Regardless, koz is the only one who actually tried to help. Perhaps consider not confusing things further If you’re only going to lecture about external hard drives and state your inability to do anything to resolve the issue.
Many of the names that have gone by so far are helper elves from the old forum. We don’t work for Audacity.
You have a very serious, complicated problem. Further complicated because Audacity doesn’t have a Help Desk.
I’ll look up the shutdown instructions if you want.
Koz
I just don’t understand how it’s that complicated. The fact that this is so very complicated is astounding to me. I just need audacity to allow me to open the project from my hard drive as it’s done a thousand times before. If this big of an issue can occur from choosing the option of saving to the cloud then they need to pull down the damn cloud! (Not yelling at you, this is just ridiculous)
So we don’t think recovery would be fruitful? I’m 50/50 as far as that’s concerned. Had it work one time and not the next.
How big is the AUP3 file on your computer?
18 gigs and it’s still there. But since it’s an AUP file it can only be opened by audacity and audacity is unwilling apparently
The company is trying to update and improve the product.
It’s doing it on three (or more) different operating systems, versions, and updates. Each client machine can have any number of competing software packages (Skype, Zoom, other editors, music players), and can, in fact just be misadjusted or broken.
Each Audacity update issue can have accidental software damage and bugs. For a scary read, see the list of bug fixes for each Audacity version.
Be careful! Windows is going to force an update in the background while you’re working…
Still don’t understand how it’s that complicated?
Koz
If you can share it via Google Drive, Dropbox or similar, I’d be happy to take a look to see if I’m able to recover the project.
TH CH 8 IN PROGRESS USE THIS COPY.aup3
is this what you meant Steve?
It opens here.
“Held to the floor by large retaining nets…”
I can’t tell how many tracks it is, but it’s a lot.
I need to drop out.
Koz
See?? Yes that’s good right? It’s just being a dick to me but we can get through it yeah?
OMG I GOT IT!!
I downloaded it from that link and it opened!
Thanks guys!
What are you going to do so this never happens again?
Koz
Well that’s obvious right?
• Never save to the friggin cloud again
• procure an external hard drive 
Hi,
I think you are right. If you are shelling out for storage on Google, Microsoft and Audio.com your money is better spent on an external disk. It’s in your possession, under your control and not dependant on an internet connection. Personally, I think we have all been sold a pup with ‘the cloud’. As someone else said, it’s just someone else’s computer. I avoid it where possible.
I would also say you should probably look to use a proper DAW if your work is made up of many tracks. In the end, it will be worth the trouble to learn. Someone mentioned Ocenaudio to you. I use it and it’s really good but does not handle multi-track recordings. It’s well worth having/using if your needs are simple eg digitising vinyl or cassettes etc.
I hope that helps you.
Mark B
I would recommend saving it under a new different file name.
I have a suspicion that somewhere a flag gets set to say to Audacity that the Cloud version is dominant once you have saved to the cloud - thereby blocking direct access to the local version on your disk - but I have no idea where such a flag may be held (possibly in the project itself or maybe in a file in the, hidden, Audacity settings folder).
One other thing I would strongly recommend once you get an external drive is that you regularly make backups to the external drive at key stages in your project.
To do this use File > Save Project > Backup Project
This will make the backup, but also leave your active project open.
You may wish to you use your computer’s disk for live project work and just send the backups to the external drive - or if the external drive is a fast SSD you may wish to use that for the live project as well.
Peter
Remember to use a new project name when you Save Backup Project.
Being obsessive, I use classic filenames: Upper Case, Lower Case, Numbers, Dash, and Underscore. No Spaces.
MyTerrificProduction_2025-04-03.aup3
You may note that many application transmission systems still do that. I’m not making that up.
I know people do this all the time, but forcing Audacity to use external disks directly isn’t the best idea. Audacity naturally assumes any drive it can see may be used for any job no matter how delicate or critical. I cite the silly example of trying to do a carefully timed musical overdubbing session from a cloud drive in Schenectady. The chances of that working are zero. The chances of success start going up as the drive gets closer and closer, but the possibility of error only hit minimum on the local drive.
Yes, an SSD external drive may work OK, but external connections aren’t perfect. I don’t know if this is still true, but USB connections only go one direction at a time. There’s a traffic cop in there. Somebody will correct me.
Next up are home network drives. They start doing tricks such as Routing Management, Collision Detection, Error Processing, and Retry Management. No critical music production timing for you.
So do all production on the internal drive. Close Audacity and you can move the files wherever you want. Move them back and open Audacity.
Koz
While I’m doing this, remember to keep one eye on the drive space. It can go away quickly.
Every time you do an edit, Audacity tries to make a separate copy of the whole show. It does Edit > Undo, by just backing up one show. It doesn’t try to undo the last edit. That’s why you can’t Edit > Undo out of order. I’m pretty sure Audacity still does that.
And then there’s the Clean Shutdown thing. Windows machines don’t Shut Down. They “Hybernate.” They leave apps, processes, and settings running so startup is snappy and quick. If you have a damaged setting or background task, it can hang around damaging your productions forever.
I forbid my machines from hiding filename extensions.
MyFile
MyFile
MyFile
Quick. Which one of those is the WAV file?
MyFile.mp3
MyFile.wav
MyFile.pdf
Koz
Thanks guys. Very valuable advice 