How do you re-map data and AUP files?

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Hi Everyone,

I recently had to move my files from my computer hard drive to Dropbox because my laptop kept crashing. Since I moved the files onto another device I am unable to open the AUP file. I have the corresponding _data files.

How do I re-map them so so the data files communicates with the AUP file?

HELP!

2

“AUP” files are “XML” format plain text (XML - Wikipedia) and may be viewed in any plain text editor (such as NotePad++).
Note that modern versions of Microsoft “NotePad” are very poor editor apps for plain text, as the app imposes non-standard encoding and formatting, and very limited features.

This is an example of a very small and simple .AUP file:

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="no" ?>
<!DOCTYPE project PUBLIC "-//audacityproject-1.3.0//DTD//EN" "http://audacity.sourceforge.net/xml/audacityproject-1.3.0.dtd" >
<project xmlns="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/xml/" projname="test2_data" version="1.3.0" audacityversion="2.2.1" sel0="0.0000000000" sel1="0.0000000000" vpos="0" h="0.0000000000" zoom="526.2176513672" rate="44100.0" snapto="off" selectionformat="hh:mm:ss + milliseconds" frequencyformat="Hz" bandwidthformat="octaves">
	<tags/>
	<wavetrack name="sound-dump" channel="2" linked="0" mute="0" solo="0" height="150" minimized="0" isSelected="1" rate="44100" gain="1.0" pan="0.0" colorindex="0">
		<waveclip offset="0.00000000" colorindex="0">
			<sequence maxsamples="262144" sampleformat="262159" numsamples="65536">
				<waveblock start="0">
					<simpleblockfile filename="e0000f97.au" len="65536" min="-1.0" max="0.468994" rms="0.336411"/>
				</waveblock>
			</sequence>
			<envelope numpoints="0"/>
		</waveclip>
	</wavetrack>
</project>

In the third line:

projname="test2_data"

That tells Audacity to look in the folder “test2_data” for the audio data. This path is “relative” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_(computing)#Absolute_and_relative_paths)

Lower down the file we see:

<simpleblockfile filename="e0000f97.au"

There we have the name of one of the audio data blocks, “e0000f97.au”.
The first 5 characters of the file name (in this case “e0000”) tells Audacity where the file is located with the directory hierarchy within the _data folder (in this case it is in "test2_data\e00\d00").

So Audacity will search the contents of “test2_data” for the file “e0000f97.au” in the sub-directory specified by the first part of the file name. If that file does not exist, then that’s an error. Audacity will complain about “missing blockfiles” and it will not be possible to open the project correctly.

You need to ensure that:

  1. The _data folder named in the AUP file exists in the location specified by the AUP file.
  2. The data “blockfiles” (the “.au” files) specified in the AUP are present in the _data folder, in the location specified by the first 5 characters of the .AU file name.