Error: not well-formed (invalid token) at line 5199

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Okay I’m new to this kind of stuff so please have patients with me here. So I was recording something when mid-recording my computer turned off. Usually I could just do the “Recover Projects” thing but it didn’t work this time. It just says “Error: not well-formed (invalid token) at line 5199”. I’m not sure what to do about this, can I get it back in one piece? It was pretty important. If there is anything you need to know just ask me for it and I’ll do it…you might have to guide me on how to do it but I’ll try. I use windows 7 and Audacity 2.0.3. Thanks!


And just in case you need it, here is the log

00:09:41: Audacity 2.0.3
00:09:44: Trying to load FFmpeg libraries…
00:09:44: Trying to load FFmpeg libraries from system paths. File name is ‘avformat-52.dll’.
00:09:44: Looking up PATH environment variable…
00:09:44: PATH = ‘C:Program FilesTrend MicroAMSP;C:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft SharedWindows Live;C:Program Files (x86)Common FilesMicrosoft SharedWindows Live;%SystemRoot%system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%System32Wbem;%SYSTEMROOT%System32WindowsPowerShellv1.0;c:Program Files (x86)ATI TechnologiesATI.ACECore-Static;c:Program Files (x86)Common FilesRoxio SharedDLLShared;c:Program Files (x86)Common FilesRoxio SharedDLLShared;c:Program Files (x86)Common FilesRoxio Shared12.0DLLShared;C:Program Files (x86)QuickTimeQTSystem;C:Program Files (x86)Windows LiveShared;’
00:09:44: Checking that ‘’ is in PATH…
00:09:44: FFmpeg directory is in PATH.
00:09:44: Checking for monolithic avformat from ‘avformat-52.dll’.
00:09:44: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avformat-52.dll’ (error 126: the specified module could not be found.)
00:09:44: Loading avutil from ‘avutil-50.dll’.
00:09:44: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avutil-50.dll’ (error 126: the specified module could not be found.)
00:09:44: Loading avcodec from ‘avcodec-52.dll’.
00:09:44: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avcodec-52.dll’ (error 126: the specified module could not be found.)
00:09:44: Loading avformat from ‘avformat-52.dll’.
00:09:44: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avformat-52.dll’ (error 126: the specified module could not be found.)
00:09:44: Error: Failed to load FFmpeg libraries.
00:09:44: Error: Failed to find compatible FFmpeg libraries.
00:11:30: Error: Could not parse file “C:UsersrobertAppDataRoamingAudacityAutoSaveNew Project - 2013-06-26 18-33-24 N-181.autosave”.
Error: Error: not well-formed (invalid token) at line 5199

2

Thanks for adding the log, but to add more information, please press “POST REPLY” in the original topic rather than start a new topic.

You will need to fix the AUP file at the line indicated in the log (so line 5199). There is some help with this here Audacity Manual . Please make a copy of the AUP file before attempting a repair.

If you are stuck, please attach the AUP file. Please see here for how to attach files: https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/how-to-attach-files-to-forum-posts/24026/1 .


Gale

3

Yeah sorry about that, wasn’t to sure how to add info to it. Thanks.

Now I know that when you save a audacity project it is a AUP file but I didn’t save this recording at all. So where would the AUP file be? Would it be the file found in the “AutoSave” folder? If so I’ll attach it. If not then where exactly could I find it? Once again, sorry for not being to good at this. I never really had to deal with this kind of stuff before.
New Project - 2013-06-26 18-33-24 N-181.txt (288 KB)

4

Ah OK, sorry I wasn’t paying full attention there. No, there is no AUP file until you explicitly save one, so you attached the correct autosave file - it’s just like a temporary project file.

The autosave file you attached didn’t get written properly due to the crash and the line 5199 near the end was empty. I’ve removed that line and attached the corrected version, so I think if all is well that you will be able to recover two short stereo tracks and then one longer stereo track.

Let us know what happens.

Is the computer rebooting itself when recording, or did you just lose power? If it’s rebooting, that’s serious (probably a driver problem) and you need to try and fix it. There is some help here Audacity Manual .


Gale
New Project - 2013-06-26 18-33-24 N-181.txt (287 KB)

5

Okay so I can recover the file but it’s all mute. (picture shows what I mean)

Also the reason my computer turned off was the power flickering off and back on. Wasn’t the computer itself.

6

Oh, and it also keeps trying to “clean up temporary files”. Is that ok? Should I let it? Sorry, forgot about that.

7

and of course I forgot to attach the picture. Sorry about me forgetting all these things, I’m just really nervous trying to get all of this stuff back…
1.jpg

8

Update on something. It did the whole “cleaning” thing and took out my project file from “audacity_temp”. Luckily I saved before it but it’s missing things, or at least it would seem that way. Is there some way to get back the original folder?

9

Uh…anyone here anymore?

