HELP All my audio disappeared when trying to export!

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

I am using Windows 10.

I have just spent the day working on a university project and attempted to export the file this afternoon as WAV. When I did I selected the location etc. and pressed okay, and Audacity said something like reducing it down to two channels, cannot remember exact wording. Once I clicked okay it said there was something wrong with C drive again cannot remember exactly. Suddenly my entire project disappeared! It left the bits where I had increased or decreased the volume but the blue audio bits have gone! How do I get it back?!

2

Which version of Audacity are you using?
If you’re using Audacity 2.2.1 or 2.2.0, please see here: https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/important-bug-fix/48358/1
Could that be the problem?

3

Hello,
I downloaded Audacity this morning. I think it was 2.2.2 or whichever the latest is.

4

The latest is 2.2.2, but please check which version (look in “Help menu > About Audacity”).
If you have 2.2.2, then the problem is something different.

Are you working on a University machine, or your own personal PC?
Is the computer on a network?

5

Yes, it is 2.2.2, and it is my personal computer.

I attempted to replicate the issue and here is what the different text boxes said.

“Your tracks will be mixed down to two stereo channels in the exported file.” [OK selected]

Edit Metatags option appears [OK selected]

“Audacity failed to read from a file in C:.” [OK selected]

If I remember correctly this was the moment when all the blue waveform bits disappeared.

6

That’s normal. It says that your project is being mixed down and exported as a stereo file.

That’s normal (if you don’t use metadata, you can suppress this step in Preferences (see: Show Metadata Tags editor before export)

That’s not normal.
Unfortunately, this particular error message is not as helpful as it might be. It just tells us that Audacity is unable to access some data that it needs to either read or write on drive C:

Go to “Help menu > Diagnostics > Show Log” and save the log somewhere convenient (such as your Desktop), then attach the log file to your reply (see: https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/how-to-attach-files-to-forum-posts/24026/1)
That may give us a clue as to what the problem is.

7

Is there any way you are able to take control of my computer remotely and access this please? The project I was working on that vanished, I saved the project again but Audacity and my computer both are now saying that project does not exist. I’m very confused.

8

Here is the log
log.txt (1.67 KB)

9

Not easily, as I’m not on Windows. Also, you should be extremely cautious about allowing anyone you don’t know to take control of your computer - from a Windows machine, if you gave me access, I could easily lock you out from your computer just for a laugh (though of course I would never do that - I’m just illustrating the risk).

Unfortunately that does not tell us anything useful. The log is cleared when Audacity closes. Was that log from after the “Audacity failed to read from a file in C:.” message, or did you restart Audacity between that message and opening the log?

Unfortunately recovery is not sounding very hopeful, but if we can determine what has gone wrong then at least we will be able to avoid the problem in the future.

10

Yes, I had to turn off my computer and thus closed Audacity after I received that bit about C drive.

11

I’m trying to get a clear picture of what is happening.

Is this a saved project? What’s the full name of the project?
Do you have the project “.aup” file and its “_data” folder? (do you understand this question?) Where are these two items?
What happens now when you try to open the project? (precisely - step by step)