Help opening an older file

Hello fellow Audacity users!

I’ve had my problems with this programme but got through in the end. Now I need some help. I’ve had a long running project that I’ve only ever saved as an Audacity file. I originally downloaded Audacity in September (2017) and hadn’t updated it until this June. I’m now on 2.2.2. Everything has been fine with the new update but it won’t open this project. Is this a problem with the programme? I get an “error opening project” message when I try to open it. I made sure it had saved correctly the last time I added to the project. Windows has also created a folder called “(project name)_data” which doesn’t look good to me. It contains lots of unplayable audio files. I’m simply confused!
Any help would be appreciated.

What’s the rest of the message?

Hi Steve. It says it couldn’t find the project. This may be because it’s saved as an older Audacity project and I have since updated

Does it say:

Error Opening Project
Couldn’t find the project data folder: “> name-of-project> _data”

where “name-of-project” is the name of the project that you are trying to open?
If so, then the problem is that the folder “_name-of-project__data” is missing - either you have deleted it, moved it, or renamed it.

See here for more information about Audacity projects: Managing Audacity Projects - Audacity Manual