I am new to Audacity 2.0.5; 'twas recommended by a friend. I used it most recently for recording interviews using a FocusRite 2i4. Computer was a 2013 Mac Mini 2.3 GHz i7 16GB RAM running 10.8.5. I recorded all the tracks, varying from six to 20 minutes each. The problem; when I opened the project most recently, all of the tracks were still there, all of the same original duration, but there were no waveforms on any tracks anywhere throughout. Tried playing the tracks, no sound. Tried exporting the tracks, no sound.
Do any of you happen to have any solutions? There were no crashes whenever I had the project open; this computer has not been shut down for at least 3 months.
When you opened the project, did Audacity show you a message box warning of errors in the project? What did the errors say?
I suggest you attach the AUP file and post the contents of Help > Show Log… . There isn’t an easy way to capture the log information, but you can click at the top, drag the selection down to the bottom, then COMMAND + C to copy, then paste into your reply.
09:10:00: Audacity 2.0.5
09:10:00: Trying to load FFmpeg libraries…
09:10:00: Trying to load FFmpeg libraries from default path, ‘/Library/Application Support/audacity/libs/libavformat.52.dylib’.
09:10:00: Checking for monolithic avformat from ‘/Library/Application Support/audacity/libs/libavformat.52.dylib’.
09:10:00: Error: dlopen(/Library/Application Support/audacity/libs/libavformat.52.dylib, 1): image not found
09:10:00: Loading avutil from ‘/Library/Application Support/audacity/libs/libavutil.50.dylib’.
09:10:00: Error: dlopen(/Library/Application Support/audacity/libs/libavutil.50.dylib, 1): image not found
09:10:00: Loading avcodec from ‘/Library/Application Support/audacity/libs/libavcodec.52.dylib’.
09:10:00: Error: dlopen(/Library/Application Support/audacity/libs/libavcodec.52.dylib, 1): image not found
09:10:00: Loading avformat from ‘/Library/Application Support/audacity/libs/libavformat.52.dylib’.
09:10:00: Error: dlopen(/Library/Application Support/audacity/libs/libavformat.52.dylib, 1): image not found
09:10:00: Error: Failed to load FFmpeg libraries.
09:10:00: Trying to load FFmpeg libraries from legacy path, ‘/usr/local/lib/audacity/libavformat.52.dylib’.
09:10:00: Checking for monolithic avformat from ‘/usr/local/lib/audacity/libavformat.52.dylib’.
09:10:00: Error: dlopen(/usr/local/lib/audacity/libavformat.52.dylib, 1): image not found
09:10:00: Loading avutil from ‘/usr/local/lib/audacity/libavutil.50.dylib’.
09:10:00: Error: dlopen(/usr/local/lib/audacity/libavutil.50.dylib, 1): image not found
09:10:00: Loading avcodec from ‘/usr/local/lib/audacity/libavcodec.52.dylib’.
09:10:00: Error: dlopen(/usr/local/lib/audacity/libavcodec.52.dylib, 1): image not found
09:10:00: Loading avformat from ‘/usr/local/lib/audacity/libavformat.52.dylib’.
09:10:00: Error: dlopen(/usr/local/lib/audacity/libavformat.52.dylib, 1): image not found
09:10:00: Error: Failed to load FFmpeg libraries.
09:10:00: Trying to load FFmpeg libraries from system paths. File name is ‘libavformat.52.dylib’.
09:10:00: Checking for monolithic avformat from ‘libavformat.52.dylib’.
09:10:00: Error: dlopen(libavformat.52.dylib, 1): image not found
09:10:00: Loading avutil from ‘libavutil.50.dylib’.
09:10:00: Error: dlopen(libavutil.50.dylib, 1): image not found
09:10:00: Loading avcodec from ‘libavcodec.52.dylib’.
09:10:00: Error: dlopen(libavcodec.52.dylib, 1): image not found
09:10:00: Loading avformat from ‘libavformat.52.dylib’.
09:10:00: Error: dlopen(libavformat.52.dylib, 1): image not found
09:10:00: Error: Failed to load FFmpeg libraries.
09:10:00: Error: Failed to find compatible FFmpeg libraries.
Is that really all the log? If not please attach all of it as requested, and attach the AUP file.
I’ll ask again:
It is highly unlikely that a project would reopen with silenced waveforms with no errors, unless the waveforms actually are silence. Try dragging in one of the AU files from the _data folder for the project. Is it silence?
Have you reorganised the files in the _data folder? Audacity won’t tolerate that.
This same thing just happened to me, I have been using audacity for years and have never had this happen. I recorded a hour and a half long dj mix into a macbook running 10.4.11, using audacity version 2.0.3, at the end of the mix i saved the version as, and when i re-opened it all the audio is there, the levels are fine, but the screen is blank where the visible waveform usually is…Is there any way to retrieve this info?
That’s all of the log. I’ve tried opening it multiple times, there’s never been a message box warning of errors.
I’ve not touched anything in any of the project or application folders…most software I’ve used doesn’t tolerate it anyway. A frustrating situation, I must say.
As previously explained, if the AU files in the _data folder are silence (which you can test by dragging some of them into Audacity), then there is nothing you can do. If the project crashed before, it recovered with silenced waveforms and you saved the project with silent waveforms, that is how the AU files now are.
If you had previously saved the project and then did Save Project As… to another name, make sure you are opening the correct (latest) version of the project.
Otherwise, please read all the replies in this topic for how to attach the log and how to attach the AUP file so we have some information to go on.
Alternatively if you did not edit the recordings, you can recover them manually using Recovery Tools .
You never said you did. If you didn’t, then you never actually made a recording. Audacity can be set to record from normal sound services independent of what the rest of the computer is doing. This recently killed a recordist on the forum who recorded the laptop microphone instead of a lecture.