Recorded and Saved LP Projects Cannot be found

[Darlene]

I am having a terrible problem with my projects. I record LP's onto Audacity and then export them into wav files. Everything has been working great and then I noticed that a couple of the projects seemed to have disappeared. Laterally almost before my eyes. I opened a project last night, closed it, exported the multiple tracks and then tried to open the same project again and got the following message pop-ups:

Error opening project Couldn't find the project data folder: "Title_data" and then Error opening project Unable to open project file

The size of the file still seems to be there (ex: 38 kb), but I cannot access the file. I tried recovery but it just doesn’t work completely. HELP!!! I have an entire Marvin Gaye collection that I cannot not access now and I have 30 other albums so far that are now vulnerable to being lost - we're talking days of recording and editting time lost if this can't be figured out.

My computer C: drive has 68 gb used and 110 gb available so I have plenty of space available for these files. HELP!

[kozikowski]

A project isn't "a file." A project can be hundreds or thousands of files managed by a supervisory file--the aup file. This is the file everybody thinks is their show. It's not. It's job is to point to their show. The aup file can be opened up in NotePad and read. Here's a simple one...

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

You are right in Exporting As WAV at the end of a capture session. AndrewsSistersSideOne.wav

WAV files really are portable, self contained sound files.

Here's some notes on how Audacity Projects work.

http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... ement_Tips

One way Audacity may start making errors is if your hard drive is badly fragmented. Have you ever defragmented and error checked your hard drive?

Koz

[Darlene]

Your reply is very frustrating and not helpful. I don't need an explanation of what things are called. I am using the words that Audacity uses. The "title.aup" file is what I open up to edit (cut, copy, export) what I have copied into the Audacity program. It is now not opening or available. Do you have any solution for me besides me spending 30 more hours repeating what I have done already? This is not a problem with my computer. I checked my defrag and after analyzing the message was "you do not need to defragment this volume." I have seen someone else in this forum that has the same problem that just posted on 2-09 "Sudden difficulties" by Bidley, but he never received a solution to his problem either.

[kozikowski]

What we're trying to explain is that Audacity Projects are not "a file." One project can be multiple files and folders. Because of their complex nature, Projects are brittle and easily damaged, something not generally explained very well in the Audacity documentation.

People can lose projects by a number of means, but given a healthy machine, the most likely cause is you. The worst thing you can do in the middle of a Project is delete, "clean up" or "organize" your files and folders. You can't move or rename anything particularly the _data folders. If you do that, the Audacity Project Manager (the aup file) will not be able to find all the pieces of your work. That's when you get the famous "unable to open your Project" messages.

You can consider a Project open and in-progress until you Export the work as a WAV or MP3 sound file. That's something else that's not explained very well. Projects make terrible archival storage. It's not a good thing to capture tons of work and Save it all as Projects.

Audacity does not "Save" sound files.

If your machine is not healthy all these problems get much worse. That's when you start getting "magic" disappearances and scrambled shows even if you did everything right.

So, no, there is no "push this button and everything will be OK." It won't. If you deleted the wrong thing, you have no show. If you can remember what you did before you cleaned up and can undo it, then all your work should come back to normal.

Koz

[Darlene]

Thank you for your response and explanation of Audacity. I do understand this is a free software and I appreciate your volunteering your time to help. I will say that the response time is MUCH faster than most purchased software/hardware. I do know that I had labeled the saved "Audacity project file" ex.: "Let's Get it On", then realized I wanted it to say "Marvin Gaye - Let's Get it On", but when it said it couldn't find the file, I changed it back to the original title, but it still couldn't find it. I don't know if it didn't register or if it is irreparably damaged now. I think it may be time for me to purchase more stable, reliable software that may have more thorough information of what I can and cannot or should not do with the software because I have over 200 LP's to record onto my computer and who knows when I'll get to actually exporting all of them. The thought of losing them and all that time invested is just not something I can even fathom. Do you have any suggestion for recording software? I am not a pro. I just need LP recording, editting, saving and exporting individual tracks to WAV capability. There are so many options out there it makes me dizzy.

[kozikowski]

We're sorry we couldn't solve your problems. We hate losing a "customer."

I used Cool Edit 2000 on my PC and I'm very happy with it. I have owned the license for years and I have the "Adobe Audition" upgrade, although I rarely use it.

The more information you give us in the question, the better able we are to help you.

For example, we know that "Let's Get it On" is an illegal filename. The apostrophe is either an illegal or unstable character depending on the computer. LetsGetItOn.wav or LetsGetItOn.aup is a legal, stable and correct filename in all three computing platforms. Being a compulsive engineer, I tend to not use spaces, either.

Koz

[Darlene]

Thanks for the suggestion on both the software and naming of projects. I'll look into it. One more question. Since the project size seems to still be there, doesn't mean that it is somewhere in my system still? Is there a way for me to find it? It just seems strange that it doesn't appear to have been deleted but yet it can't find it. If not, I'll just start recording again.

[Darlene]

KOZ!!!!!! Are you on? I have some news for you for any other newby that messes up their recordings. So simple. After I posted the last question and started looking at other software options on the net, I really like my Audacity and don't want to learn another system, so I went back in - still thinking about the changing file name issue. Okay, so there's actually 3 "files" (that's the best word I can think of to use) for each saved recording - title_data; title.aup.bak; and an audacity project. I had originally named them the LP title, but I had started changing the names because I wanted to have the artists name first then the title. When I couldn't open the "project" I changed that name back but still couldn't open it. Now that I looked at it again, I am getting the idea that all these "files" work together in some way, but I hadn't changed the _data file back, so it still had the changed name. When I changed it back to the originally saved name . . . EVERYTHING CAME BACK. That's the key. So the next dork that may have this problem, the very first question would be "Have you altered any of the original "file" names. These don't work like other computer documents - I am getting the idea you really can't mess with them once they are in there. I am so glad I just didn't give up. I am getting an external hard drive for this software and all my recordings because I really want to keep my uneditted project files for feature reference. YEAH!!!

[steve]

so there's actually 3 "files" (that's the best word I can think of to use) for each saved recording - title_data; title.aup.bak; and an audacity project.

When you save an Audacity project there are 2 parts:
A file > filename.aup
A folder > filename_data

Yes these do work together.
The ".aup" file is a small file that keeps track of all of the data (all of the bits of sound, the picture of the wave, labels, control points and so on).
The data folder contains lots (can be hundreds or thousands) of little fragments of data. These are the actual data fragments that the .aup file is trying to keep track of.

If you manually change anything, then there is a very high risk that the .aup file will no longer hold the correct locations for the data fragments and the whole project turns to dust.

Note that in some circumstances the project may use data that is not in the data folder !
Depending on how you have set things up, the .aup file may contain references to audio files that are on your computer but have not been copied to the data folder. In these cases, the project is not only dependent on the .aup file and the data folder, but is also working with other files, and if you manually change or move those, then again your project can get messed up.

You are probably getting the idea that Audacity projects are not the best way of archiving your recordings.

2 top tips to avoid loosing your data:

1) Do not manually change anything that is related in any way to your Audacity project. That means, do not move files, do not rename files, do not delete files, do not burn the project to CD and expect it to work at a later date, do not move, rename or change any file that you have imported, do not make any other manual changes that I have missed from this list.

2) Export your tracks as WAV files.
If you want to keep backups of your original recordings (a very good idea), then Export them as WAV files.

Once you have exported your project (and exported any backup files that you may want to keep), you can then delete your project to free up disk space.