Lost recording - help

[Gale Andrews]

Audacity version: 1.3.13-beta (Unicode)
In Audacity > Preferences > Directories, the location of the temporary files directory is

/var/folders/-v/-v+FcVUeHwCDXf-mN3S4A++++TI/-Tmp-/audacity-scott

It "looks" as it that is a "normal" sort of path:
http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... y+#p133645

@ willsband: Is this project empty except for this recording? Or are there are lots of old recordings in it?


Gale

[willsband]

Gale, if I am understanding the question correctly, it was a new project. I start a new project for each recording. What I was left with was 1 hour of 23 minutes recorded, with the first 1 hour 9 minutes blank and then suddenly the audio comes in.

[Gale Andrews]

Gale, if I am understanding the question correctly, it was a new project. I start a new project for each recording.

First I assume you have not done File > Save Project As before recording, is that correct? If you did not do a project save, this would mean the data for the recording was written to the Audacity temporary folder and is theoretically still there. If you saved a project, the data is in the _data folder for the project.

What was in my mind with my question was if (for whatever reason) the temporary folder for that project still had data from old recordings. If a project contains (at 44100 Hz) more than 13.5 hours of data, it will or could start breaking irrespective of your disk space. However if you did File > New, this should not (I think) be a problem. Even if you had not closed the other project windows (thus accumulating data in the temp folder for all the unclosed projects), the new project should be in its own folder in the temp folder.

So if this project only has this recording, is it possible the drive is failing? If Audacity is not reading the drive, there will probably be errors at Help > Show Log. If there are lots of "can't open file" or any other file related errors, please attach the log (using the "Upload attachment" tab underneath the buttons where you post replies).

Have you examined the contents of the temp folder in Finder to see if there are the expected number of .au files? By default there would be about 1600 of them if this was a stereo recording, divided into different folders. You can find how to view temp files in Finder here:
http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Crash ... saved_data

(look in the green box).

Also it might be an idea to check in ~/Library/Application Support/audacity/AutoSave. There should be an "autosave" file in there which is like the .aup file when you save a project. If you open the autossave file in a text editor you can check if "datadir" in it is actually noted as the Audacity temp directory you quoted before.

[As an aside to others reading on Mac, if you shut Audacity with the red Close button (that is, you don't quit Audacity) does that empty the temp folder?]



Gale

[willsband]

I usually just start Audacity and then start recording; then when done recording I save it. Would it be better to open a new project before I start recording?

I looked in the help > show log and only did not find any errors. However, I was working on a new project and I don't know if the log keeps the older data.

My computer has been running a bit slower at times but I have no other indication that the drive is failing.

I was not able to locate the Autosave file.

Thanks.

[Gale Andrews]

I usually just start Audacity and then start recording; then when done recording I save it. Would it be better to open a new project before I start recording?

If Audacity is not running and you launch it to start a recording, there is no need to open a new project window. The concern would be if you kept on recording new tracks in the same project window (even if you closed the old tracks using the [X] to left of the tracks). If you do that, you come up against the possible 13.5 hours limit.

And if you keep opening new project windows without File > Close on the old ones, you eventually run out of disk space because the data for all the projects is still stored.

I looked in the help > show log and only did not find any errors. However, I was working on a new project and I don't know if the log keeps the older data.

The log persists while the Audacity program is running, irrespective if you start a recording then open a new project window or close the old window. Once you Audacity > Quit Audacity, the log is gone.

I was not able to locate the Autosave file.

Please say if you ever specifically did "File > Save Project" or "File > Save Project As" on this recording. If yes and there are no unsaved changes (File > Save Project is greyed out), there will be no AutoSave file, but you could generate one just by making a selection in the track. If you saved a project, the first place to look for the audio data is in the _data folder that has the same name as the .aup file.

If you never saved the recording as a project, is the recording still open in a project window? If so, the data should be in the temp folder you indicated (and there would be an AutoSave file).

So you need to look in one of those two locations according to whether you saved a project or not, and see what data is there. There is always a chance you have hit a rare bug and Audacity has moved the .au files somewhere it should not have done. But if so and you play the track, it should generate "Can't open file" in the log.



Gale

[willsband]

I was in "emergency mode" after the failed recording and what I immediately did was to export the file in .aiff format. It produced an .aiff file just like what was in the Audacity window - an hour 9 minutes blank and then our last 14 minutes of audio. We then did a new recording about 15 minutes long, which worked fine and I saved. I couldn't remember, but looking back now it appears that I never saved the original Audacity project file. The recording is no longer open in a project window because I've opened and closed Audacity several times since this happened. Based on this, I assume any files that could have recovered the lost data are now gone.

[Gale Andrews]

I was in "emergency mode" after the failed recording and what I immediately did was to export the file in .aiff format. It produced an .aiff file just like what was in the Audacity window - an hour 9 minutes blank and then our last 14 minutes of audio. We then did a new recording about 15 minutes long, which worked fine and I saved. I couldn't remember, but looking back now it appears that I never saved the original Audacity project file. The recording is no longer open in a project window because I've opened and closed Audacity several times since this happened. Based on this, I assume any files that could have recovered the lost data are now gone.

If you had not saved a project, then yes you should have kept the project window open so there was access to the autosave file and so that the data that (presumably) Audacity was trying to read was in the temp folder. If nothing else, the autosave file would give us the filenames of .au files that we could look for in case they had moved somewhere else on your computer. If you have a tool that can recover files that have been deleted from the file system, you may be able to find the autosave file (it is unlikely these tools will be free on Mac).

Unless the saved project with the new recording still has the track with the failed recording, there is now no access to the data of the failed recording, assuming you have done File > Close on that project at some time.

Sorry, but it seems there is no more we can do and this will have to remain unexplained. Unless you are launching Audacity afresh, please File > Close old projects before starting new recordings, saving the changes if you want an Audacity project. Check the disk space at the bottom left and quit and restart Audacity if you do not have enough disk space to complete the recording.

If this problem happens again, please don't close the project window because it makes any solution much more difficult to achieve.



Gale

[willsband]

Recorded another podcast last evening. I saved the recording after roughly every 30 minutes, and did not have the problem. Hopefully this was some fluke and will not occur again.