Audacity Forum

Hi,
I am an up and coming artist in London. I just spent 3 hours recording a song for a forthcoming ep and I received the dreaded: ''Error: reference to invalid character number at line 6'' when I went to reopen it... I had not exported the project yet so I feel like tearing my hair out. Is there anything anyone could do, any help would be soooooo appreciated!
Thanks

jban$ wrote: I am an up and coming artist in London. I just spent 3 hours recording a song for a forthcoming ep and I received the dreaded: ''Error: reference to invalid character number at line 6'' when I went to reopen it... I had not exported the project yet so I feel like tearing my hair out. Is there anything anyone could do, any help would be soooooo appreciated!

Presumably you did more than record a song such as add metadata to it, or imported another song file?

Please attach the AUP file. Please see how to attach files to forum posts.


Gale

I just spent 3 hours recording a song

Just for future reference -

I recommend that you export a "back-up" WAV file immediately after recording. Then, save your AUP project (if you want to make an AUP project). WAV files are simpler and more foolproof than AUP projects so there's less chance of something "going wrong" with a WAV. (But, most changes to a WAV file can't be reversed.)

And if you are doing a long project, make intermediate WAV backups as you progress with editing/processing/mixing, etc.
From there, you might want to have a more extensive back-up plan (saving your WAVs & AUPs over a network or on an external drive, etc.)


...Computers are the least reliable things we own and their flexibility makes it easy for us to mess something up. So if you are working on an important project or something where there's no chance of "take two", it's wise to have a good back-up plan. In fact, if you are recording something important where there's no possibility of another take, I recommend a 2nd system recording in parallel.

Thanks, I have linked the .aup file

And also, it was lots of different layers of vocals on top of an instrumental. Not sure whether the instrumental is the problem

As I suggested, you chose to add metadata to the project. Some of that metadata contains symbols that Audacity does not support. I removed the tags that contained such symbols. Try the attached.


Gale

Ah okay I see, thanks. Unfortunately it still won't open though

So what does the error say now, exactly? I get "can't open _data folder" which suggests to me it will open with a valid _data folder.

Gale

I am getting 2 messages. Yeah the first says ''can't open data folder'' and the second says ''Could not load file:...''

Guessing there is nothing I can do, what is the metadata that isnt compatible with audacity?