HELP: Failed to read from a file in C:

Hi, I am in complete disarray. I had 5 song ep on one audacity project accumulating to 2.2gb of music. I finished up the last bit of recording, saved and closed the project. Then came back to it an hour later, till now where the project wont open at all and instead reads a “failed to read from a file in C:.

I have tried all sorts and have been keeping close tabs one this audacity forum page where I tried everything suggested, used the cmd etc and that didn’t work. I have tried using some of my flatmates computers to try and see if it works but nothing at all. I do however have very limited space on my PC as a consequence and I fear anything that I wont get it back. I need this project as it is practically half my dissertation for my uni degree.

Is there any canny individuals that could have a look at it for me if I send it over? even if you could export the individual tracks and send them back to me singularly will do. Just anything so I can retrieve this audio.

google drive zip: https://drive.google.com/file/d/141WV4n4TVDY5WaiHFf6dbY7PmWQ6iq-s/view?usp=drive_link

here is the error code(s):

{
“timestamp”: 1769381424,
“event_id”: “5959e06d3631c6428f663f565c126009”,
“platform”: “native”,
“release”: “audacity@3.7.5”,
“contexts”: {
“os”: {
“type”: “os”,
“name”: “Windows”,
“version”: “10.0.26100”
}
},
“exception”: {
“values”: [
{
“type”: “File_Error”,
“value”: “Audacity failed to read from a file in .”,
“mechanism”: {
“type”: “runtime_error”,
“handled”: false,
“data”: {
“sqlite3.rc”: “101”,
“sqlite3.context”: “SqliteSampleBlock::Load::step”
}
}
}
]
}
}

Yes, I can well imagine.

I tried this using a combination of tools and I did manage to recover something. I cannot guarantee it’s what you want. I used Audacity 3.7.7 to re-save it. You may need the same version to open it again.
Please send me a PM with your email address and I will send you the project file using Swisstransfer.com.

@felixhh17 Please review this attempt at recovering your project: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lXu94vfUifxPHTqaAtFzYaJ7bpvqpFRe/view?usp=sharing

Does it look okay? How much of the data is missing?
I’m testing it on the alpha version of the recovery tool we want to include in the next Audacity release, so your feedback will be very valuable.

Hey @kryksyh, so I have extracted and opened the audacity project and the response was very similar to @evilmrb attempt, however this time there was no drum tracks or bass (unlike @evilmrb attempt), just guitar and vocals with the odd distorted fog horn esq guitar sound every 4 seconds and not much consistency.

Interestingly this attempt was also the same in size as my original project, however @evilmrb’s attempt was a good 700mb short.

If you have any alternatives or questions in regards to feedback do let me know! happy to help the audacity team!