I saved DURING a crash. No recovery option. Silence on tracks.

Audacity 3 Help Forum Windows
1

Long time Audacity user, first time caller.
Windows 10
Audacity 2.3.3

Audacity crashed- didn’t recover anything- and filled a track with Silence

I was working away in Audacity. I had two aup files open. (Let’s call it) File A had multiple tracks and lots of data; the other, File B, had next to nothing, and wasn’t important. Audacity froze- I clicked crtl+S hoping to save before the crash- and then Audacity quit on me.

When I reopened Audacity, I was offered recovery only for the small aup File B that I don’t care about. So I found and reopened File A on my own, and POOF! The top track (with ALL THE IMPORTANT STUFF) was turned to silence.

Then I backed up everything I could think of. 1) I saved the temp files from Audacity, BUT the files were only for File B (unimportant). 2) I saved File A’s “data” folder before I go messing around trying to scavenge for something useful.

*Yes, I should have exported things as wav/mp3 before this happened to be safe (Not really simple for me. Too many simultaneous tracks/data.) But I didn’t do that.

So as far as I can tell, the fact that I tried to save royally messed things up. I don’t see a temp file/backup for File A (only B), and the only data I have is what was saved, which shows silence when opened. Any suggestions?

Thank you all

2

The top track (with ALL THE IMPORTANT STUFF) was turned to silence.

I think you may have the order wrong. I think the show was already toast and that was the instant that Audacity chose to update the screen.

I should have exported things as wav/mp3

WAV. You can’t edit MP3 without sound damage.

If you have to save/backup a complex show, Save Project > Save Lossless Copy of Project. That will save all the timelines and graphics. Those are less brittle than the other forms. Use a unique name.

Projects in any form do not save UNDO. You need to know that.

Editing multiple projects at once has always been forbidden. Do you do that often?

Are you using Cloud storage or any on-line file management? That may be why the show went away.

Koz

3

I think you may have the order wrong. I think the show was already toast and that was the instant that Audacity chose to update the screen.

I’m not sure I understand what order you think I got wrong here. I was working perfectly fine all day, the program froze, I clicked saved, and then it shut off. When I reopened, it was silence. All audio was perfectly fine before the freeze.

WAV. You can’t edit MP3 without sound damage.

Does it matter if the end product is an mp3 anyway? (Unfortunately, neither really helps me. If I save a wav that includes simultaneous voice track, applause, music, sound effects, etc., I would never be able to get inside and fiddle with those piece individually again once they’re pressed into stereo.)

If you have to save/backup a complex show, Save Project > Save Lossless Copy of Project. That will save all the timelines and graphics. Those are less brittle than the other forms. Use a unique name.

Less brittle than what exactly? Yes, it seems saving an entire aup file is my only option. But I never knew about that “save lossless copy” option. That’ll save me a bit of time when making backups. Thanks.

Editing multiple projects at once has always been forbidden. Do you do that often?

Yeah, basically. Usually just for something small. I may pull one short clip of audio out to a new audacity file for tinkering/editing and put it back in when I’m done. Usually just to avoid changing my solo/mute settings across many tracks. I know everything slows the computer down a little more, but no, you would be the first to tell me this is forbidden. In fact, the audacity manual specifies that if you have multiple files open, the crash report is designed to recover each one individually.

Are you using Cloud storage or any on-line file management?

No. I wouldn’t dream of it.

Thanks for the help, kozikowski!

4

Does it matter if the end product is an mp3 anyway?

Every time you make an MP3, you get compression sound damage. If you make an MP3 from an MP3, you get two damages. If you make it to three, it can turn the show into trash.

saving an entire aup file

Bad choice of words. It may seem like you’re saving an AUP file, but an Audacity Project is more complicated than that.

This is a Project.

The AUP file is the list of instructions of what Audacity has to do with all the stuff in the _DATA folder to put the show back together. The _DATA folder has the actual sound fragments in it. The two have to be in the same location or folder. They have to have the same name and it has to be the name you gave them in Audacity. Don’t put one inside the other.

That’s a normal Project. A Lossless Project has more stuff in it, is larger and takes longer to make, but is less likely to crash or die and take your show with it.

This whole process is going away in the new Audacity version.

No idea why it froze, but it could do that if you had a bad combination of sound clips and effects. Depending on the effect or filter, Audacity may have to put the whole selection into memory. So now we’re struggling with the 8GB of on-board memory instead of the terabytes of hard drive space. If you run out of memory for whatever reason, the program may crash.

Koz

5

It’s good to have backups of all the original works including voice acting. Export those as WAV files. It should be possible to go back to that basket of sound files and clips and put the show back together if you had to. I still have original voice files from years ago.

Periodically down the editing process, Save As a Project with a unique name. This will give you a Frozen Moment in Time to go back to if something nasty happens.

Projects are nice, but they will not save UNDO.

Koz

6

*I am having trouble with some of this forum process. Last time I clicked submit, my post disappeared for 24 hrs. I just clicked preview and it took me to the same page with my post missing. So I will wait a bit to reply to your longer post, kozikowski. Perhaps it will show up submitted. Really wish I could have previewed that, but I don’t feel like starting a help forum for my help forum for my help forum…

It’s good to have backups of all the original works including voice acting. Export those as WAV files. It should be possible to go back to that basket of sound files and clips and put the show back together if you had to.

The tracks with the raw voice audio were untampered, and I was able to remake everything, it just took 20+ hours. I did not enjoy that day. Attempting to manually put the crash recovery files back together would be impossible, hours of audio separated into random 6 second chunks: that sounds like my worst nightmare.

