Silent "recovered" track

[Gavin]

Hi

My wife finished recording a 30 minute long interview using Audacity 1.2.6 when it froze and would not let her save the project to the laptop.
I downloaded the recovery utility and this seemed to recover the files from the Audacity Temp folder. Transferred the file to the desktop computer.
We now find that though we can see the recording when loaded into Audacity 1.2.6 it is completely silent.
Also if I zoom in, to less than 3 seconds on screen, it "flat-lines"; a short parallel test track recorded below it behave correctly.
When loaded into Audacity 1.3.7 it is "flat-lined" at all zoom levels.

Any ideas how this can be recovered - if at all?

Unfortunately I can not go back to the file on the laptop again, to see if it works on that, as it is being borrowed by a friend for a few days - ( I don't think he will be doing any recording with Audacity - so hopefully the Temp file might still be there)

Regards
Gavin

[kozikowski]

<<<Transferred the file to the desktop computer.>>>

That may be the step that killed you right there. Audacity Projects aren't "a file," they're a sometimes very large collection of files. Healthy projects will not move between computers. I can't imagine all the trouble you can get into trying to move a sick one.

My guess is most -- probably not all -- of the show will be waiting for you when you get the computer back.

Koz

[Gavin]

<<<Transferred the file to the desktop computer.>>>

That may be the step that killed you right there. Audacity Projects aren't "a file," they're a sometimes very large collection of files. Healthy projects will not move between computers. . . . snip . .
Koz

Hi Koz, Puzzled by this comment as I have previously moved numerous "healthy" Projects between computers - Have always copied the aup file and associated folder , with no problem at all.

Will get a chance to look at the file on the laptop tomorrow - I don't think I deleted it from it

[kozikowski]

Forgive me. The vast majority of posters on the forum assume that the AUP file is their whole show and and that it's a sound file. Have you ever produced a really complicated show with numerous imported clips? The clips, in their current folder, become part of the Project. That burns everybody.

It's far easier to just tell people you can't move them. I tried a couple of times and I could hear the blank look through the screen.

You've never tried to move a damaged project...

Koz

[darksouldealer]

hello...i came across this as i am having some issues like this...audacity had the audacity to go close out on me as i was in session and dumb me forgot the control s love...anyway when i open it says that i have some files delete or not etc...of course i say no but now i cant figure out how to retrieve them...i went looking for this plug in you mention to access the temp but i cant find it..help..thank you

[darksouldealer]

ok scratch that...i found it...but now when i did do a recover what i got was an extreeeeeemely superfast version of said files...help?

[kozikowski]

Crash Recovery
http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... shRecovery

Give that a shot. The superfast sound is usually caused by Audacity encountering a sound format it doesn't understand. This may have caused the original crash.

Koz

[Gavin]

Hi All,

Further to my original post which started this thread.
I got the laptop back and the temporary audacity files were still there.
Used the cover utility again to join all the chunks together - and it was all there OK
Transferred the recovered project file and folder to the desktop machine and still all OK in both V1.2 & V1.3
I still don't know what happened when it failed the first time ( audio visible on track OK - but silent ) as I did exactly the same thing this time.

[kozikowski]

<<<I still don't know what happened when it failed the first time ( audio visible on track OK - but silent ) as I did exactly the same thing this time.>>>

I got tired of Windows machines doing that to me and started using Macs. That doesn't happen nearly as often now.

Koz