Lost association between source and .aup when moved folder

[DLSpeaker]

Hi,

I combed the most recent "lost association..." thread and the wiki on Audacity and haven't been able to solve the problem. Here's what I originally did and what I've done to try to recover:

1. Copied the whole folder of a project (about 45 minutes of a seminar) from my hard drive to a Passport Drive (ran out of Hard disk space). As part of this:

- I have audacity Preferences in the "Make a copy of file...(safer)" mode
- The source WAV is in the folder the .aup files are in. (I break seminars up into 5 minute .aup segments when editing.)

- The _data folders are in the same folder as the .aup files

- After editing each .aup file, I renamed each .aup as "SegmentX-Done" to separate it from "SegmentX" the original unedited version of that 5 minute segment. (from reading posts later, that might have been a bad idea. I think I remember it playing fine when I played them back, prior to moving them to the external HD)

2. Based on the Wiki and other posts, I...

- edited the "alias" in the .aup to the new hard drive letter, so it knew where the source WAV was.

- did what someone in the other thread recommended about opening the .aup only after opening Audacity first and did the "save as" with no spaces in the name of the file, closed Audacity and then reopened.

Still no go...

1. So is there something else I can try or is it a lost cause given the issue of "brittleness" etc that Koz mentioned?

2. I have someone editing files for me on their computer and don't want to lose all the work they've done. Given what you said Koz about project files it not being a good idea to move or copy project files, is the only way for me to get the work from her, if she didn't save the work originally on a Passport drive she could just give to me, for her to export to WAV and then me review the WAV files?

Thanks!
David

[kozikowski]

ALWAYS export to WAV after recording a valuable performance.

Audacity Projects, say it with me, are brittle, easily damaged, and don't move well. We tell people they don't move at all because in a vast majority of circumstances, they don't.

Strike one was when you renamed some of the files manually instead of letting Audacity do it. Right then, your Project Management died and that normally kills the show. Strike two was when you tried to move all the files that you know of to a different drive with a foreign drive letter. Let's go for three. Where is the _DATA folder? There is no single WAV file for the AUP file to point to. At best there are a few thousand AU files inside the _DATA folder. That combination is or was your show.

Worst case, you also have to move the capture files from wherever Audacity put them although that's not normal. See: Preferences > Directories.

You don't have access to the original machine, then? They're all Windows® machines?

Assuming you started out with everything on the C:/ drive, I would probably try to recreate the original installation as much as possible.

Koz

[kozikowski]

What happens if you try to open up those WAV files by themselves, cold?

Koz

[DLSpeaker]

Thanks for the response. A quick "oops" that I don't know if it plays into this issue... I posted this in the wrong forum. My audacity version is not the unstable one, it's 1.2.4.

My responses below:

ALWAYS export to WAV after recording a valuable performance.

Strike one was when you renamed some of the files manually instead of letting Audacity do it. Right then, your Project Management died and that normally kills the show. Strike two was when you tried to move all the files that you know of to a different drive with a foreign drive letter. Let's go for three. Where is the _DATA folder? There is no single WAV file for the AUP file to point to. At best there are a few thousand AU files inside the _DATA folder. That combination is or was your show.
Koz

1. Renamed using "Save As" if this helps increase the odds it's salvagable
2. Regarding the _DATA folder - as mentioned in the original post, it's in the same folder as the .aup file. Just copied and pasted the whole folder devoted to that presentation to my Passport drive

Worst case, you also have to move the capture files from wherever Audacity put them although that's not normal. See: Preferences > Directories.
Koz

When you say "capture files", do you mean the .WAV files? If so, they are in the same folder.

The Director listed in Preferences>Directories is:
C:DOCUME~1DavidLOCALS~1Tempaudacity_1_2_temp

You don't have access to the original machine, then? They're all Windows® machines?
Koz

Yes, both running Windows XP. For the initial problem I posted, the original folder was on my laptop HD, then copied to a Passport drive and worked on (or attempted to work on) that same laptop.

Assuming you started out with everything on the C:/ drive, I would probably try to recreate the original installation as much as possible.
Koz

Not sure what this means, do you mean reinstalling Audacity or...

And yes, the original WAV files play fine.

Thanks!
David

[kozikowski]

There's too many variations. I'm starting to get a headache.

I mean you should probably try to recreate as much as possible the original installation with the exact names and locations of all the folders. An Audacity Project is a Editing Production Environment with clouds of files. The AUP file tries to document everything and it gets killed if you change a folder name or location.

The upgrade from 1.2.4 to 1.2.6 should be invisible, but isn't. Magnify and read the first two lines of this simple AUP file...

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

Koz

[DLSpeaker]

Problem Solved!

If you moved a folder of audacity projects etc prior to reading the forums about that being a "no no", here's what I ended up doing that resurrected all my .aup projects.

I ended up doing a Search and Replace in each .aup file, using a text editor, replacing the old drive letter (H) with the drive letter of my passport file (J). That did the trick. If you read some of the other postings about the .aup file really being the repository of direction signs of where to locate and sequence the bits of audio info, it helps make sense you need to make sure the "direction signs" in that "folder of directions" are pointing in the right direction.

In the future, I recommend what the pros in the forum say "Export as a WAV" and save yourself this hassle, but,, if you didn't know that ahead of time, this might save your bacon.

David