Help...error message

[skennedytrainer]

I have been working in Audacity to edit files of a recording of a class I taught.

I've had no issues until yesterday when I went to continue editing a file I had previously been working on (for over a week...so opened, edited, saved and closed multiple times).

Here is the error message I'm getting when I try to File>Open (same error message if I just double click to open the file that way):

"The file you selected is an audacity project file.

Only audio files, not project files, can be imported into an existing project. To open a project file, select Open from the file menu."

I don't seem to be having this issue with any of my previous files...only this one. Of course, I've put in a ridiculous amount of hours on this particular file (oy!) so I'm hoping to find a way to retrieve this rather than starting over from scratch.

I'm much appreciative for any ideas or advise in this area.

Stacy

[kozikowski]

I can't reproduce this problem. But I can tell you that Audacity 1.2 used to behave differently when you were inside the program and File > Open, than it did when you right-clicked on an AUP file > Open With...

Try that. Close Audacity and make Windows open it for you.

If that works, then you have your show back, but I would without question stop using Audacity 1.2. 1.2 is very old now and is no longer supported, updated or patched and can become profoundly unstable on modern computers. Do you have Windows set to automatic update? Then you have a modern computer.

Audacity 1.3.12 will open 1.2 Projects and you can have both versions installed -- just don't try to run both at once.

http://audacityteam.org/download/

Koz

[kozikowski]

I'm thinking about possible differences between this show and the others. Did you use unfortunate filenames on this show? Any dates for example? Audacity hates that. Upper and lower case letters, numbers, dash and underscore are the only universally safe characters in filenames.

Koz

[skennedytrainer]

Thank you, Koz. I went ahead and downloaded the newer version and tried opening it with that. Same (well, similar) error message. I also tried "open with" and it gave the same message. Originally the file name was "Taking Over Management" without the quotes, but otherwise written exactly that way. I just changed the filename to management_takeover and changed both files and the folder...same message.

I'm so bummed...I can't believe how much work went into that one file.

I'm so appreciative that you gave me several things to try. I was hopeful!

If you think of any other ideas, I'm all ears. Thank you again for your help. I feel like I'm on an island with this stuff, so you're awesome for helping!

Oh, here is the message on the new audacity:

Audacity did not recognize the type of the file management_takeover.aup
If it is uncompressed , try importing it using "Import Raw".

Oh yeah...and for kicks, I tried the import raw...same thing.

[steve]

Same (well, similar) error message.

Could you say exactly what the error message in 1.3.12 is (the exact message is probably important).

I just changed the filename to management_takeover and changed both files and the folder

Changing the name is a very dangerous thing to do.
The .AUP file contains references to data in the _data folder. If you change the name of the _data folder then Audacity will not be able to find the audio data.
Change the file name back to "Taking Over Management".
I presume that the data folder was called "Taking Over Management_data" - change that back also.

Could you also post the .AUP file (when you reply to this post you will see a feature for uploading attachments directly below the compose message box.

Do not delete anything from your computer while we try to sort this out.
Do not empty the Windows Trash Can.

[skennedytrainer]

Thank you, Steve.

The exact error message says, "Audacity did not recognize the type of file 'C:UsersuseDesktopSpeakingMJKBAMTS ProductTaking Over Management.aup'. If it is uncompressed, try importing it using "Import Raw".

I only changed the name after it started not working, but I have changed it back per your suggestion.

I've attached both the .aup file and the aup.bak file.

THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart!! I am so grateful for the help!

[skennedytrainer]

Oops...apparently the .aup.bak file didn't attach. Here it is.

Oh wait...I see an error that says "The extension bak is now allowed" at the top of my screen right now.

[kozikowski]

That's OK. we got it already. The file is blank.

You can open up an AUP file in notepad or wordpad and read it. It's a text file like this...

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/aup1.jpg

Yours, however, is completely white screen blank. I'm guessing the last time you saved it, it didn't.

Koz

[billw58]

Yours, however, is completely white screen blank. I'm guessing the last time you saved it, it didn't.

Confirmed. I looked at it in a hex editor, and it is 146 kB of zeros. Very, very strange.

-- Bill

[steve]

Unfortunately Koz and Bill are absolutely correct - that file is 146 KB of nothing. That explains the strange error message, but why or how your project has ended up like that is a mystery. Sadly this means that your project no longer exists.

If you still have the _data folder and it has all of the .AU files in it, there is a slim chance that you may be able to recover some of your project. I have never tried this myself, but the instructions are here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/CrashRecovery
Personally I would cut my losses at this point and accept that the project was lost, but you may be more tenacious than myself.

It may be worth mentioning at this point that on modern computers Audacity 1.3.12 tends to be a lot more reliable than the old 1.2 version, and in the event of a crash it is very good at automatically recovering the project the next time it is opened.