Hi There I desperately need help recovering a file. My computer lost power and I was not able to save my recording. When I opened Audacity it asked me to recover a file. When I select recover the file I get an error not well-formed invalid token at line 3479. Any ideas on how I can fix this to get my recording back?
I’m running Windows 7 Enterprise. Using Audacity 2.0.2
When you registered on the Forum you said you were running Windows 10. Which Windows do you have?
Open Explorer or File Explorer. Type or paste
%appdata%\Audacity\AutoSave
into the Explorer address bar and hit ENTER on your keyboard.
In that “AutoSave” folder, open the AUTOSAVE file in Notepad or similar text editor. Turn word wrap off in the menus. Go to the line indicated in the error message (3479 in your case). The last line above it will probably look like . We need to delete the entire line 3479. It may be a long line containing only empty spaces or it may have at the end of all the spaces.
Hold Shift and press Down to select the entire line. Then press Delete. Ensure this leaves you with a final line that contains only . Ensure this is the only line that contains .
Save the changes to the file. Then try recovering the project again.
If you are unsure, do not attempt edits to the AUTOSAVE file. Attach the file here instead. Please see here for how to attach files: https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/how-to-attach-files-to-forum-posts/24026/1
2.0.2 is very old now. After you recover your recording, update to the latest Audacity 2.1.2 from Audacity ® | Download for Windows.
Gale
I’m running Windows 7 my apologies for not correcting that. I’ve attached the file that has the issue.
New Project - 2016-04-22 14-11-09 N-1.autosave (195 KB)
I updated your profile to Windows 7.
It was a problem similar to that I stated. I’ve attached the repaired file. If you had the current Audacity 2.1.2 the crash would probably not have corrupted the AUTOSAVE file.
Gale
New Project - 2016-04-22 14-11-09 N-1.autosave (195 KB)
I’m getting the following error now.
Project Check found file inconsistencies during automatic recovery.
Select show log in the Help menu to see details.
Log Details:
09:27:21: Audacity 2.0.2
09:27:22: Trying to load FFmpeg libraries…
09:27:22: Trying to load FFmpeg libraries from system paths. File name is ‘avformat-52.dll’.
09:27:22: Looking up PATH environment variable…
09:27:22: PATH = 'C:\ProgramData\Oracle\Java\javapath;C:\Program Files (x86)\RSA SecurID Token Common;c:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\iCLS Client;c:\Program Files\Intel\iCLS Client;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0;C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\DAL;C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\IPT;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\DAL;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\IPT;c:\Program Files\Lenovo\Fingerprint Manager Pro;C:\Program Files (x86)\Symantec\VIP Access Client'
09:27:22: Checking that ‘’ is in PATH…
09:27:22: FFmpeg directory is in PATH.
09:27:22: Checking for monolithic avformat from ‘avformat-52.dll’.
09:27:22: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avformat-52.dll’ (error 126: the specified module could not be found.)
09:27:22: Loading avutil from ‘avutil-50.dll’.
09:27:22: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avutil-50.dll’ (error 126: the specified module could not be found.)
09:27:22: Loading avcodec from ‘avcodec-52.dll’.
09:27:22: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avcodec-52.dll’ (error 126: the specified module could not be found.)
09:27:22: Loading avformat from ‘avformat-52.dll’.
09:27:22: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avformat-52.dll’ (error 126: the specified module could not be found.)
09:27:22: Error: Failed to load FFmpeg libraries.
09:27:22: Error: Failed to find compatible FFmpeg libraries.
09:27:29: Warning: Orphan block file: ‘C:\Users\dloncar\AppData\Local\Temp\audacity_temp\project11886\e00\d04\e00043b4.au’
09:27:29: Warning: Orphan block file: ‘C:\Users\dloncar\AppData\Local\Temp\audacity_temp\project11886\e00\d04\e00047eb.au’
09:27:29: Warning: Project check ignored orphan block file(s). They will be deleted when project is saved.
09:27:29: Warning: Project check found file inconsistencies inspecting the loaded project data.
Your project opens now, that is the main thing.
The FFmpeg errors are “normal” if you do not have FFmpeg installed.
You seem to have two orphan block files. I think these are the last few seconds of left channel and right channel audio that was recorded, but Audacity never had time to write references to those AU files into the AUTOSAVE file.
If you want those last few seconds, drag those two AU files (“C:\Users\dloncar\AppData\Local\Temp\audacity_temp\project11886\e00\d04\e00043b4.au” and “C:\Users\dloncar\AppData\Local\Temp\audacity_temp\project11886\e00\d04\e00047eb.au”) into the recovered project before you save it.
Gale
Hi Gale the project does open but there is no recording. Any ideas?
Do you mean that the track is there for the expected length, but a flat line?
Were those errors you posted the only errors or are there errors about missing audio data block files or not being able to read files?
If no errors then I assume the AU files referenced in the AUTOSAVE file must be silenced. You can drag some of them into Audacity to check that. The AU files are in "C:\Users\dloncar\AppData\Local\Temp\audacity_temp\project11886\e00", inside “d” subfolders.
Gale
Thanks Gale. There is no track file so I dragged the AU files and it appears that the recording has two different sets of recordings meshed into one. Very strange. Is there any way to separate that?
If there is no track when opening the repaired AUTOSAVE file there should (initially) have been errors in the log.
If you solo each AU file you dragged in so that only that file plays, do you mean that some of the AU files are from a different recording?
Have you moved or renamed files or folders?
If you have not modified the folder "C:\Users\dloncar\AppData\Local\Temp\audacity_temp\project11886\e00" then you can use the steps at Recovering crashes manually to make a new WAV file or files from the data.
But the AUTOSAVE file appears correctly ordered to me, so unless the order of the data got interfered with, the recovery should have been perfect.
If you open "C:\Users\dloncar\AppData\Local\Temp\audacity_temp\project11886\e00" in Explorer, do you see folders d00, d01, d02. d03 and d04 there? And if you open those d folders, does each folder have 256 AU files?
If you like, you can hold SHIFT and right-click over "C:\Users\dloncar\AppData\Local\Temp\audacity_temp\project11886" and choose “Open command window here”. In the window that opens, paste or type:
dir /s /o:d > listing.txt
and hit ENTER on your keyboard. You will then have a listing.txt file in the “project11886” folder. Attach that file then we can see what is in that “project11886” folder.
Gale
My computer lost power and I was not able to save my recording.
If you make it to the second forum chapter of disaster recovery, there’s a really good chance the show isn’t coming back. You should continue to try, but start making plans for having no useful show.
Koz