Problem with saving projects

[ngutman]

I open a previously saved project music.aup.
I do some editing and click File>Save assuming that it will save under the same name and replace what's there.
It seems to save under music.aup.bak while the music.aup is still there.
The problem is then when I try to open music.aup.bak I get an error message about missing files.
When I try to open the music.aup I get nothing.
How can open that latest music.aup?
Thanks,
Nathan

[kozikowski]

Actually, what it did was save your new project as "AUP" and your old project as "BAK. Audacity keeps a rolling backup of one level.

An AUP file is a plain text file (open in NotePad or WordPad) with instructions about how to perform your show--written in computer-ese (XML).

Projects are clouds of files. You can get your problem by moving or deleting anything between your first project and the second. Compulsives (like me) get this when we "clean up" between shows and throw out all those files "we don't need any more."

We do. Original capture files can be part of a project. Damage or move any part of a project and your show turns to dust.

Koz

[ngutman]

Not sure that I understand...
I opened the music.aup project.
Deleted some dead sections and clicked File>Save.
The aup file went to 1kb.
The bak file is 8kb
When I open the aup file nothing comes up. When I try to open the bak file I get an error message about missing files.
Using Windows Explorer I looked at the dat file and there was nothing there.
Does this mean that the Save not only didn't save anything but wiped out everything in the dat file and there is no way to get it back?

[kozikowski]

Just to cover the bases, what does it say when you open up the two AUP files in Notepad? Do both files start with...

<?xml version-"1.0"?>

...Or is one of them trash?

It doesn't surprise me that you couldn't find a DAT file because there isn't one. However, you should find a showname_DATA folder and it should have a number of xxx.AU files in it. This could be most of your show.

All that and there is no "Save." There is a "Save Project." That's critical because Audacity doesn't use "Save" like everybody else does.

I'm trying to figure out a way to Save Project on a working show and get a blank project.

Given that this is the Windows forum, when was the last time you updated your virus software and did a comprehensive system scan?

Koz

[ngutman]

When I said Save I meant Save Project as opposed to Save Project As.
When AUP is opened in Notepad it start with <?xml version="1.0"? but it has very few lines of code. When opened in Audacity it shows the AUP file name in the top bar but nothing else. There is nothing there.
When AUP.BAK is opened in Notepad starts the same way and has many lines of code. When opened in Audacity it give an error message "can not ope file... error2 system cannot find the file specified".
When I look in the DAT folder it's either empty or has only one or two files in it. Somehow audacity deleted the files when using the Save Project command.

Virus software is being updated daily and scanned using AVG.

[steve]

Is this problem repeatable, or just a one off?
If it's repeatable, could you write down step be step what you are doing then perhaps we can replicate the fault.

[kozikowski]

Are you in Vista?

Don't give up on WordPad yet. The current AUP file represents the wiped clean project. The BAK AUP file represents the project when it was still alive. Make the WordPad window as large as possible and the lines of code will start to straighten out. You will see a series of "alias" listings followed by a directory structure like this:

aliasfile='C:Documents and SettingskozDesktoppiano2.wav'

That's where the AUP file thinks that particular music file is. You can use those to trace back and see if all the pieces of original music are in their proper place. It does bother me a lot that the _DATA folder is empty. That's really hard for a properly operating Audacity to do.

And please don't abbreviate or make assumptions. I went charging off looking for a "DAT" file before I realized that you really meant "_DATA" folder. Some of us help on multiple platforms in multiple forums.

Koz

[ngutman]

I figured it out!
When working on a string of project I was not closing Audacity but saving the project then clicking on "x" of the track. This closed the track (I thought that it was closing the project!) but left Audacity open with an empty track with the original project name. When Audacity was eventually closed it was saving empty projects.
Issue... how can one leave Audacity open and just close and open different projects? For example, when I work in Word I can open Word then open a document, edit it and save this document. Word is still open to work on another document.
It appears that to switch projects I need to close and reopen Audacity.
How can I edit and save a project in Audacity without actually closing Audacity itself so I can just click to open another project?
Nathan

[steve]

Using your example of a "Word" document:

The Word document (.doc) is a bit like the Audacity Project (.aup file + data)
The text in the Word document, is then like the audio data in the Audacity Project.

If I open a Word document, say "letter-1.doc", I then do some typing and editing and I can save it back as a Word document (either as "letter-1.doc", or as a new document).

If I now delete all the text in "letter-1.doc", that is the same as if I delete the audio data (the tracks) from my Audacity Project. In the case of Word, "letter-1.doc" is still the current document, and in Audacity, I am still in the same project.

Now there is a slight peculiarity in Audacity (for Windows users) - audacity does not quite follow the Microsoft convention of file menu commands. One would expect that "File->Exit" would close Audacity, and "File->Close" would close the current project, leaving Audacity open. This is not what happens - instead we have; "File->Close" causes Audacity to close.

This does not pose a major problem as long as we remember. Instead of doing "File->Close" then "File->New", we do it the other way round. Open a new project ("File->New") then close the old project (which will still be open in Audacity 1.2.6 as another Audacity Window).

Alternatively, If you are working on an Audacity project and we save it as "project01.aup", we can if we choose, delete all the tracks, do some more recording and then use "File->Save As" to save it as a different project.

Personally I like to shut down Audacity between projects and start Audacity fresh for my new project. Doing this will free up memory and disk space. (Audacity will generally remove all its temporary files when it is shut down).