Every Audacity Project on Computer Simultaneously Corrupted

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Every single Audacity file on m computer was simultaneously corrupted.

I was working on a project, about 2:45:00. I had the original Audacity project copied (but not exported into wav yet, foolishly I guess) and saved in another folder. I uploaded 2 of the other wav files just fine. Then I uploaded the 3rd and final track. After it finished loading, Audacity crashed. I was forced to quit the program. When I opened it back up, it offered me the automatic recovery, and I recovered. It froze again. Rinse and repeat a few times, with plenty of time to load. I was eventually forced to tell it to clear the recovered project.

After this point, NONE of my audacity projects would open. It doesn’t matter where they were on my computer. They had all been working just fine literally moments before. I uninstalled Audacity and got the newer version, but nothing changed.

All of my audacity files from over the years, all the unfinished projects and opportunity to modify the old files, is now completely inaccessible. The data files are still seemingly in working order, but the idea of manually putting back together hours and hours and hours of recording in multiple channels in the totally unorganized cluster**** of 6 second clips is next to impossible.

What are my options here?

Here’s the log:

23:18:04: Audacity 2.3.2
23:18:04: Error: Couldn’t find symbol ‘AudacityModule’ in a dynamic library (error 127: The specified procedure could not be found.)
23:18:06: Trying to load FFmpeg libraries…
23:18:06: Trying to load FFmpeg libraries from system paths. File name is ‘avformat-55.dll’.
23:18:06: Looking up PATH environment variable…
23:18:06: PATH = ‘C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Oracle\Java\javapath;C:\ProgramData\Oracle\Java\javapath;c:\program files (x86)\nvidia corporation\physx\common;c:\windows\system32;c:\windows;c:\windows\system32\wbem;c:\windows\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0;c:\program files (x86)\ati technologies\ati.ace\core-static;c:\program files (x86)\toshiba\bluetooth toshiba stack\sys;c:\program files (x86)\toshiba\bluetooth toshiba stack\sys\x64;c:\program files (x86)\amd\ati.ace\core-static;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\OpenCL SDK\2.0\bin\x86;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\OpenCL SDK\2.0\bin\x64;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0;C:\WINDOWS\System32\OpenSSH;C:\Program Files (x86)\Scrivener;C:\Users\FJCruise\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps;’
23:18:06: Checking that ‘’ is in PATH…
23:18:06: FFmpeg directory is in PATH.
23:18:06: Checking for monolithic avformat from ‘avformat-55.dll’.
23:18:06: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avformat-55.dll’ (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
23:18:06: Loading avutil from ‘’.
23:18:06: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘.dll’ (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
23:18:06: Loading avcodec from ‘’.
23:18:06: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘.dll’ (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
23:18:06: Loading avformat from ‘avformat-55.dll’.
23:18:06: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avformat-55.dll’ (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
23:18:06: Error: Failed to load FFmpeg libraries.
23:18:06: Error: Failed to find compatible FFmpeg libraries.

2

Most of the log is complaining about not being able to find FFMpeg and its associated programs. This looks like the sky is falling, but is normal if you didn’t install the FFMpeg libraries. You may not if you didn’t need them. They’re optional if you didn’t need additional or unusual sound formats.

not exported into wav yet

Audacity Projects do not make good archives. It’s highly recommended to export WAV any valuable work including raw captures or performances.

I uploaded 2 of the other wav files just fine. Then I uploaded the 3rd and final track.

Is that an English error? You really Exported a Project as WAV? If it’s really “Uploaded,” Uploaded to where?

The data files are still seemingly in working order

How about the AUP files of the same name? This is a Project.

The two have to be in the same location or folder, they have to be named the same, and it has to be the name you gave them in Audacity. Do not put the AUP file inside the _DATA folder. Do you have all that?

All of my audacity files from over the years, all the unfinished projects and opportunity to modify the old files, is now completely inaccessible.

Did you do something global to “clean up” or “organize your work.” There have been posts from people who decided to tidy up and accidentally split the relationships between the AUP files and their associated _DATA folders. Nothing would open.

It is recommended that you back up all valuable work such that it appears on two different devices or locations. Two different places on one hard drive doesn’t count. I had a recent C:\ drive fail and was able to rescue my work from backups I made on the separate hardware D:\ drive.

But more to the point, I have no good reason why all your Projects should suddenly become broken, other than virus or malware.

There is a rare condition where an overly aggressive virus program attacked Audacity files, but that usually happens during recording or creation, not after an extended time.

Do you have Windows or the Virus program set for Auto Update?

The data files are still seemingly in working order, but the idea of manually putting back together hours and hours and hours of recording in multiple channels in the totally unorganized cluster**** of 6 second clips is next to impossible.

As above, they’re _data folders, not files. Do you have all the folders? As far as you can tell, are all the right _data folders still available?

If the folders themselves are scrambled, then you may have sustained a very serious drive failure and other works may be damaged as well. There used to be a process of being able to reconstruct a project using the time and date stamps on all the little AU files, but that has been deprecated (no idea why, I don’t like losing desperation methods, particularly if I’m desperate) but even that wouldn’t do a perfect job on stereo shows and didn’t work at all on edited shows.

Koz

3

As koz wrote, the errors shown in the log file mean that you don’t have FFmpeg installed. FFmpeg is an optional component that allows Audacity to support more file types. FFmpeg is not required unless you need Audacity to support formats that Audacity does not natively support (such as AAC).

How many hard drives / SSDs does your computer have?
How much space is available on each of them?

