Using a Ubuntu system I don’t have access to anymore (and which exact system version I don’t know), I used Audacity (version number unkown, but probably rather a newer version > V2.0.0) to record 31 tracks simultaneously, in lets say 10 separate sessions of different lengths, in total probably around 30 minutes. To prevent misunderstandings: 10 sessions including 31 tracks each. After exporting those recordings into 31-track-WAV-files, I noticed that the export didnt work out with all sessions. I was able to rescue the tmp-files, but since my recordings are not only mono or stereo but 31 tracks, I have bigger difficulties in stitching the pieces together again.
Following the instructions on http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/recovering_crashes_manually.html
and using the Audacity Recovery Utility I managed to create 31 tracks of WAV audio, but the content does not seem to make to much sense. Obviously, the track order changes every six seconds.
My questions:
• Has anybody ever successfully solved a similar problem (similar in track count and recording length)?
• Does Audacity REALLY name those tmp files randomly (and if so, and as we at it: why, oh why?!), or is there a kind of order in the naming system?
• Has anybody any idea for a way not mentioned in http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/recovering_crashes_manually.html to solve this without moving every little six-second-piece manually?
BTW: I am posting in this forum since I am working now on a Mac (10.10 Yosemite) and have no access to the Ubuntu system anymore.
The naming convention is intentionally random, I understand against the possibility of ever accidentally duplicating a name. I suggested there must be a way to do that in a predictable format as the current method just kills people with show damage.
Lest you think this fixable, it’s not. That just gets you into the discussion of better effort should be placed into designing a unitary file system rather than fixing the current one. That’s too much work so let’s do nothing.
Thanks for the quick reply! Now I know at least that the recovery I thought I managed to have done is a rather theoretical one… I’ll try to move on without the missing recordings.
I mean, the problem should really not be unsolvable. Identifying the 31 pieces that form a certain 6-seconds-part is not difficult. Only identifying which file goes to which track is. But that should be something a good piece of software should be able to do, comparing current amplitude on the end of one file and the beginning of the other (assuming that sudden jumps in level exactly on this position are rather rare), plus the spectrum of the last and first lets say 0,5 seconds of each consecutive file, if you know what I mean. Anybody out there willing to try to program this?
In what way did the export not work out? Did you mix tracks together where you did not intend?
Do you still have those WAV files?
Are you saying Audacity crashed at some point? If yes, there should be automatic recovery. You should have recovered on Linux, or brought the AUTOSAVE files across from Linux. In theory all you need to do then is restart Audacity and recover the unsaved project(s).
If it did not crash, then you should have saved a project and you would not have this problem.
To get the channels in the correct order you need sufficiently accurate timestamps. If you are now using Mac, the maximum time resolution of its HFS+ file system is 1 second, so recovery will never work completely accurately for more than one channel. The new Apple APFS file system being worked on will change that.
In what way did the export not work out? Did you mix tracks together where you did not intend?
No, nothing was mixed. Everything worked fine until I checked the exported files that turned out to be "Unix Executable File"s of “Zero bytes” size (at least under MacOs; Ubuntu showed them as something different, but with the same size). Unfortunately, I already closed the Audacity sessions for those faulty exports. But since Audacity itself was still up, I managed to rescue the tmp files when I noticed the problem.
Do you still have those WAV files?
Could you please specify what you mean by “those WAV files”? If you’re referring to the exported files: the faulty ones never were .WAV files, despite what I asked Audacity to render them to. The successfully exported ones of course I still possess. And also the tmp-files, which of course aren’t .WAV.
(Please forgive my possibly strange English, I am German native speaker)
Of course I should have saved the project sessions, but I didnt. If I would have, I wouldn’t have had to post my request here, right? I think you might agree that there is no need to discuss that possibility any further. It really wouldnt be helpful either to point me to the fact that I could have checked the exported files BEFORE I closed the projects. I know that myself, and if I wouldnt have known that before, I would know it by now, and believe me: the way I usually work is a different one in terms of data security etc. (also not including Audacity, actually), but sometimes time- and equipment-demands get you in places where mistakes happen.
Yes, timestamps would be the key, but they’re not available. It would be also helpful to have someone to program that app I mentioned before, but no one’s going to do that, either… Well, I am out of luck!
