Put project into its own folder, now no audio

[Piers]

I put a whole song project (including data) into its own discrete folder instead of one shared with other music. Then when I opened the project (which consists of several tracks) to work on, I couldn't hear any audio apart from some occasional fragments. Despite this, the complete track waveforms are still visible on the various tracks.

I'd be grateful for any help.

[kozikowski]

You can't move Projects. The filenames and locations of the show are burned into the coding inside the AUP file. If reality and the AUP file do not match, the show dies. Put it all back.

The graphics on the screen are created from two or more picture files. You can have perfect pictures and no show.

If you want something you can freely move, Export As WAV and move that about. That's highly recommended anyway. Projects are brittle and easily damaged. WAV files are not.

Koz

[Piers]

Thanks for your reply. As a computer illiterate I may be getting the terminology wrong, but I didn't consider I'd 'moved' anything as such. I created a new folder within my 'my music' folder and dragged and dropped everything of that song project (several instrument tracks, aup files, and the edited project) into that. BTW those several original component tracks of the lost project play fine.

How would I implement your suggestion to 'put them back?'

[kozikowski]

<<<I didn't consider I'd 'moved' anything as such.>>>

Each folder in a computer has a name and is considered a "location." This name is recorded, literally, inside the programming of your Project. When I open up a Project, Audacity is going to look for my work in (for example)

koz > Documents and Settings > Music > Flute Performance

That's the name and location of my "Music" folder and the performance inside it. If I add a folder and move my performance to that, like this...

koz > Documents and Settings > Music > Audacity Captures > Flute Performance

...Audacity will not be able to find my show. It's still looking for Flute Performance inside Music, not Audacity Captures. Programming like this is absolute, single minded, and stupid and it's how most programming works.

By far the easiest way to rescue your show is to put all the parts of your show back where they started, Change all the filenames back the way they were and hope you don't miss anything. The fact that some pieces of your show survived the transition illustrates that Audacity has no actual show. It just manages massive pieces and fragments and clips until the time comes to export a sound file. And I would do that at every opportunity. Sound files (WAV) are not brittle and they do actually travel well, but Audacity will not Save one. You have to Export.

Koz

[kozikowski]

The blue waves on the screen are created by two or more picture files, not the show. If you start moving things around, it's perfectly possible to have all the waveforms and no show at all.

There is a way to fix all this without moving your files around, but it means you have to manually write your AUP file to reflect the new locations and folder names that you chose.

You can do that in Windows WordPad. Here's simple AUP file in graphic form.

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/aup1.jpg

You generally have to be a programmer to make this work. Far easier to put the files back.

Koz

[Piers]

Thanks for taking the time to explain and define the architecture of this to me. Hopefully I can effect a rescue with this info.

[Piers]

Copied and pasted back to where it was and I'm back in business. Thanks again for your guidance.