Why does an existing project have dropped sections?

[Ernesto7]

When I reopen an existing project it has silent sections where parts have been dropped.

I'm working with Mac OS 10.5.8 and Audacity 1.3.7

When I reopen my edited Audacity narration project, I have 13 sections of missing audio starting at about 9 minutes of a 22 min project. They vary from a few to 40 seconds. I'm working with imported 16 bit wav files at 44.1 which were originally 27 separate field files.

I had previous problems when I'd quit the program - I'd reopen an edited project and it would tell me I had missing or orphaned files. Once open there would be 1 or 2 silent gaps in the project, here and there. Didn't see any pattern to the missing sections or cause. I'd just replace them and keep editing.

I finished my first full edit today and saved the project, then saved it with a slightly different name as a backup. Both in the same folder I'd been using so as not to confuse Audacity. Now I have the 13 sections of missing audio in the original project and the renamed one has no playable audio.

I've read your forums and I don't see my exact problem but expect that it's common. After viewing hundreds of posts, I now would guess that it's more reliable to Export rather than Save As.

I want to get my edited Audacity project ready for export. I'm actually breaking it up into 15 sections and plan to export them as sequentially named voice files. How can I work with these files and avoid this problem in future?

Should I use only Export function to save the finished files rather than Save As?
I did just now change my Audacity Import/Export preferences to:
* Make a copy of uncompressed audio files before editing (safer) and
* Always copy all audio into project (safest)
Hopefully this will help somewhat.

Yesterday I Exported a backup to another computer and it opens fine so I won't lose too much time to rebuild this project file. Apart from this snag, I like the program and find it fairly easy to use. Perhaps it will become the poster child for open source audio editing programs! Thanks for your help.

Ernesto

[kozikowski]

<<<Didn't see any pattern to the missing sections or cause. I'd just replace them and keep editing. >>>

How? How did you replace them?

Unless you changed it, Audacity doesn't pull music inside itself for editing. Audacity uses the AUP file as a laundry list or road map to find other files on your computer which contain the sound. If you do anything at all to those other files, the show will stop working. Did you use Music CD material and then pop the CD out of the machine? That's a favorite. How about cleaning up all those sound files at the end of the show by organizing them in their own folder. That's Project Death right there.

This is the most important difference between Saving a Project -- which saves the road map only -- and Exporting a WAV file which is all the real music in your show produced as one single correct sound file.

Projects are insanely brittle because nobody understands them. Worse, most people think they're saving an AUP Sound File which could not be further from the truth.

So what did you do to the original sound files or clips? You or the computer did something. Guaranteed.

Do you know how to test how full your hard drive is? You can get Sudden Computer Insanity if your hard drive starts to fill up.

Koz

[kozikowski]

<<<I'm working with Mac OS 10.5.8 and Audacity 1.3.7>>>

By the way, you posted in the Audacity 1.2 forum. I hope you really are using Audacity 1.3.7 on your machine. That combination is stable. That's what I use on two of the Macs.

Koz

[Ernesto7]

Thanks for the reply. As soon as I got on the forum I realized I had posted in the wrong section. Yes I'm using 1.3.7.

I expect you're correct and somehow I changed the file path. I don't how but probably moving the project into a new folder. I wonder if I put all versions and files into the same and original folder, then close the project and reopen it, will it be able to find the missing sections? This is a bit scary although I do have a fairly recent version already exported that is stable.

My question remains, to avoid this again, how should I replace the missing parts? -
1. From the individual field files that I previously imported into Audacity?
2. Or an earlier edited version?

I understand an exported project is self contained. I'll experiment a little with Save As now that I've changed my preferences to the safer settings. I'm learning! Thanks.

Ernesto

[billw58]

I wonder if I put all versions and files into the same and original folder, then close the project and reopen it, will it be able to find the missing sections?

That probably won't help. Audacity records the locations of "external" files as full path references. Locations of Audacity's "internal" files are stored as relative path references. So as long as you keep the .aup file and the _data folder together in the same directory you can move them around just fine.

My question remains, to avoid this again, how should I replace the missing parts? -
1. From the individual field files that I previously imported into Audacity?
2. Or an earlier edited version?

Without fully understanding what went wrong, I'd say #1.

-- Bill

[kozikowski]

Here's a very simple AUP file I made from a piano solo...

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

It's a graphic and I put extra spaces and blank lines in to make it look pretty.

Count down about seven lines and you will see my piano2.wav file listed along with the digital pathway of how to get there. That's the kind of granularity we're talking about. All your sound clips are listed like that and you can go in to the AUP file with TextEdit and read it, although it's going to look a good deal more complex than mine. Make TextEdit search for "aliasfile=" and that will tell you where Audacity is expecting your clips to be.

Sometimes that's enough to jog your memory and reassemble the show.

Koz

[Ernesto7]

Thanks Bill. I'm replacing the dropped sections from an earlier exported (self contained) version which I placed in the same folder as the project. I tried replacing, saving, closing and reopening and it seems to work fine. When I get to the last section I'll rebuild from the field file which I'll import into the same project folder. This should work. Whew!

Thanks Koz, for the text edit detail. I see what you mean in showing the path following the "aliasfile=" That's very helpful.

Cheers, Ernesto