I downloaded the very latest version of audacity that is SUPPOSED to have a bug fix that PREVENTS files from being lost. I purposely capitalized, because that’s exactly what happened. I need my file back I put way too much work into it for it to just disappear.
Audacity 2.2.2 DOES fix a bug in 2.2.1 that can potentially cause data loss. However, there are many ways that data can be lost, including many ways that are unrelated to the Audacity software (such as data being “eaten” by overly aggressive anti-virus programs, or hardware problems). There is no way for ANY recording software to guarantee that data loss will NEVER occur, because computers are not that reliable (much less reliable than, for example, a decent cassette recorder).
So, you are using Audacity 2.2.2. What were you doing, and what happened? Please give as much detail as possible and we can try to help you determine the cause so that the problem may be avoided in future.