Recovering orphan files (AUP file saved is too short)

Audacity Help Forum macOS
1

I’m using Mac OSX 10.10 Yosemite, and Audacity 2.0.6, installed via the .dmg installer.

I just finished editing a 20 minute interview (recorded direct via Audacity), this was saved and reopened several times successfully as an .aup project file.

Before outputting to WAV or MP3 I then updated Audacity to 2.0.6 (it was 2.0.3 previously). Upon reopened the project, I was then given this message (see screenshot linked to below), warning that there were 304 unused orphan block files, which weren’t used by the project. The data folders are still present, but there doesn’t seem to be a way of importing them back into the project.

http://i.imgur.com/mQvngFF.png

The timeline then only displayed the first 1 minute of audio.

Trawling through the forums and site, this sounds like Bug 137, but there doesn’t seem to be a updated solution to this issue. I have a deadline to meet for publishing this interview, so please could you let me know how to resolve it as soon as possible? I’ve pasted the XML code from the .aup file below:

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="no" ?>
<!DOCTYPE project PUBLIC "-//audacityproject-1.3.0//DTD//EN" "http://audacityteam.org/xml/audacityproject-1.3.0.dtd" >
<project xmlns="http://audacityteam.org/xml/" projname="karen interview_data" version="1.3.0" audacityversion="2.0.6" sel0="832.0174149660" sel1="832.0174149660" vpos="0" h="0.0000000000" zoom="23.8314172326" rate="44100.0" snapto="off" selectionformat="hh:mm:ss + milliseconds">
	<tags/>
	<wavetrack name="Audio Track" channel="0" linked="1" mute="0" solo="0" height="150" minimized="0" isSelected="1" rate="44100" gain="1.0" pan="0.0">
		<waveclip offset="0.00000000">
			<sequence maxsamples="524288" sampleformat="131073" numsamples="2346432">
				<waveblock start="0">
					<simpleblockfile filename="e0000891.au" len="524288" min="-0.385437" max="0.406708" rms="0.036957"/>
				</waveblock>
				<waveblock start="524288">
					<simpleblockfile filename="e0000d43.au" len="524288" min="-0.3284" max="0.333344" rms="0.031648"/>
				</waveblock>
				<waveblock start="1048576">
					<simpleblockfile filename="e0000527.au" len="524288" min="-0.357574" max="0.42804" rms="0.039013"/>
				</waveblock>
				<waveblock start="1572864">
					<simpleblockfile filename="e0000a30.au" len="524288" min="-0.31424" max="0.314056" rms="0.033834"/>
				</waveblock>
				<waveblock start="2097152">
					<simpleblockfile filename="e0000845.au" len="249280" min="-0.174438" max="0.199524" rms="0.018587"/>
				</waveblock>
			</sequence>
			<envelope numpoints="0"/>
		</waveclip>
	</wavetrack>
	<wavetrack name="Audio Track" channel="1" linked="0" mute="0" solo="0" height="150" minimized="0" isSelected="1" rate="44100" gain="1.0" pan="0.0">
		<waveclip offset="0.00000000">
			<sequence maxsamples="524288" sampleformat="131073" numsamples="2346432">
				<waveblock start="0">
					<simpleblockfile filename="e0000138.au" len="524288" min="-0.385437" max="0.406708" rms="0.036957"/>
				</waveblock>
				<waveblock start="524288">
					<simpleblockfile filename="e000096c.au" len="524288" min="-0.3284" max="0.333344" rms="0.031648"/>
				</waveblock>
				<waveblock start="1048576">
					<simpleblockfile filename="e0000dc5.au" len="524288" min="-0.357574" max="0.42804" rms="0.039013"/>
				</waveblock>
				<waveblock start="1572864">
					<simpleblockfile filename="e0000432.au" len="524288" min="-0.31424" max="0.314056" rms="0.033834"/>
				</waveblock>
				<waveblock start="2097152">
					<simpleblockfile filename="e0000208.au" len="249280" min="-0.174438" max="0.199524" rms="0.018587"/>
				</waveblock>
			</sequence>
			<envelope numpoints="0"/>
		</waveclip>
	</wavetrack>
</project>

Thanks!
Dave

2

Hi Dave,

Audacity does not yet support Yosemite, so you use Audacity at your own risk.

As you can see, you only have about a minute of audio referenced in the AUP file.

The project audio is 16-bit, so I assume you have subsequently changed Default Sample Format in Audacity’s Quality Preferences to 32-bit float. Do you know when you did that, or did you delete the audacity.cfg settings file?

You say you edited the recording, but unless the rest of the audio is unedited, it cannot be recovered in the correct order without the AUP file. All you can do is drag the AU files into the project window and try to piece them together. :frowning:

If you had an unedited recording you would do the following, so I will post the procedure for anyone else in that position.

You would close the project, make a copy of the “karen interview_data” folder and then delete the 10 AU files mentioned in the AUP from the “d00” subfolder in the copy.

Then in the copy, sort the remaining AU files by time stamp and rename them to a consecutive naming sequence (you can use Automator). Then use the “1.2 Recovery Utility” to make WAV files for the left and right channels of the audio and import the WAV’s into the project. The left and right channels of the WAV files may be reversed here and there.

The process is described at http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/recovering_crashes_manually.html#Automatic_recovery_tools.


Gale

3

Thanks for the fast response.

I haven’t changed the project audio to 16 bit at any stage, nor changed any of Audacity’s preferences. The only time I’ve used Audacity’s preferences is to install the LAME mp3 encoder really. When updating I just replaced the folder in applications, not sure if that has something to do with it.

Sorry to hear that there’s no way to repair the AUP file, and that my file is essentially lost. Hope this has been useful feedback for bug checking anyway.

…I’ve just checked my phone’s Spreaker app, which I didn’t think was working during the record (as a backup), and it’s recorded a version of the interview successfully. Naturally I’ll be very careful when saving projects in the future.

4

I’m glad to hear you have a copy of the recording. :slight_smile:

If you can’t complete the editing in one Audacity session, I suggest you export a WAV before saving the project and quitting Audacity. WAV’s are a single entity so won’t disintegrate in the way a project file and data might.

Obviously I can’t guess what happened if the project appeared to save normally, but I made a note of the thread.


Gale