.dll’ (error 126: the specified module could not be found.)
13:44:32: Loading avutil from ‘avutil-50.dll’.
13:44:32: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avutil-50.dll’ (error 126: the specified module could not be found.)
13:44:32: Loading avcodec from ‘avcodec-52.dll’.
13:44:32: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avcodec-52.dll’ (error 126: the specified module could not be found.)
13:44:32: Loading avformat from ‘avformat-52.dll’.
13:44:32: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avformat-52.dll’ (error 126: the specified module could not be found.)
13:44:32: Error: Failed to load FFmpeg libraries.
13:44:32: Error: Failed to find compatible FFmpeg libraries.
You have either not followed the instructions, or that is not the full contents of the log window.
Steve, what am I missing? Can we please exchange emails to speed up this process?
Obviously not seeing as it was my first post. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have the right to respond when you were being so rude and ungrateful. This is a public forum after all. Steve’s done everything he can to help you. Follow his advice and he will fix it for you. But giving incomplete and inconsistent answers isn’t helpful. You either want help or you don’t.