Problems saving files in Audacity 3.2

I’m using Audacity 3.2 on a Macbook Air M1 with Big Sur 11.6
When I save a recording and then go back to open the file I get this error message:
Project Recovered.
This project was not saved properly the last time Audacity ran. It has been recovered to the last snapshot.

Fortunately these files then seem to be there and I’m able to reopen them. But why am I getting this message? What am I doing incorrectly? I thought saving the files was a simple process of File - Save Project As…
I save my files to an external hard drive.
I’m in the process of recording a 20 hour audiobook so being confident about saving my files is important.
Thanks for any help

There are also a couple of files that seem to be gone completely.
I get a message when I try to open them that says -

Project Recovered.
This project was not saved properly the last time Audacity ran.
It has been recovered to the last snapshop, but you must save it to preserve its contents.

However when I click OK, there is nothing there. It does look like there is some data somewhere though because I can see KB next to the file.

IIRC this may be a bug in the 3.2 versions which is now fixed in the latest 3.3 versions.

The current release is 3.3.1 which you can get from here:

Sadly this will only stop such problems to recur in the future, it will not recover your lost data I believe.

Peter.

Hello and thank you for your helpful response. I guess worst case scenario is that I have to re-record those chapters.
I do have WAV and FLAC files saved for those chapters where I’m missing the complete file. For pickups I was planning on using the original files. Since I don’t have those for 3 chapters, do you think I could use the WAV files for pickups instead? Is there too much loss in quality if I do that? Will listeners be able to hear the difference between pickups made on an original file vs pickups made on a WAV file. My final uploads to the publishers are FLAC files which I would convert to after doing pickups on either the original files or the WAV files.

I downloaded Audacity 3.3.1 and recorded and saved a new chapter using it. However I am still getting the same Error message when I try to re-open the saved project file -
‘Project Recovered.
This project was not saved properly the last time Audacity ran. It has been recovered to the last snapshot.’
However when I re-open it again it seems to be there and opens without an error message.
What am I doing wrong?

The WAV fies should be fine to import. I assume that you probably have default16-bit WAV files and those should be fine - for even greater accuracy t=you can export 32-bit WAV files for working backups - but
a) these take uo twice the space
b) most folk would struggle to hear the difference
c) 16-bit WAVs are universally playable - not always the case fir 32-bit WAVS (but fine for Audacity import).

Peter.

Audacity will offer auto-recover on relaunch if you have an unsaved project and
a) Audacity crashes
b) your computer gets turned off for some reason (OS updates can cause this)

Peter.

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