I am using OS X 10.9.5 and Audacity 2.1.2. I obtained the .dmg installer.
I was putting some finishing touches on a 6 minute long podcast and highlighted a short portion at the end of a track to amplify when Audacity froze.
It makes the error sound whenever I click anything now (I have clicked everything to test this). A part of the toolbar (the part where you can select/magnify) has separated from the application, so I can drag the application around my screen but that part of the toolbar doesn’t go with it. There is no spinning beach ball and when I right-click on the Audacity icon in my doc, it doesn’t say that the application is not responding, but it is definitely frozen. It says stopped in the bottom left hand corner, and when I press or hover over buttons it acknowledges that I have done so at the bottom.
I haven’t saved any of my work at any point while working on this podcast because when I tried to, Audacity told me to make a new project, which confused me. I realize I should have saved it at some point in some form, but I was a fool and this is my first time using Audacity.
Do you know what will happen if I quit Audacity? Will I lose everything? Is there any way to un-freeze Audacity without quitting the application? I don’t have Time Machine. Is there any way to get to my podcast? Any help would be much appreciated.
There is a bug in 2.1.2 that if you run an effect then use the red window close button on the effect, Audacity will freeze. Might that have been what happened?
If you use File > Save Project, a message will tell you to export if you want a file for applications other than Audacity.
Backup exports to WAV or AIFF are a very good idea, as well as saving a project. If you have multiple Audacity tracks you can export separate WAV or AIFF files for each track.
You will have to force quit Audacity but when you launch it again it should attempt to recover your work. See Automatic Crash Recovery. Don’t reboot the Mac though, or that will wipe the temporary data that Audacity will try to recover from.
