Lost files

Audacity Help Forum macOS
1

Mac OS X 10.5.8
AU 2.0.2
Think it was the .dmg intaller

I made a copy of an original file, was editing it, and selected “Save File” instead of “Save File As”, not aware that I was doing something wrong. Now I’m unable to open either of the files, original and copy. When I attempt to open the original file the message reads "Project check of Chapter 2_data folder detected 10 missing audio data (.au) block files, probably due to a bug, system crash, or accidental deletion. There is no way for Audacity to recover these missing files automatically. If you choose the first or second option below, you can try to find and restore the missing files to their previous location. Note that for the second option, the waveform may not show silence. Please select an action. ( ) Close project immediately with no further changes ( ) Treat missing audio as silence (this session only) ( ) Replace missing audio with silence (permanent immediately)
Show Log for Details OK

Help … I’ve been working on this project for over two weeks. Thanks …

2

You should never make a copy of an AUP file in the Finder. An Audacity project consists of two parts: the AUP file and a _data folder that contains the audio.
See: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/audacity_projects.html

So you now have two AUP files that reference the same _data folder. It’s no wonder they got out of sync.

10 block files comprise about 1 minute of project audio (depending on sample rate). You should open the project with option 2 (Treat missing audio as silence (this session only)) and see if anything is missing. It is quite possible that nothing is missing.

– Bill