hello my name is nicholas. I use a 2010 compaq to run the new audacity 2.0.2! I reciently deleted the old beta version and all of the old LAME converters and ffmm…thing just so all the import/export software would be up to date. I have been getting pretty seriously well oriented with audacity over the past year, the age old skeleton in my closet is saving and re opening projects. in my folder dedicated to audacity projects consists of #1)folders ending in: " _data" without the quotations. these _data folders are projects cut into numerous piece, usually like “001.au” or somthing similar. these would be imposible to piece together. #2) I have. aup files “which I know tobe the extension for an audacity project” but only about 1 in 10 tines do these open up. often audacity says it can’t find the file. can’t open it or gives me a warning about lost data. these types open with blue lines that have replaced my audio. fignally #3) I van export as various ""aiff, wav,mp3 and so forth. well the problem remains that I cannot find a consistant way to both save unfinished projects that I can open up again in audacity. and I scarcely acomplish saving a version of a project that I can depend on to open in a media player.
bottom line…I work with many different forms of audio anything from my studio equiptment, old files from SD cards, sampling mp3 audio. yet I can’t seem to get this formating and saving down. pleeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaasssssseeeee help me.
fresh to you msg board and thrive off of the advice y’all give. Nicholas
One of the ways that Audacity uses music files outside of itself is to play your show until it gets to the part where it needs the music and then it points to the external music file. It doesn’t make personal, locals copies of the music. If you move either the Audacity Project or the music file, Audacity will not be able to find the music when its time comes. This is likely where the flat blue lines are coming from.
The latest Audacity versions I believe do make personal copies of the music as a normal thing so it doesn’t matter where the external file is.
Audacity Projects only work when both file and folder are in the same directory or folder. It doesn’t work if you move things around and separate them.
If you put the Audacity Project manager (aup) and the data folder (_data) back where they were and put the music files back where they were, then the shows should open normally.
You can change the earlier Audacity programs to make personal copies of all music.
Koz
Audacity does not save music files. If you need a self-contained, standard music file, you can export one. File > Export > WAV (Microsoft) 16-bit PCM. That’s what you make if you’re going to burn a music CD. You can Export an MP3 for your personal music player, but you need to install the lame software first.
http://audacityteam.org/download/
Koz
ok, sorry if this is a dumb question but how would I put the files back, as in where would the origin be? now we are talking about this 2.0.2 even if the files were created in an older version right? does anyone know the bestl player to open the .wav? also I have a file saved as carolofthebells-georgewinston.aup.aiff. and it will open up in my 2.0.2 inerface. I am just needing as much advice to get this al organized and figured out. I have a lot of material, a lot of projects that just get scattered “probably due to some incorrect organization on my part”. I have so many questions to inquire about but I have to iorn this one out 
If you imported WAV or AIFF files into your projects without copying those files in, then moved or renamed those files, then you have to put the files back where they were where you first imported them. This is the same even if the project was created in 1.3 or 1.2 version of Audacity.
The best way to find out what external WAV/AIFF file Audacity is missing is to open the project and choose File > Check Dependencies. The missing files will be listed in red.
If the project says it cannot find the _data folder so won’t open at all, then you have to make the _data folder have the same name as the .aup file, and put .aup and _data folder into the same folder as each other.
To get up to speed with all this, try reading this in the Manual http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/audacity_projects.html .
If it is an Audacity project with just a few lines like a text file, get rid of the “.aiff” from the end of the name.
If it is really an AIFF file, it may be better to rename it as carolofthebells-georgewinston.aiff .
Gale
Thanks a bunch