Audacity Forum

I've edited 10 interviews all between 30 and 60 minutes long. They are each saved as completely separate project files in separate Windows directories and this morning when I opened one of them, to my horror it looks like all my project files have become corrupted.

When I play them the sounds starts playing an then stops after about 8 seconds. Now and again throughout the interview their are pockets were the sound will kick in again, but mostly it's silence.

I tried exporting the projects and playing back the published file but this is exactly the same as listening to the project in Audacity.

It's going to be gut wrenching if I have to edit these interviews all over again - can anyone offer any assistance?

I'm using Windows Vista (SP2) if that helps.

Flesh out what happens before you do the editing. Like, "I interview a subject for several hours and export as a WAV file for later editing." Do you do that?

Do the holes in the show always happen in the exact same place? Close the show and Audacity and open it all up again. Same holes?

How big is your hard drive and how much room do you have?

-- Right Click Start > Explore > Right Click Local Drive C: > Properties (Used, Remaining)

Koz

Hi Koz,

Thanks for your reply - I actually figured out what the issue was.

I'd put raw .wav files in individual folders and the .aup project files I also saved in the same folder. After finishing with the editing and saving the project file I renamed the folder in windows to mark it as done so I could move onto the next interview to edit. I didn't realise until I'd finished editing all the interviews and went back to open them, that Audacity was looking for the raw .wav files under the old folder name. As soon as I renamed the folder back to what it was before, the project files worked properly again.

I guess it's a design flaw in Audacity - when a project file is opened it should bring up an error saying it can't locate the original audio files - this would have saved a lot of head scratching (or banging against the wall)!

I don't care though, I'm glad to know those hours and hours of editing have not gone to waste!

Cheers.

You're not the first user to fall into this bear trap - and you won't be the last by any means. Actually it's normally the tidy ones who clean up like you who suffer the most.

The underlying problem is that Audacity can be set to either properly import an external uncompressed file (like a WAV file) and make a copy of it in the project - or it can reference the the WAV file as an external file. And thereby lies the bear-trap as the Audacity OOTB default is set to reference the file rather than copy it in - even though to most users "Import" would seem to mean drag a copy in.

You can reset it in 1.2 by hoing to Edit > Preferences and select the File Formats tab. Then check the radio button that says "Make a copy ... (safer)" - and I strongly recomment that you do that.

We have requested many times that this default be reversed - but the develepors set it that way to improve performance and reduce disk space usage. But as you have found out it can be dangerous for those who do not understand the implications. At least you managed to get your project back - some poor folk lose theirs forever ...

WC