10

If the recovered waveform is incorrect, but Audacity does not display error messages giving you the choice to close the project without changes, it is best to look at Help > Show Log… to note any errors mentioned there, then force quit Audacity in Windows Task Manager. This will preserve the autosave file and the _data folder in “audacity_temp” (this folder contains the actual audio data).

If you save the recovered project while it is displaying incorrectly, that is the end of the story and that is how the project will be.

If you close the project without saving (which it sounds like you did), then this discards the project, removing the autosave file and the _data folder.

We still have the autosave file you posted, but it does not sound as if it is useful.

Do you still have the “project18541” folder that was in “audacity_temp”?

If so, you can in principle recover audio from that folder, using this method:
Missing features - Audacity Support .

Was the long stereo track what you were recording, and the two short stereo tracks were tracks that were already there? Do you have those short tracks exported as WAV already?

If you get frequent power outages, I suggest getting a laptop. This will give you a few hours on battery after the power goes off. Or (to give you long enough to stop recording and save gracefully) get an uninterruptible power supply .



Gale

11

Unfortunately I think that your recording may be lost forever.
Audacity projects have a “project file” (in this case the “autosave” file, and separately is the audio data. If the audio data had been intact, than I think that the modified file that Gale posted should have worked. The fact that it opened “empty” make me think that the audio data is either missing or unreadable. Was there no warning or error message when you opened the file from Gale?

12

Yes, possibly - but the user mentioned no warning on recovering the project.

In some cases when the autosave file has entries like:

<recordingrecovery channel="0" numchannels="2">
<simpleblockfile filename="e000118f.au" len="262144" min="-0.642853" max="0.481262" rms="0.058465"/>
</recordingrecovery>

instead of the expected:

<waveblock start="262144">
<simpleblockfile filename="e0000eb3.au" len="262144" min="-0.847473" max="0.731262" rms="0.053795"/>
</waveblock>

I’ve known Audacity to recover perfectly, but in others the recovered waveform was said to be silenced without warning or the blocks were completely misordered. There was no further input from the users as to what was in the _data folder , so no-one knows.

Assuming the autosave was written in the correct order and not corrupted apart from the line of null characters, I would “expect” Audacity to be able to string the “recovery blocks” together in the correct order.


Gale

13

So the autosave is gone along with the Project folder. Luckily I copied and saved the autosave along with the project. I can open the recording now and the audio is intact, but a lot of the parts are just muted. All of the middle and most of the end is muted (I saved this as it’s own mp3 file). I think when I copied the project folder, some au files didn’t copy over, leaving me without a lot of the audio. Also I recorded the long and short tracks all in the same session, just stopped between each. So could I get back a folder that was “cleaned” from the temp folder?

Also I don’t get power outages often, but some extra safety is always good. Anything you need to know?

14

I’d still like to know if that project showed you error message boxes when you opened the repaired autosave file I attached.

To be clear, do you mean you copied and saved the “project18541” folder that the autosave file is looking for?

How exactly are you doing that? With the copied autosave folder and the copied “project18541” folder?

Which is the “this” part that you saved as MP3? Do you mean you have an MP3 that contains audio of some audio that is silenced in the recovered project?

It is better to save anything you want to edit further as WAV, not MP3. You cannot piece together MP3 files in Audacity without re-encoding them, and this means you lose quality. You can piece together MP3’s in other programs like MP3DirectCut.

There is no reason that should happen if you copied the root folder using Explorer.

From what you wrote, I don’t have a clear picture of what you have or what you are opening in Audacity to produce such audio as you see.

If you are opening the copied autosave folder and the copied “project18541” folder, are message boxes popping up and giving you errors? If so, what do these errors say?

To make any sense of this, I suggest you open Help > Show Log… then save it a text file and attach it. Also attach the current autosave file. Then attach a file listing of whatever folder the current autosave file is pointing to (look in “datadir” at the top of the autosave file to find out where that folder is).

Here is how to list the contents of the folder that autosave is pointing to.

  1. Go to the Windows Start menu and type in the search box:
cmd

and hit ENTER. You’ll get a command prompt.
2. Navigate in Explorer so you can see the _data folder but not the “e” and “d” folders inside it (this is probably the address of the audacity_temp folder).
3. Type cd, then a space, then type this full address into the command prompt and hit ENTER. If the address has spaces, enclose the address inside quotes.
4. Once you’re at this command prompt, type:

dir /s /o:d > listing.txt
  1. Once the command is complete, a file called “listing.txt” will appear in the same directory that the _data folder is in. It should list all the files and folders that are in this _data folder, in date order.

An easier way to save navigating through directories is to hold SHIFT then right-click over the folder the _data directory is in (again, this is probably the “audacity_temp” folder). Then choose “Open command window here”. Then you only have to type dir /s /o:d > listing.txt .


Gale