I was working on linking four different stereo wav files to create a music sampler. When I tried to save this as a new project, Audacity closed with an error. I reopened Audacity, and it said the project could be recovered. But in the recovered version there are several gaps of silence. Gaps are on either left or right track, but never on both tracks at the same place. Each gap appears to be the same length, just less than six seconds. The tracks are all still aligned properly; one channel just drops out at points for six seconds. I assume there is nothing further I can do to recover this, other than going back to my source files and doing it over? I just wondered if anyone has experienced anything similar, and might know of a cause? I am using version 2.0.2. Thanks.
You’re dead.
Audacity saves work as LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT… If Audacity halts, it can lose one or more segments and not always an even number. Did you notice that the singers or instruments have reversed left to right?
If you find yourself thrashing a very complicated project, save a whole new Project every so often so if something fails, you can jump back to the last backup. As it stands, you may have to start from original clips. You can use the rescued show for timing and maybe even try to rescue it wholesale if it’s not too badly damaged, but remember there might be more damage there than you think.
Audacity Projects were designed as “environment containers,” and disaster recovery wasn’t at the top of the list. Also remember Projects do not save UNDO.
Koz
You should upgrade to 2.0.5. Earlier versions can have instabilities.
http://audacityteam.org/download/windows
Koz
Thanks for the advice! It didn’t take me too long to recreate my project, as I had the basic tracks as a guide, and just had to bring in the original wav files and redo the fadeins and fadeouts. Saved with no problem this time; and I’ll be sure to save often from now on!
The Crash Recovery code has not changed since 2.0.2 but is much better than Koz paints it to be, in my opinion. Koz is correct that there have been some crash fixes since 2.0.2.
Any crash could delete some of the audio data “block files”, in which case there could be sections of silence in the recovered audio. There may still be Audacity bugs that cause some of the block files to move into another saved project, either when there is a crash or when saving a project normally.
If there are problems in automatic recovery it is recommended to use Help > Show Log… . The Log should list any block files that are missing. You can then search your computer for those files.
Gale