Saved file mysteriously deleted

[steve]

@everyone
I'm not the biggest fan of Mac Spotlight Search. I know there are ways of making text-only Terminal do a search. Someone with Linux talents can comment.

Code: Select all

find <path> -name <filename>

Example, to search recursively for a file that begins with "News", starting from the current folder:

Code: Select all

find . -name News*

The dot means "the current folder".
The asterisk is a wildcard for any characters.

[billw58]

The reason I asked you to try to open News of the World.aup again is that I don't understand how you could get the following error message when opening that file:

Warning: Orphan block file: ‘/Users/bkuettel/Documents/Writings/Filmscape Podcast/Episodes/Wonder Woman 1984_data/eff/d23/eff236d7.au’

especially after getting the message that News of the World.aup could not be opened, and since News of the World.aup does not reference the Wonder Woman 1984_data folder.

So, could you please try this:
Start Audacity
Using File > Open, open News of the World.aup

-- Bill

[billw58]

But I just achieved a semi-breakthrough: I went into the depths of the Wonder Woman 1984 folder, and I found little 4-6 second snippets of News of the World audio among the Wonder Woman 1984 ones. I guess the crash made them combine into the Wonder Woman 1984 folder?

You might get lucky with this procedure.

Duplicate the Wonder Woman 1984_data folder
Rename the duplicate folder "News of the World_data"
Make sure "News of the World.aup" and "News of the World_data" are in the same folder.
Start Audacity
Open News of the World.aup

You may get a message about orphan blockfiles. Those would be the ones for the Wonder Woman 1984 project. Since you're dealing with a copy of the folder you can safely delete them.

When I open Wonder Woman 1984 and my other projects, they all still play normally.

This is strange. If the News of the World data is mixed in with the Wonder Woman 1984 data I would expect you to get a warning about orphan blockfiles when opening the Wonder Woman 1984 project.

-- Bill

[Filmscape]

Hi Bill, thank you so much for that neat trick, it seems to have worked and my News of the World project is now fully restored! I'm off to export immediately so I don't lose it. That's something everyone should know I would think, if that happens to anyone else where all the files are mixed together due to a crash or something. Also you are correct that every time I open Wonder Woman 1984 it gives me a warning about orphan block files, which I had suspected and is now confirmed that they belonged to News of the World. It doesn't give a way to listen to them or anything.

This thread can be closed or archived or whatever, as my issue has been fixed. Thank you again!

[billw58]

My suggestion was, frankly, a long shot. Glad it worked.

I don't think I've even seen two projects mixed together like that in the _data folder, plus the original _data folder going bye-bye.

This will, thankfully, all be a thing of the past when Audacity 3.0 is released (real soon now).

-- Bill

[steve]

My suggestion was, frankly, a long shot.

Excellent troubleshooting Bill

I don't think I've even seen two projects mixed together like

Neither have I, but as you say, we shouldn't need to worry about this for much longer.

[kozikowski]

Neither have I, but as you say, we shouldn't need to worry about this for much longer.

Audacity 3 is expected to open up older shows, right? It just won't make new ones in the old format?

Koz

[steve]

Audacity 3 is expected to open up older shows, right? It just won't make new ones in the old format?

Correct.
As you're a very experienced Audacity user Koz, there's a pre-release version available: viewtopic.php?f=49&t=116221

[waxcylinder]

Audacity 3 is expected to open up older shows, right? It just won't make new ones in the old format?

Yes, it deals with projects all the way back to 1.2.6 - I tested recently after some fixes that Leland made.

It also deals with older projects that have aliased files (provided the aliased files still exist and are in the right place) - it does copy them in though, so the alias link no longer exists once its been made into a UP-3.0.0 project.

Peter.