Audacity Forum

Hello!!

I was editing a stereo audio track in a project I was about to export
using WAV. While I was editing, I muted all the other tracks in the
project. When I was done editing, I saved the project, exported it and
closed Audacity. It wasn't until after I exported the project that I
realized I had not 'un-muted' the other tracks...The resulting WAV
file was created successfully (i.e. all of the tracks I had muted were
'un-muted' in the WAV file), but when I went back into Audacity and
opened the project, the control panels for the tracks I had muted were
there, but their waveform displays had all flat lined...When I played
the project, only the audio track I had been working on played, and it
played with difficulty: it had patches of silence throughout and about
8 mins. into the track, the left channel was completely out of sync
with the right channel.

In addition to these problems, there was an error window that kept popping up
with the same message:
11/06/07 16:06:16: can't open file 'C:UsersCheeksMusicAudacityHM
Script-Short 4-2_datab01924.au' (error 2: the system cannot find the
file specified.)

On top of all this, all files that are related to this project (i.e. any
edits of this project that I have saved) now have the same playback issues and
error, with the exception of the 'mother' Audacity file this project
was created from. The 'mother' file plays as it should, although there
are two large pockets of silence in the first 34 seconds of the file,
and the error message pops up when I attempt to play or modify it or
scan though it using the curser.

So, is there any way, shape or form I could retrieve my edited audio track
(in its entirety and and in sync) from this project? That's the only
track I am interested in having. Also, is there any way to restore the
'mother' file, or at the least, be able use the remainder of the file
(that is, minus the corrupted 34 seconds) normally again?

Thank you for all for help,

C.

First, the Export function in Audacity pays no attention to whether or not a track is muted. So if you don't want a track included, you have to either remove it from the project, or highlight everything else and use Export Selection. This is annoying, I know. I hope it's changed in the future.

Second, you've got some data storage issues. It's difficult to say where they're originating. Hopefully you'll be able to track it down.

I'll start by explaining how an Audacity project is stored. When you use the Save Project function, Audacity will do two things:
1) Make a PROJECT_NAME.aup file
2) Make a PROJECT_NAME_data folder

Both of these will be in the same spot on your hard drive.

Inside the folder, Audacity will place many small *.au files. Each of these (except 2, which are graphic files, I think) contains a short piece of the audio in your project, split into small chunks to make it easier for Audacity to read all this from your hard drive. All the audio you've edited and created in Audacity resides here.

But there's a problem. If you import any audio into Audacity, the project will be dependent on the imported files. If those files are moved or deleted, Audacity will not be able to read that data and you will not hear it when it plays. But this won't be immediately obvious since Audacity stores data about what the waveform looks like in those two graphic files I mentioned earlier. This is done to speed up Audacity when it's opening an older project. But it also makes it look as if Audio is there when it isn't. If you zoom in on a project that looks like it had audio but doesn't play, the waveforms will disappear because Audacity doesn't know what they look like in detail.

You can open the PROJECT_NAME.aup file to see what files a project is dependent on. It won't be obvious, but look for references to folders and audio files. Each of those files needs to be in the place the .aup file specifies.

The really scary thing is that Audacity wasn't even able to find that .au files reliably. Which means that something is messing with those files when it shouldn't be. You might have a rogue virus checker (evil, evil programs) that is quarantining all those .au files because it doesn't know what they are.

The thing you need to do is find out why your computer can't access the .au files in the _data folder for your projects. It's either a problem with your hard drive or those files are simply missing. Have you deleted any of these audio files? If you have, they need to be restored or replaced with exact copies. If not, then you need to find out what's going on with your hard drive. It might be on the fritz.

Once more thing, any project that you make as an off-shoot of an older project is also dependent on the older project and any of that older project's dependencies. So in order to fix your new projects you'll have to fix all the subsequent older edits to it.