7

The tracks with the raw voice audio were untampered

That’s not what I meant. I meant the thumb drive or external drive that has a complete copy of all the show clips and files completely divorced from Audacity.

One of the Audacity failures is to open all your layers, channels, clips, and segments silent. They’re all present in the display, but they’re flatline. No sound. That’s when you get your thumb drive out of the desk drawer and repopulate the show with the backups.

If you got your voice files back with no damage, you got insanely lucky.

manually put the crash recovery files back together would be impossible, hours of audio separated into random 6 second chunks

That’s not emergency crash recovery. That’s an Audacity Project. They’re all like that. The instructions inside the AUP file tell Audacity how to put all the tiny chunks back together into your show. If you have a simple, unedited voice recording by itself, you have between 20% and 30% chance of putting it back together without the AUP file by clever use of computer file time and date management and advanced guessing.

If you have an edit master without the AUP file, the show is not recoverable.

my worst nightmare.

It’s not. It’s a simple production decision to start the show over. If you ever wondered what a “Producer” does (upper case intentional). They write the checks and make decisions like this.

Koz

8

(*Let’s try this again)

Every time you make an MP3, you get compression sound damage. If you make an MP3 from an MP3, you get two damages. If you make it to three, it can turn the show into trash.

I have always wondered. Well said. Thank you for explaining.

Bad choice of words. It may seem like you’re saving an AUP file, but an Audacity Project is more complicated than that. This is a Project…

Sorry, I said aup file instead aup+data file. Won’t happen again.

No idea why it froze, but it could do that if you had a bad combination of sound clips and effects. Depending on the effect or filter, Audacity may have to put the whole selection into memory.

I certainly run effects and even macro effect processes over large audio tracks. I have been eating up computer space with audacity projects, and have about 5-10gb unused C drive space. I have noticed that this reported unused space goes down throughout a long day of editing, and I often restart to clear some things and bring that unused space back up.

A Lossless Project has more stuff in it, is larger and takes longer to make, but is less likely to crash or die and take your show with it.

I’m reading more about the lossless projects. So it saves the audio separately as wavs instead of au files. I like it. I don’t know what the difference is in wav versus au file, but if you say it’s “less likely to crash or die,” that sounds great! In my case, that wouldn’t have been much different than just saving an additional “normal project” copy with a unique name, i.e. I still ended up with the crash recovery yielding mysterious silence. I still don’t understand how/why that happens.

The bigger issue is I’ve had audacity crash and then replace something with silence after recovery. On my previous computer, this happened once in a blue moon. It was usually a small 5 sec clip somewhere that didn’t matter. It’s my understanding that the crash recovery tool draws from the temp folder, implying there’s an issue occurring with those files, but I may have had the same problem with upon exiting the crash recovery tool to open the last saved project instead; I just can’t remember. I’ll think about that the next time this happens.

9

I have always wondered. Well said. Thank you for explaining.

just FYI, not all lossy formats accumulate damage like that. AAC (MP4 or M4A) is much more immune. Somebody did an experiment with 100 generations of lossy encoding/decoding and the 100th AAC file sounded the same as the 1st. The 100th MP3 file was terrible.

10

The tracks with the raw voice audio were untampered

That’s not what I meant. I meant the thumb drive or external drive that has a complete copy of all the show clips and files completely divorced from Audacity.

I understood. Backups are helpful. I was just telling you what actually, physically happened in my life. I took the unharmed, unedited, raw voice tracks and cut/copy/pasted long through the night. That’s what I did.

If you got your voice files back with no damage, you got insanely lucky.

Only one track in the whole project was ruined, the track at the tippy top with all the mastered vox. The other 99 tracks below were all perfect. So either I’m 1% _un_lucky or 99% lucky, depending on how you look at it. You can probably guess which one I felt.

That’s not emergency crash recovery. That’s an Audacity Project. They’re all like that. The instructions inside the AUP file tell Audacity how to put all the tiny chunks back together into your show. If you have a simple, unedited voice recording by itself, you have between 20% and 30% chance of putting it back together without the AUP file by clever use of computer file time and date management and advanced guessing.

I never said it was emergency crash recovery. I was referring to my only other option at the time. I could either A)remake the show from the raw voice tracks or B) follow the Audacity manual and “recover manually” when the crash recovery doesn’t yield desired results, putting hours of random 6-sec chunks into an an ongoing recovery puzzle. There were nearly ~5,000 of those little pieces in 26 different sub folders.

my worst nightmare.

It’s not. It’s a simple production decision to start the show over. If you ever wondered what a “Producer” does (upper case intentional). They write the checks and make decisions like this.

Recovering manually is the nightmare I was referring to. You have never met someone who spends this much time staring at a computer screen, editing all day, every day, and still hates every moment of it. I assure you, this is my nightmare.

If you have an edit master without the AUP file, the show is not recoverable.

What’s an edit master?

Thanks koz

11

The 100th MP3 file was terrible.

We should remember MP3’s full family name is MPEG1-Layer 3. It’s part of a video format designed and released in 1993.

It’s 27 years old.

Koz

12

I just made my first, successful lossless copy.
*I had to remove/change any track titles that had symbols first, otherwise I got an error message.

-Sunflower

13

I had to remove/change any track titles that had symbols first, otherwise I got an error message.

Upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers, -dash- and underscore. Those are the only safe characters to use in filenames.

Use ISO dates. Today is 2020-10-07. No slashmarks.

Windows people are also urged to avoid legacy device names like COM and LPT.

You may be able to get away with using multiple different characters in your own personal production, but you die the first time you have a client on a different machine than you—or you post something on-line.

Koz