Bug - Audacity removed part of a track between saves

Hello, I ran into a pretty annoying bug, and I’m hoping someone can help me out with it. After I finished working on a podcast edit, I double-checked and saved my file, as I usually do.

However, the next day, when I reloaded the file, I noticed that part of one of my tracks was missing. The track had some breaks in it where the recording stopped and then restarted. Notice two of the tracks in the screenshot. The one named “Recca Synced” is how it was supposed to look, wheras the “Recca” track is the one that was messed up when I reloaded the file. Any help? I’ve lost quite a bit of work, as I’m essentially having to go back through and re-edit one of my tracks to line back up with the rest of them.

I also noticed the problem appears to be spreading. Luckily, I made another save which doesn’t seem to be corrupted, for lack of a better word. Compare the “Nick” track between the two screenshots.

Another added detail is that I see a lot of “orphaned” files, and got a warning about them when I reloaded the corrupted file. Could be related?

My guess is that you are using Audacity 2.2.1 and you overwrote your previously saved project by using “File menu > Save Project As…” and saving with the same name as the original saved project.

If that’s what happened, then unfortunately you have been bitten by a bug in 2.2.1. In that version, if you want to update (overwrite) the existing project, you must use “Save Project” (not “Save Project As”), or if you want to save a new copy of the project, use “Save Project As” and give the project a new name. In Audacity 2.2.1, using “Save Project As” with the name of the original project can permanently lose data, and I think that is what has happened.

The bug has been fixed in Audacity 2.2.2, which is now available here: https://www.audacityteam.org/download/