Audacity Forum

As a relatively new Linux user, I've been following this thread with interest.

When you open Audacity and start recording, the data is stored in lots of little data files in the temporary directory. When you then go to save that recording (you may also have done some editing before you save the project), Audacity moves all the data that it needs for the project into the new project data folder, and throws away any data that is no longer required for the project. This seems like a slightly risky business to me, but it works, at least most of the time.

From the description, it sounds like this may not have happened correctly on this occasion. Hence, next time you went to open a project (in this case the same project?) Audacity found some files that it did not know what to do with (the poor little orphans).

Certainly, it is risky to start a new project with orphaned data files floating in the system, so as far as creating a new project is concerned, deleting the orphaned files is the safe option. Unfortunately, on this occasion, it seems that the temporary files had not been correctly moved to the new data folder, so deleting the orphaned files eliminated the (very slim) possibility of being able to recover the project.

Looking on the bright side, if you had not deleted thos files and had discovered 8 hours worth of data fragments, you could have ended up spending weeks trying to re-assemble the project and most likely still had bits missing or in the wrong place.

I rarely make long duration recordings, but on the few occasions that I do, I open Audacity, then save the (empty) project. Once a project has been saved, Audacity does not need to use the temporary directory, because it has been given a location for the project. Instead of using the temporary folder, it will write its data files directly into the project folder, so as you start to record, the data will be written into the actual project data folder. It does not then need to be moved when you save the project at the end.

I don't know if this method is actually any safer, but to me it sounds like a safer option, particularly when there are huge amounts of data concerned. In the event of a crash, the data files will be in the data folder, not the temporary folder, and they will not be in the way of any new projects. If Audacity warns me of orphaned files when I open the project, I immediately know that there is a problem with the data files for this project (because the temporary directory is empty and not in use).

This does not help you to retrieve your project, but it may help to avoid a repeat occurrence.

<<<I rarely make long duration recordings, but on the few occasions that I do, I open Audacity, then save the (empty) project. Once a project has been saved, Audacity does not need to use the temporary directory, because it has been given a location for the project.>>>

This is me writing that down.

Koz

Great tip that Steve - do you happen to know if the same behaviour obtains in Windows Audacity?

WC

waxcylinder wrote:Great tip that Steve - do you happen to know if the same behaviour obtains in Windows Audacity?
WC

That's what happens in Audacity 1.3 on WinXP and Xubuntu 8.04. These are the only combinations I've tested but it is probably the same for all versions.

Note that Audacity will still throw away any data files that it does not need for a project when you close Audacity.

Wow,

I've been away for a long time, but hearing this account of how audacity handles project data internally is enough to make me adopt this method of saving the empty project for every recording regardless of the duration.

Thanks for your post, and maybe this might be an enhancement for the developers to consider? Also, as may have been hinted earlier, if insufficient disk space could also be a cause for such behavior, possibly gracefully terminating the recording and preserving what has been recorded already without crashing would also be a plus.

Thanks for all of your help!