Audacity can not load ANY aup file

[NiceMicro]

Hi!

I was working today with Audacity today, when it suddenly crashed. I was not phased much about this, as I just saved my project. So, I double click on my aup file, it tells me it wants to restore my project, I say yes, then it says it found orphan files, and I select continue without deleting and press OK, but what I got is just a big empty nothing. I tried everything: close it again, open again, I even restarted the computer, made a new project, when I save and close it, I can't open! I used Audacity last Friday, and I didn't have this problem. There was no version change in the meantime.
I am frustrated to no end. Please guide me on what steps should I take to troubleshoot this issue.

I use Arch Linux, installed it from the community repository with pacman.

Here's the log:

Code: Select all

00:18:04: Audacity 2.3.3
00:18:04: Warning: Cannot set locale to language "English".
00:18:04: Error: locale 'en_GB' cannot be set.
00:18:09: Trying to load FFmpeg libraries...
00:18:09: Trying to load FFmpeg libraries from system paths. File name is 'libavformat.so.58'.
00:18:09: Checking for monolithic avformat from 'libavformat.so.58'.
00:18:09: avformat not monolithic
00:18:09: Loading avutil from '/usr/lib/libavutil.so.56.31.100'.
00:18:09: Loading avcodec from '/usr/lib/libavcodec.so.58.54.100'.
00:18:09: Loading avformat from 'libavformat.so.58'.
00:18:09: Actual avutil path /usr/lib/libavutil.so.56.31.100
00:18:09: Actual avcodec path /usr/lib/libavcodec.so.58.54.100
00:18:09: Actual avformat path /usr/lib/libavformat.so.58.29.100
00:18:09: Importing symbols...
00:18:09: All symbols loaded successfully. Initializing the library.
00:18:09: Retrieving FFmpeg library version numbers:
00:18:09:    AVCodec version 0x3a3664 - 58.54.100 (built against 0x3a3664 - 58.54.100)
00:18:09:    AVFormat version 0x3a1d64 - 58.29.100 (built against 0x3a1d64 - 58.29.100)
00:18:09:    AVUtil version 0x381f64 - 56.31.100 (built against 0x381f64 - 56.31.100)
00:18:09: FFmpeg libraries loaded successfully.
00:18:09: Warning: Orphan block file: '/home/nicemicro/Documents/test_data/eff/d1f/eff1f37c.au'
00:18:09: Warning: Orphan block file: '/home/nicemicro/Documents/test_data/eff/d1f/eff1fc6d.au'
00:26:49: Warning: Project check found file inconsistencies inspecting the loaded project data.

[steve]

Code: Select all

00:18:04: Warning: Cannot set locale to language "English".
00:18:04: Error: locale 'en_GB' cannot be set.

That's the first thing that strikes me as very peculiar. Is your computer set up for a non-English locale?

[NiceMicro]

This is my output of the locale command:

Code: Select all

LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC=hu_HU.UTF-8
LC_TIME=hu_HU.UTF-8
LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY=hu_HU.UTF-8
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER=hu_HU.UTF-8
LC_NAME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT=hu_HU.UTF-8
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

I think I have the US, Hungarian and Korean locales generated. So, yeah, the en_GB local is not there, but why on earth Audacity wants that? Can that be related to the load issue? The program starts, I can import a wavefile, edit it and export it without no problem, I just can't load saved projects.

[steve]

So, I double click on my aup file, it tells me it wants to restore my project, I say yes, then it says it found orphan files, and I select continue without deleting and press OK, but what I got is just a big empty nothing.

That project is probably gone and lost forever.

To try and get back to a stable state, open Audacity, if it offers to restore an old project, select "No" so that Audacity is able to clear the junk out of the way. Then close Audacity and re-open. Audacity should now open without error. Do NOT try opening any other projects yet.

If Audacity now opens and closes correctly, create a short test project, and save it either to your Desktop or your Documents folder. Close down Audacity properly, then restart and see if you can open the project that you have just saved.

What happens?

[NiceMicro]

What happens?

I have done the following:

1. Open Audacity
2. It opens, no problem.
3. I close Audacity, no problem.
4. I run Audacity again.
5. Record a short noise.
6. Save project to Documents.
7. Close Audacity.
8. Open my file browser, double click on the .aup file
9. Audacity comes up, it tells me about the orphaned files, get the same log entries as previously.
10. The project is empty.

I have attached the aup file and the folder.

[steve]

What happens if you do this:

1. Open Audacity
2. Close Audacity
   (Ensure that it opens and closes with no errors or warnings)
3. Launch Audacity.
4. Record a short noise.
5. Save project to Documents.
6. Close Audacity.
7. Launch Audacity.
8. File menu > Open -> select the saved .aup file and click OK.

[NiceMicro]

What happens if you do this:

Same result, project doesn't load.

[steve]

Audacity comes up, it tells me about the orphaned files, get the same log entries as previously.

Does it list these orphan block files each time, or are they different files each time?

Code: Select all

/home/nicemicro/Documents/test_data/eff/d1f/eff1f37c.au
/home/nicemicro/Documents/test_data/eff/d1f/eff1fc6d.au

[NiceMicro]

Does it list these orphan block files each time, or are they different files each time?

Code: Select all

/home/nicemicro/Documents/test_data/eff/d1f/eff1f37c.au
/home/nicemicro/Documents/test_data/eff/d1f/eff1fc6d.au

If I open the same AUP file, yes. In the second test I made, it is

Code: Select all

12:14:29: Warning: Orphan block file: '/home/nicemicro/Documents/test2_data/eff/d1f/eff1ffde.au'
12:14:29: Warning: Orphan block file: '/home/nicemicro/Documents/test2_data/eff/d1f/eff1fd8c.au'

[steve]

This is very strange, because the test project that you posted is perfectly OK. It looks OK and I can open it without any problem.

I'm not sure what the file paths will be on Arch, so you will need to check these:

Look in ~/.audacity-data/. Do you see the files:

Code: Select all

audacity.cfg
pluginregistry.cfg
pluginsettings.cfg

and the folder:

Code: Select all

AutoSave

Assuming that you do, in ~/.audacity-data/ do you see a file named similar to:

Code: Select all

New Project - 2020-03-06 10-13-43 N-1.autosave

Do you also have a folder:

Code: Select all

/var/tmp/audacity-<your-name>/

If you do, does it contain one or more folders named something like:

Code: Select all

project1190746588