Can't open recovered project after crash

Hoping for some help.
My audacity crashed, and when I try to open the automatic recovery it doesn’t open, tells me it was not saved properly and says saved to the last snapshot - i press ok and the program becomes unresponsive and I have to force quit to get out.
I have a backup from 10am - but have lost 10 hours of editing since then. I kept saving the project but didn’t do another backup as i though saving the project was safe.
I have found the .aup file but there is DEFINITELY not a _data file. I checked in the same folder, searched the whole computer … and even looked at hidden files.
Is there ANYTHING i can do to get my project back - or am i stuffed?

in 3.0.0 and 3.0.2, audacity no longer uses the _data folder; everything is contained within your .aup3 file.

  1. If you are currently running 3.0.0, you can try downloading 3.0.2.
  2. If you are currently running 3.0.2, and you are willing to share your project, you can upload your .aup3 file to a public file sharing service and PM the link directly to me.