Audacity crash nuked entire project

Hi Everyone,

Audacity version: 2.2.2

I was helping my partner on a project of hers. She was a few hours into editing when audacity crashed. This happens fairly regularly, and so she’s good about saving regularly and normally when this happens, she simply re-opens the project and most if not all of her work is still there.

However, last night when audacity crashed, re-opening the project gave her the message: “detected 692 missing audi data (.au) blockfiles…”. If we choose to treat those files as silence, every single clip in the project is silent. We’ve been through a number of other posts on this forum around this error, but none have resolved the issue.

If I open the audacity project file (.aup) with python and look through all of the “simpleblockfile” tags, there are ~2700. I would expect this to mean that when audacity loads the project, 692 / 2700 clips in the project are silent, not the entire thing. There are also plenty of orphaned files (~1500) that I’ve verified have no overlap with the missing file names (I’m guessing unsaved progress when the program crashed).

As a long shot, I wrote a python script that removed all waveblock tags that contained a missing simpleblockfile. If this left an empty “sequence” tag, I removed the entire “waveclip” that contained the now empty sequence. I then wrote the adjusted project file back out. While this does remove the errors I get at the beginning of the program about missing files, it does not fix the issue that all of the existing data in the project is silent.

At this point, it’s likely she’ll be able to re-create the project in the time it takes to solve this. That said, I’d like to know what happened to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

Any suggestions appreciated, and I’m happy to upload whatever helps.

The “legacy” Audacity version is 2.4.2 and the current “new format” version is 3.0.2. Audacity 3.0.2 doesn’t have that _data folder with the thousands of little AU files in it. It carries everything in one vary large .aup3 file.

It also has File > Save Project > Save Backup Project which saves a backup and leaves your current project where it is.

…audacity crashed. This happens fairly regularly…

Audacity does not crash fairy regularly. You have something wrong with your system. The problem finally got serious enough to actually damage a show. It’s terrific that the producer makes backups and safety copies, but it’s less terrific why they are doing that.

Is the system drive filling up? Go through the system and do all the digital hygiene checks and adjustments. Have you ever done a drive optimization? Are you using an external drive, network drive, or a cloud drive in active production? Audacity doesn’t like that very much and that can cause problems like this.

Are you using other apps at the same time as editing? Audacity isn’t too fond of doing that either. Audacity depends on good, stable access to the hardware and isn’t into sharing. You can trace that back to its development. Audacity isn’t a large corporation with infinite product testing and resources. It’s all volunteer and runs in multi-languages and on all three computer platforms. They can’t check how well Audacity plays with other applications.

Koz

Hi Koz,

Thanks very much for the reply.

The “legacy” Audacity version is 2.4.2 and the current “new format” version is 3.0.2. Audacity 3.0.2 doesn’t have that _data folder with the thousands of little AU files in it. It carries everything in one vary large .aup3 file.

Yes, as part of troubleshooting we actually took the opportunity to update and noticed the new format.

Is the system drive filling up? Go through the system and do all the digital hygiene checks and adjustments. Have you ever done a drive optimization? Are you using an external drive, network drive, or a cloud drive in active production? Audacity doesn’t like that very much and that can cause problems like this.

Are you using other apps at the same time as editing? Audacity isn’t too fond of doing that either. Audacity depends on good, stable access to the hardware and isn’t into sharing. You can trace that back to its development. Audacity isn’t a large corporation with infinite product testing and resources. It’s all volunteer and runs in multi-languages and on all three computer platforms. They can’t check how well Audacity plays with other applications.

Thanks for the suggestions.

  • The drive was getting pretty full - about 90% (30 / 250 GB free).
  • Never done a drive optimization - it’s a SSD, so my understanding is that it’s not really required these days.
  • She’s saving directly to the system drive, not an external or network.
  • Definitely using plenty of other apps while using audacity

So I’m guessing having a lot of other apps open and a pretty full SSD were at least partly to blame. We’ll make those adjustments going forward - thank you.

Don’t double post. A forum elf has to read a review your post before it becomes visible.

it’s a SSD, so my understanding is that it’s not really required these days.

Correct. Not only is it not required, “optimizing” can cause problems. SSDs constantly shuffle work around internally so all the memory cells get the same wear. Just let it do its thing.

It’s still not a good idea to fill one up. SSDs are faster than a speeding bullet, but Audacity doesn’t like unstable competition for drive access. This may be the magic time you investigate a second machine.

Koz

It’s still not a good idea to fill one up.

Yep - we’ll be cleaning it out this weekend I think.

Thanks Koz.