Missing Audio Block (C:.../Proj_data/.au)

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

I have no idea what happened but I lost over 3 hours of recording for a podcast I’m working on.

Last night when we finished recording I saved the project and shut down my computer after making sure it was saved. Today, however, I go to open it and start editing and I get the following error…

"Warning - Problem Reading Sequence Tags

Project check read faulty Sequence tags"

It gives me the option to close immediately or “Continue with repairs noted in log, and check for more errors.”
The log reads as follows:
log.txt (4.55 KB)
If I click the second option I get this.
Capture.JPG
The log for that reads now:
log 2.txt (4.68 KB)
Obviously that last line means that there is a .au file missing from the folder. But all of my other Audacity projects don’t have a .au file immediately in their _data folders. What happened and how can I fix it. This is a Dungeons and Dragons podcast so you can’t really just re-record the whole thing cause then it wouldn’t be natural anymore. Any help would be great. I’m running a program that is supposed to find .au files that were deleted or are hidden so if that finds it before I get a reply I’ll mention it. Thanks in advance!

~WendelGOTD

2

I can’t help you, but for future reference…

I recommend you export to WAV (or FLAC) immediately after recording* whether you make an Audacity project or not. From there, you can do more-extensive back-ups depending on how critical the files are. An Audacity project contains multiple files so it’s easier for things to go wrong.

…Computers are the least reliable things we own and since computers (and applications) are flexible with many configurations/options there is also plenty of potential for human error. Things can go wrong while you’re recording before you save/export and usually you don’t know until it’s too late! I LOVE using computers for audio, but you have to be prepared for the unexpected.

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  • WAV files are limited to 4GB so you have to be careful with hours-long files. FLAC doesn’t have an “artificial” size limit, the files are smaller (compressed) and it’s also a lossless format.
3

So is there a way to get it back or is it just gone forever?