Hi there - I am using V2.4.2. I have a bunch of aup files to open to keep working on, and I have imported them as per the user manual, but when I ‘play’ them, it is like the audio is ultra/ mega compressed and only lasts for a split second while making a very quick buzzing sound! ie, like the audio is still there, but the 2 min audio file is compressed to 0.2 secs! Sounds like a buzzing bee passing your ear for a split second! What might be causing this, and is there anything I can do to change it/ make it sound like the normal audio?! Upon reading up in the manual and the forum, I can’t find a similar problem, but I can see the suggestion is to always export your project to a WAV file (32-bit float), rather than just leave it as an AUP. I will do that from here on in, but in the meantime I have about 7 AUP files to edit. Thanks very much.
You don’t Import AUP files with their _DATA folder. You open them.
This is an Audacity 2 Project.
The AUP file and the _DATA folder of the same name need to be in the same location or folder for the show to open.
It should be possible to double click on the AUP file and it should open normally.
A word about the WAV files. That’s a desperation method recovery. That will give you stable sound files of the work, but will not give you any Audacity edit, form, timelines, and other production information. They’re just sound files. Projects open up right where you left them in the edit except they no longer have UNDO.
Koz
Thankyou. I am not sure why I thought that ‘import’ was the method - I must have read that somewhere. I tried to ‘open’ instead, as per your notes, and still got an error message that the data file couldn’t be found (even though both the aup and data files were in the same folder). Then I noticed the aup file had a slightly different name to the data file (changed by me a few months ago) and wondered if that made a difference - I made the data file name the same and the aup file, then it opened! Could that have been a reason the aup file wasn’t working? Curious to know. But thanks very much for your help, and for the extra note about the WAV files. Much appreciated. Love Audacity! I’m a novice, so only do basic editing, but the fact that I can even do that speaks to the ease of using Audacity 
Yes. And that is exactly the reason for the unified file structure we now have in Audacity 3.x.x. 
Everything is now in one file 
For an updated version, see: https://www.audacityteam.org/download/