Missing Data on .aup and exported .mp3

[Smartlass]

I'll start off with saying that I don't have a lot of experience with Audacity so you might have to sift through quite a bit of lay terminology and stupidity. The only thing that I use Audacity for, short of file type conversion, is to take audio notes. These notes are incredibly important to my job.

Today I encountered two errors with Audacity (1.2). The first was a crash w/o ever saving, and I was able to easily recover the data using the Recovery Utility. After that I opened that new mp3 file and began to take notes again, continuing from where the crash had occurred. When I hit record it created a second track (not sure if this is normal or not, I tend to make one continuous note w/o pausing). I recorded for over two hours, saving frequently, occasionally having to pause and start again, which created about 5 tracks total.

When I had completed my notes, I saved a final time and got ready to export the file to .mp3. It gave me the warning about compressing to only one track, which I had interpreted as meaning that it would basically flatten it like an Adobe program, and all the data would pick up linearly the way it did when I played back the .aup file. However, when I opened the mp3 file it played the first track perfectly, but only played silence after the end of that track until the end of the file. I assumed I had made an error exporting it, so I checked the .aup file (which was still open) to view the layers again, and every one of them except the initial track were just straight lines. They reflected the length and placement of all the pauses and starts, they are just EMPTY. Now audacity won't open the .aup file at all, saying that data is missing. I downloaded the 1.3 beta hoping that it had a solution and opened the files in there, where it told me that there was missing data which I might be able to recover manually, but I don't know how. That's about as much of what is happening as I can understand. This particular file is very important and if anyone has any idea where I went wrong or if it is possible to recover this data please help me.

[Edgar]

First--don't delete anything, especially if you have the 1.2 project and a 1.3 project! If Audacity 1.3.13beta is still open on the original project (even though it seems to have bad tracks) DO NOT SHUT IT DOWN!

I am no an expert in this stuff! Gale or Steve will read this post and chime in with advice. Some recovery solutions rely on not shutting Audacity down normally. There is a tiny chance that you can still get the 1.3.13beta's Auto Recovery to recover the real data. I hesitate to even mention any details as you really need guidance from a pro, but the trick involves using Task Manager to force Audacity to create another Auto Recovery file.

The other possibility is to manually edit the AUP file if the _data folder contains the correct data but the AUP is bad. This might be doable--it is rarely easy but worth exploring.

Finally, after the "fire is out" it would be nice if we could re-create your issue so the Programmers can investigate.

[Gale Andrews]

If you don't want to start a new recorded track, either use the blue Pause button instead of Stop, or in Audacity Beta, restart the recording with Append-Record (SHIFT-click over the Record button or use SHIFT + R).

If you use File > Export with multiple tracks open, it will mix the tracks together to a mono file with a single channel if all the tracks are mono and unpanned, or to a stereo file with two channels if the tracks are stereo. It sounds as if your new tracks started where the old ones stopped, but had your tracks been above each other on the timeline, they would have been mixed together.

Is the error message in 1.2 that the _data folder is missing, or something else? If the data folder is missing, 1.3 could not open the project either. It sounds to me as if the .au files in the project _data folder were moved, renamed or deleted after you exported the MP3 from 1.2, and while the project was still open in 1.2. It's unlikely any bug in Audacity would do that, but definitely not impossible - very occasionally, 1.3 has been known to move .au files around or rename them. Are you saving the project to any kind of temporary folder that other programs might be "cleaning up"?

If you have opened the broken project in 1.3.13 Beta, is it still showing the audio in the first track properly, and all the other tracks are silence? You can click Help > Show Log in 1.3.13 to see the full path to the files that are listed as missing, then search your computer for some of those file names. If you find the .au files and put them back in the path shown in the log, that should restore the audio.

Whatever data is actually in the project _data folder can probably be successfully recovered again using the 1.2 Recovery Utility. providing you have not edited/saved the project in 1.3.

[I wrote this while Edgar was writing. If I'm following correctly, you have opened a saved but broken project in 1.3, that was broken in 1.2. If so, you shouldn't save the project in 1.3 in broken state, but using the option to close the project without further changes should be safe. Had the project crashed in 1.3 and you were seeing the Automatic Crash Recovery dialogue AND the project was displaying incorrectly, then yes in that case you should leave the project open without editing it or saving it until you have taken any manual steps to recover from the problem. It's a common mistake to exit without saving changes in that situation, but that discards everything Audacity was trying to recover.]

Finally, If recordings are mission critical then it makes sense to export MP3 or WAV files from time to time in a long session (for example, when you take a few seconds' break), as well as saving the project frequently.



Gale

[Smartlass]

So glad that I'm getting help so soon! Thank you both so much.

When I reopen the original file in 1.2 (which was saved on my desktop, which is also where the BAK file seems to be stored) I get the error message that the file cannot be opened due to error 2: the system cannot find the file specified. This happens if I click the file to open, open from audacity, or even try to drag it into the program icon. However, if I click okay, I can view the file (not the way it should be, still with only audio for the very first track) but anytime I release the left-click it reminds me again that it supposedly cannot find the file. I myself did not move or rename the file, and I don't think any of the background programs that were running at the time would have, however, it is possible that my disk-cleanup was running automatically around that time. I don't know how much, if at all, that would have affected the file, but there is that.

When I open it in 1.3, it gives me the initial warning about how saving it in 1.3 will make it backward incompatible, etc, but then gives me a 'Warning- Missing Audio Data Blockfiles' message that gives me the option to immediately close the program or treat the missing data as silence. When I do this, it is the same as the .mp3 and problem in 1.2, only the very first track has any audio.

I found the Show Log option and was able to find what appears to be all of the part files. For some reason they were not saved in the normal temp files folder, they were saved in the folder that I exported the messed up .mp3 to. For all I know, that may be normal, but I should have noticed that. I was just able to use the Recovery Utility to recover ALL of my lost data into one .wav file! It did not recover the portion that had been working anyway- the 1st track- but I have the recovered .wav from that as well, so editing them together won't be a problem. Better yet, i might just leave things the way they are until morning, considering the luck I've had today! I am so relieved! Still confused about how I managed to do this, but seeing as I've had two errors in one day, I'm leaning toward user error for the culprit.

I'm going to switch over to the Beta exclusively since both of my errors occurred on 1.2 and will probably try to keep my files below the 1/2 hour mark from now on.

Once again, thank you so much for being so helpful, and if there is any other information I can give you about either the crash or the export problem that might be useful to you, just let me know.

[waxcylinder]

No help for the current project - but I would always make sure that you create and use a separate file area on your disk to work with and store your Audacity projects. The desktop is one of the worst places to use to store files.

I have a folder for Audacity projects, sun folders for input source LP, radio, tape etc. and then in those further subfolders for each project (each LP transcription for example).

WC

[steve]

I'm going to switch over to the Beta exclusively

Good idea. Ye olde 1.2.6 version is getting a bit flaky on modern machines.

[Gale Andrews]

Glad you were able to recover the recording.

I found the Show Log option and was able to find what appears to be all of the part files. For some reason they were not saved in the normal temp files folder, they were saved in the folder that I exported the messed up .mp3 to. For all I know, that may be normal...

Until you save a project, the audio data is in the Audacity temporary folder (see the Directories preferences for the location of that).

When a project is saved, the .au files in the temp. folder are moved to the folder you saved the project to, and the .aup project file written.



Gale