4

@Koz

Is that an English error? You really Exported a Project as WAV? If it’s really “Uploaded,” Uploaded to where?

Yeah, I meant to say “imported” instead of “uploaded”. I was importing wav files into the audacity project as additional tracks.

How about the AUP files of the same name? This is a Project.

The two have to be in the same location or folder, they have to be named the same, and it has to be the name you gave them in Audacity. Do not put the AUP file inside the _DATA folder. Do you have all that?

Yup! I made sure all that was correct!

Did you do something global to “clean up” or “organize your work.” There have been posts from people who decided to tidy up and accidentally split the relationships between the AUP files and their associated _DATA folders. Nothing would open.

I did not!

There is a rare condition where an overly aggressive virus program attacked Audacity files, but that usually happens during recording or creation, not after an extended time.

Do you have Windows or the Virus program set for Auto Update?

Yeah, all my virus scanning is good to go. I ran a deep virus scan immediately after all the projects went bad. I was thinking the exact same thing.

As above, they’re _data folders, not files. Do you have all the folders? As far as you can tell, are all the right _data folders still available?

Yeah I just meant that all the actual files in the _data folders is not in chronological order, so the manual option of importing the files from the _data folder would take so long to put in sequence that it would be next to impossible.



@steve

How many hard drives / SSDs does your computer have?
How much space is available on each of them?

I have one hard drive, and it has 720GB free.

5

The AUP project manager files are plain text and they will open in any text editor. Open one up (do not save anything) and look at it. First of all, is there anything there? Does it look something like this?

Yours will be more condensed. I added spaces to make it “pretty.” Look for the entry in the red box. Does it match your show name?

Close the editor.

What happens if you double click one of the AUP files? Write down the error.

Koz

6

Yours will be more condensed. I added spaces to make it “pretty.” Look for the entry in the red box. Does it match your show name?

It appears to, yes.

What happens if you double click one of the AUP files? Write down the error.

It freezes and crashes before an error can appear.

7

Audacity crashing cannot damage all the Audacity projects, just the one open when the crash occurred.

I’d be tempted to reinstall the exact same version of Audacity which created the projects, rather than the newest version.
Old versions are here … Old Audacity versions download

[ BTW some Audacity files can persist after uninstall,
On Windows they are in the hidden-folder AppData, e.g.
C:\Users<YourNameHere>\AppData\Roaming\audacity
You may need to rename that to something like …
C:\Users<YourNameHere>\AppData\Roaming\audacity-old
to get a completely fresh start ].

8

Ok I’ve played with this more, and I have verified my initial belief: it’s the Import failure followed by an attempted crash recovery that’s causing this problem.

I’ve isolated to that, because I can create NEW Audacity projects, record, import files, and save them just fine. I can then open them up and work on them normally, as if nothing happened.

HOWEVER, if I attempt to import the wav file that caused the initial freeze and crash, it will without fail, freeze and crash.

If I open Audacity back up, the auto recovery will initiate. Any time I try to recover the project, the same freeze and crash occurs, so my only other option is the CLEAR the project data.

AFTER i have cleared the project data, ALL the audacity projects made BEFORE the crash refuse to open and give the error log listed above.

So, to outline again:
I CAN make new projects. They work fine.
UNTIL
I attempt to upload that SPECIFIC Wav file into ANY project, regardless of where it is on the drive.
THEN
Audacity crashes, and I’m forced to stop the program.
THEN
Audacity automatically attempts to recover the project.
The recovery causes the same freeze until I tell it to CLEAR THE PROJECT DATA from the temp recovery file.

AFTER THAT POINT
NO Audacity projects made BEFORE that crash can be opened.


The wav file is not a virus. A very close friend of mine recorded a podcast, they recorded in Audacity just like be, exported into each, sent via Google Docs. The wav file plays fine, and imports perfectly fine in literally ANY other audio editing software. It’s ONLY audacity that’s having a problem with it. Yes, I scanned it for viruses anyways, just in case.

9

Hi!

I had the same issue, and installing older versions of audacity (i was running Audacity version 2.3.0 in spanish) I was able to retrieve most of the projects i had.

Anyway, there were some projects i couldnt get back. Anyone has been able to solve this issue?
All things showed above didtn’t worked for this problem :frowning:

10

Do either or both of you still have the evil sound files?

It could be really important to get them to the Audacity developers for inspection.

Koz

11

Most of the log is complaining about not being able to find FFMpeg and its associated programs. This looks like the sky is falling, but is normal if you didn’t install the FFMpeg libraries. You may not if you didn’t need them. They’re optional if you didn’t need additional or unusual sound formats.

installed FFmpeg.

Issue has BEEN RESOLVED.

After I installed FFmpeg, it crashed as usual, but I opened up audacity (with no project associated) and checked the log. It had re-pathed the location of the new FFmpeg files successfully.

Then I opened the problem project again, and gave it about 5 minutes to respond. It all seemed hopeless again, but RIGHT as I went to close the program, it responded!

It told be that there we 66057 orphaned files, and asked what I wanted to do with them. I deleted them.

After that, the Project started working properly again!

It may have been that the orphaned files were in a weird format, or possibly that the program just couldn’t handle both the failed search for FFmprg and ALSO trying to pull together 66057 files and locked up? (I only have 8GB of RAM) I’m honestly totally unsure. But it’s solved now!

In either case, deleting those orphaned files seems to have resolved the problem! Thanks folks.

12

I think the orphaned data was about 4GB of data that it was trying to pull in all at the same time, which was probably the root of the problem? Maybe?