I’m using Audacity 1.2.5 on Mac.
I can’t do more than 2 or 3 edits (cutting and pasting) before the project crashes and I have to reopen it again. Sometimes I can’t even get a chance to save it first. The project has only two audio tracks (both in stereo). One track is 30 minutes long and the other is about 7 minutes long.
Stop doing that. Audacity 1.2.5 is ancient and known to be unstable.
http://audacityteam.org/download/mac
Koz
The problem is that all my projects are in this old version of Audacity, and I have read that if I try to open them in the new version, it won’t work.
Audacity Projects are upward compatible. Once you open and edit a Project in a new Audacity, you can’t save it in an older format.
If it worries you, you an open and Export your shows as stand-alone WAV files. Those open up on any computer in any program.
You can install two different Audacitys. You can install one of them Portable. I’m a little foggy how this works.
http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=Portable_Audacity
Koz
In most cases you can open 1.2 projects in 2.x, but if you make changes to the project and save those changes in 2.x then you you cannot open that project again in 1.2.
There is a small possibility Audacity 2.x could corrupt a project created in 1.2. So we suggest making a backup copy of the project’s .aup file and _data folder to a new folder before opening the project in 2.x.
If 2.x will not open the project correctly, reopen the backup project in 1.2 and export each track as a WAV or AIFF file. You can also export label tracks if you have them. Then import the WAV or AIFF files and label files into 2.x and File > Save Project.
Gale