Audacity Forum

I edited several hours' worth of clips and saved them as aup files so I could continue working with them (with the goal of eventually putting clips together into one file and exporting it). Now when I open the aup files, I see that the audio is there, but it plays for a couple of seconds then cuts out and continues to cut in and out at regular intervals throughout the clip. It does this with every one of the files I've edited. Why is this happening, and what can I do?

I have Audacity 1.2.6, and I'm working on a PC with Windows.

Thanks,
Kathryn

You already figured out that Audacity doesn't save sound files, you need to Export to get one of those.

Audacity does save Projects, and they're magic. You can't move or change in any way any of the clips you used in your show. Audacity doesn't import those clips, it just points to them in their original names and locations.

This regularly kills the neat and orderly crowd who finish their edit and clean up all those sound files and clips they "don't need any more." Blammo. No show. Whatever you did to those clips you need to undo. If you permanently deleted them, then you really have no show.

Another illustration of this idea is the people who use sound from a Music CD. They eject the CD and their show turns to ashes.

I urge strongly Exporting regularly as you go and never move or damage any original sound until after show delivery to the client. Waiting until the very end is dangerous and can cause problems.

The blue waves on the screen are painted by two of the AU files (they're not all sound snippets). It's perfectly possible to accidentally damage external production clips so badly that you have blue waves and no sound at all.

Koz