Seeking help with Audacity project files from 2009

Audacity 3 Help Forum
1

Trying (and struggling) to get some old projects to open. It looks like I was using v1.3beta at the time? Around 2009. I was able to recover the _data directories and .aup.bak files from my old Gateway hard drive running Windows XP, but I’ve hit a few snags:

  1. when I try to open the .aup files, I get an error in Audacity that it can’t be opened. They aren’t XML, but some kind of illegible binary.
  2. when I try to import .au files as raw data, I end up with different sorts of static/robot chirping noises depending on the import settings like sample rate, bit depth, encoding, etc.

My worst fear is that the audio files were corrupted, but they also look more or less like performances when I import at certain settings. In any case, I’ve definitely reached the limits of my skillset and could use some help with these. If anyone wants to try opening the project themselves, or point me in the direction of a professional who could help me recover the stems…wow, I’d be ecstatic.

Files for one song can be found here: Audacity files - Google Drive

Thanks so much,
Kyle

2

Hi Kyle,
I tried opening the project you posted using v3.7.3 after renaming the aup.bak file to aup. The error message was:
Could not open file /home/markb/Audio-editing/Damaged/I Guess_I’m Leaving.aup: Incorrect filetype.
I tried to get details from MediaInfo and it said:

General
Complete name : /home/markb/Audio-editing/Damaged/I Guess_I’m Leaving.aup
Format : MPEG Audio
File size : 93.2 KiB
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Conformance errors : 1

  • MPEG-Audio : Yes*
  • General compliance : Bitstream synchronisation is lost (conf, offset 0xDC51)*
    FileExtension_Invalid : m1a mpa mpa1 mp1 m2a mpa2 mp2 mp3

Audio
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 1
Format settings : CCITT
Bit rate mode : Variable
Channel(s) : 1 channel
Sampling rate : 32.0 kHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 55.1 KiB (59%)
Maybe that information will help with a diagnosis but I don’t know what to suggest.
Mark B

3

The file I Guess, I'm Leaving.aup.bak is irretrievably corrupt.

Many of the .au files are zero-byte (empty) files with no data at all.

I have looked at a couple of .au files that are not empty, but they contain garbage.

Unfortunately the project that you posted is not recoverable.

5

Hex editor shows the “aup.bak” file contains some spurious text …

spware doctor
spware doctor705×276 8.66 KB

6

I believe support for 1.3 projects was removed sometime in early 2.x. So you’ll need to open the project in Audacity 2.0 first, then save in that version, and then you should be able to open it in 3.x. If the file isn’t corrupt, that is.