Project tracks now missing

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Added percussion tracks to a project giving the project a total of 16 tracks and then saved the project.
Exported Audio which worked fine.
Went back to Project and all individual16 tracks were missing.
What is showing appears to be the two stereo tracks that were created all in Red.
This file plays as a stereo wav file but I no longer have access to the project tracks???

The data folders still exist…havw no idea why this happened but thinking it has something to do with adding several percussion tracks.

2

What version of Audacity (all three numbers) ?

WC

3

2.1

4

That’s two numbers. What’s the third number? (look in “Help > About Audacity”).

5

Sorry Steve…It is 2.1.0
Appreciate any help you can give me with this.
It has happened twice and again appears to be when I add additional percussion, etc.
Luckily, the first time I had saved the project and renamed it, so I had the original project to continue to work through.
However, the second and more important one of course was not saved as another named file.

6

That’s quite an old version. The current version is 2.3.0, but I don’t think that’s the problem.

Could you post a screenshot of that so that we know exactly what you mean.
Here’s how to attach an image to your post: https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/how-to-attach-files-to-forum-posts/24026/1

7

Hi Steve,
I’ve attached a IMG pf the page.
Thx!
IMG_8251.JPG

8

I can see what’s happened. That is a mixdown of your 16 tracks. You have mixed all 16 tracks into a single stereo track.

Is that from opening an “Audacity Project”, or from opening an “audio file” (such as a “WAV” or “MP3” file)?

If it’s a project, then you must have mixed down the tracks and then saved the project. While the project is open it is possible to “undo” the mixdown (Effect menu > Undo). Once the project has been closed, the undo history is not saved, so it is no longer possible to undo.

If it’s an audio file, then it is what it is - a massively overloaded mix of 16 audio tracks. It is not possible to “unmix” the file.

In either case, there is no way to separate that track into the original 16 tracks once the original project has been closed. You will need to go back to an earlier backup copy of the project.

If you wish to export multiple tracks as multiple files, you need to “Export Multiple” (Instructions for Audacity 2.3.0: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/export_multiple.html)

9

Thx Steve,

Very weird.
I was in a Project and closed it and saved it.
That was it.
Then opened it back up and exported audio.
The result was what you see here.

??? Need to upgrade to the latest version of Audacity.
How will that effect all of my Projects in the current version?
Will all info transfer over to the new version without a hitch?
Thinking I should just purchase a version of Pro-Tools instead.

Thx again for your expertise.

10

Strange indeed. I’ve never seen that happen in well over 10 years of using Audacity.

It shouldn’t affect them at all. There have been no changes to the project format.