HELP!! Recovery? (1200 fragments...)

[scottmcleod]

Hi.

I'm new to Audacity. I'd heard good things, and generally positive results when using.

The first time I used it seriously to record a show, it crashed on me (not once, but TWICE.).

I've got 1200 file segments now that need to be re-assembled. I can't seem to import them into a single track (each import creates a new track WTF!) to glue them back together...

I've reached the end of my rope. Help. Either instructions, or someone willing to reassemble these files together. I've already done the hard part and sorted the 3500 original fragments down to the one channel that I need recovered.

I will even ship you a DVD of the files if you think you can do it.

-Scott McLeod
Technical Director, Powell Hall.

[kozikowski]

<<<The first time I used it seriously to record a show, it crashed on me (not once, but TWICE.).>>>

I'm hearing this is the first time you tried to go over five minutes? I've recorded an hour or so of live theatrical performance with my not-exciting PowerBook, so I know it can be done. We should find out why your machine didn't do it.

We will probably not, however, find a way to reassemble your show. The "twice" part may have killed you. Didn't Audacity offer to reassemble the show the next time you opened it after the crash? That may have given you the first show back.

Greatly improved crash recovery (I think it's officially called "Disaster Recovery") is a feature request for the new version 1.4.x. There was a posting somewhere of someone who found a program that would try to reassemble all those files. As I recall, it wouldn't go over a certain number of file (always too few) and it only ran on Windows.

Do you know what was supposed to happen? Do you care?

Do I hear the echo of someone using a USB mixer?

Koz

[scottmcleod]

Setup:

MoTU Traveller (12in/out) FireWire unit with an iMac Core2Duo 2.16ghz & 2GB of ram. Main Drive = 250GB (partitioned 50/200 I think...)

Anyways, to answer your questions...

USB Mixer = No.

I sorta care why it crashed, but more importantly, I need a tool to repair these files.

Yes, I have recorded many minutes (10 or so) of audio before and it hasn't crashed. My guess would be it has something to do once the files get over many gigabytes?)

If any of the developpers read this, I will donate money to Audacity if one of you can create a tool to re-assemble those fragments.

I've tried the windows tools, they're all command line, and none have worked yet. (or maybe I just suck.).

I have the original crash folders, and the post-sorted (as in, I selected each ****damn file that related to the audio stream, and deleted the empty channels). It will probably fit on 2 DVD's.

1) I ship DVD's to you
2) You recover them
3) You ship files back to me
4) I re-imburse you for shipping and such
5) ...?
6) Profit!

[kozikowski]

You've been here, right?

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

Koz

[scottmcleod]

Yup. None of it worked on mac.

[kozikowski]

You might try and find someone that has a much larger audio package. My thousand-year old Cool Edit has a function called "Open Append..." and if you believe the instructions, will open a series of numbered sound files on one timeline, but I can't get it to open Audacity files.

Koz

[scottmcleod]

Yeah, they're in some kind of proprietary RAW format. If only I could somehow use some kind of batch software to convert them to something usable, I could stitch them together using cooledit/nuendo/protools

-Scott

[scottmcleod]

Still no solution... HELP!

I will ship copies of the files on DVD to anyone who thinks they can fix them.

[kozikowski]

<<<anyone who thinks they can fix them.>>>

That's not likely to happen, but you might be able to figure this out by yourself. Do a simple recording of, I don't know, a microphone in front of a radio for ten minutes. Stop it and save the project. RadioTest.

Open up the RadioTest.aup file in Text Edit and read it. Make sure your TextEdit is set for Plain Text. RadioTest.aup is the XML programming file that is written to keep track of all the parts of your project. That's the file that did not get written when your capture crashed. Once you figure out the language then you might be able to write a new one to restore all your capture clips.

<<<aliasfile='C:Documents and SettingskozDesktoppiano2.wav'>>>

That's an actual line from one of my projects and that's the directory where Audacity is going to expect to find the piano2.wav sound file. There are other programming lines that Tell Audacity where all the capture clips are. That particular example is from a PC so the slash marks go the wrong way, but you get the idea.

Use a unique name for your new test project so you don't accidentally step on anything valuable.

Give that a shot.

Koz

[kozikowski]

You understand the down side of succeeding, right? If this works, you get all the postings of all the people who had captures crash.

It's volunteer software. There is no "They."

Koz