Force stop without loosing data

I really hope you can help me.
I did recode an really important conversation. It was recorded for 40 minutes. But then it stopped, because there was not enough space on my hard disk to store the item. I did make space on my hard disk.
But the programm audicity doesn’t responde anymore. I only see a gear with all the colors of a rainbow. It looks like the only possibility is to force a stop. But then I am really afraid that I will loose the conversation. Because it says all not saved items will be loosed.
So my question is how can I make sure I will not loose the file? Thank you so much for your answer. Barbara

Exactly what version of Audacity do you have? If it is a version in the 1.3 or 2.0 series you can force quit Audacity and it should recover the audio. See: Recovery - Audacity Manual . The later the version of Audacity, the better the chance of recovering the audio.

If you are using a 1.2 version of Audacity then you can still force quit Audacity. When you launch Audacity it will ask you if you want to delete temporary files. You must say No. Do not delete temporary files or you will lose your recording. After that, you have to follow a special procedure. We can describe it if necessary.

After you have recovered the audio you should make sure you are using Audacity 2.0.5 from here: http://audacityteam.org/download/mac .

Exactly what are you recording, using what device? If it is a USB recording device, make sure it is plugged into an empty USB port on the computer. Do not connect it to a hub connected to the USB port.


Gale

Hi Gale,

Thank you so much for your response. Because of vacation I do respond a little bit late, sorry.
I was really happy to read your message, because I have the version 2.0. Indeed it asked me (after I forced Quit) or I wanted to restore the last not saved Items. I said yes. Then It seemed that it was stored. I could push play to listen. But when I wanted to listen the item I don,t hear anything:(.
It said that something went wrong and that I have to look in the menu Help to see the log. There I see this:

16:44:28: Waarschuwing: Ontbrekend datablokbestand: ‘/var/folders/d4/v5_v50h53_q2s5p_h1wq8_b00000gn/T/audacity-barbaramulder/project1508297049/e00/d01/e0001391.au’

This sentence is there for hundred times. In english it is something like: 'warning, there is a missing data block file. ’

Gale do you have any clue and could you please help me again? Thank you so much!!

So does the whole project look like a flat line? You could zoom out to check that.

For whichever AU files are listed as missing in the log, you will have to put the AU files where Audacity expects them to be. For example, “e0001391.au” must be in the “d01” folder, and the “d01” folder must be in the “e00” folder, and the “e00” folder must be in the “/var/folders/d4/v5_v50h53_q2s5p_h1wq8_b00000gn/T/audacity-barbaramulder/project1508297049” folder.

Or you can follow the procedure at http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=Crash_Recovery#Automatic_recovery_tools to create new WAV files from the AU pieces. This means sorting the AU files by timestamp then renaming them and using the “1.2 Recovery Utility” to make the WAV files.


Gale