Google Drive converting cwb into wav???

[Jesse Miller]

Hey there.  I have been in the process of uploading all of my SONAR bundles onto my Google Drive for a secure cloud backup, and I just noticed that Google drive thinks the .cwb files are all .wav files.  You can play the file like a wav, and when you download the file, it is a wav, all of the audio data strung into one long audio file!

 

Anyone know how to stop this or get my cwb bundles back???

[scook]

Is Google really converting the files or is it recognizing they are RIFF files containing audio data?

It has always been possible to change the extension from cwb to wav an play a bundle file.

If the bundles have a wav extension change them back to cwb

Once the extension is changed back to cwb, open the bundles, zip up each project folder and its content, copy the zips to Google drive and throw away the bundles.

Bundles are a poor choice for archiving projects. 

The format is still around for backward compatibility and project sharing (although zip works for this too).

[John Vere]

You should stick with cakewalks Normal or CWP files. They are what are stable ' Save as a CWP file and Cakewalk will create a folder with everything inside. ,  and very easy to back up whole project folders. 

[Terry Kelley]

This is a real problem. I see this too. I haven't figured it out. For some reason Google appears to be associating CWB files to WAV. I checked the browser (FF) and it's not doing it nor is Windows. If I put a CWB on the drive for my buddy, it's fine. When I bring in one of his, ".wav" has been appended to the file name so I see it as "song.cwb.wav".

I asked the Google forum about it too but got no replies. It only started happening recently (about 2 months ago.)

As far as a quick fix, just rename the file to .CWB.  You can also tell Cakewalk to open *.* and it will see the .wav, you can open it like any other .cwb file and re-save.

The value of bundles is a totally different subject.

Edited April 14, 2021 by Terry Kelley

[Kalle Rantaaho]

7 hours ago, scook said:

It has always been possible to change the extension from cwb to wav an play a bundle file

Over thirty years with CW/Sonar and still learning things I've never heard of...!!

I've participated many dozens of threads about corrupt bundle files and such, but can't remember ever  hearing of that possibility.
Even though it seems like a logical thing to try when salvaging the content of a corrupt bundle.

How is a " wave-bundle- file" played back? All audio tracks after one another? MIDI not handled, I presume?

[Noel Borthwick]

A bundle file is a multi chunk RIFF wave file. The compacted audio data for all regions is stored first (per wave file format - stereo/mono/32 bit/24 bit, etc) followed by the CWP chunk. This is why if you rename it to wave it will play because media players ignore the subsequent chunks.
As long as you download the file in entirety from google drive you can save as with the CWB extension and it will load fine.

FWIW there is nothing wrong about saving as bundles. All known previous issues have been addressed a long time ago and yet people keep repeating the same incorrect info. You should always additionally save as CWP with external audio since its a lot more efficient to load and it provides a secondary backup. Bundles are convenient when you want to collaborate or simply store a single file.

[John Vere]

Like @Kalle Rantaaho I have see a lot of posts where corrupt bundle files were involved. So I have also assumed that they can become corrupted because of this. At no point on this forum has anyone explained otherwise that I am aware of. 
Seems all of us who have been here a long time when the word bundle comes up cringe, and this is why.
So now we can further assume that those threads involved older bundles made before the fix. 

See why we need Staff to monitor us @Noel Borthwick     ? Thanks for the clarification about bundle files we will add this to the common knowledge database. 

Edited April 14, 2021 by John Vere

[Jesse Miller]

Hello folks, thanks for the prompt replies!  As @scook suggested, changing the file extension back to .cwb worked perfectly, and SONAR opens it perfectly.  Thanks so much!

 

As a side note, I am obviously a completely new poster here, and I am thus unaware of any cringe-worthiness of the Cakewalk bundles as your forum mythos or etiquette.  FWIW, I have been using SONAR since 2004 (starting with version 2.2) and currently run SONAR PRO (have not upgraded to Bandlab, sorry [not sorry]).  I've always felt Bundle files were absolutely fine for archival purposes as well as a mental signifier that says "OK, this track is complete.  I can be done now."  Project files are for something you are currently working on.  Knowwhatimean?  This has been the only problem I've had with a bundle, aside from a damaged CD-R that made the bundle data file corrupted. 

 

To each their own, I suppose.  Regardless, thanks.  Someone needs to tell Google Drive to get their sh!t together! 

Edited April 14, 2021 by Jesse Miller

[Noel Borthwick]

If this same a bundle file make sure that you can open it successfully from the bundle.

Any file can get corrupted on disk and since a bundle is a single file there is a risk of the entire file getting corrupted. Hence the recommendation you save both the bundle and the actually project file with it's audio.

[Jesse Miller]

4 hours ago, Noel Borthwick said:

If this same a bundle file make sure that you can open it successfully from the bundle.

Any file can get corrupted on disk and since a bundle is a single file there is a risk of the entire file getting corrupted. Hence the recommendation you save both the bundle and the actually project file with it's audio.

Yep, I did that, and the bundle was opened correctly and the project is what it is.  Thanks!

 

That makes sense about the cwp.  I suppose I never thought about making a zip folder of a cwp, I never gave it that much thought.   Perhaps I'll buy a handful of flashdrives and have a backup of my Google Drive backups, all zipped files of the project files. 

[John Vere]

Storage is cheap. You can get a 2 TB External drive for $100. No need to zip. I have 3 of them as well as my Daw pc has a 1TB drive for most of my CWP files. 
 

[Xoo]

21 minutes ago, Jesse Miller said:

Yep, I did that, and the bundle was opened correctly and the project is what it is.  Thanks!

 

That makes sense about the cwp.  I suppose I never thought about making a zip folder of a cwp, I never gave it that much thought.   Perhaps I'll buy a handful of flashdrives and have a backup of my Google Drive backups, all zipped files of the project files. 

zip files are equally (if not more so) susceptible to corruption - a single bit *can* make a zip file unusable.  At least with a straight copy, you may lose one wav file (and even then it may well import) but you're way less likely to lose everything.  That's about the one downside of using bundles as Noel said earlier.

Oh, and wav files don't zip well, so it's probably a waste of time ?

[Jesse Miller]

48 minutes ago, John Vere said:

Storage is cheap. You can get a 2 TB External drive for $100. No need to zip. I have 3 of them as well as my Daw pc has a 1TB drive for most of my CWP files. 
 

I already have an external drive just for that purpose.  It died on me last summer, which is why I was moving to cloud storage.  ?

[Terry Kelley]

I sometimes wonder if having accidentally "played" a bundle directly from the Google Drive has made it associated CWB with WAVs but I can't find any local or account settings suggesting that.

On a side note, the question about this issue that I posted on the Google Drive Help page shows one "upvote" and it was promptly locked for any comments. Definitely a conspiracy.

My formal backup is raw files. No zip, compression, bundles etc. Just the files ma'am.

Edited April 14, 2021 by Terry Kelley

[Noel Borthwick]

On 4/14/2021 at 6:23 PM, Kevin Perry said:

zip files are equally (if not more so) susceptible to corruption - a single bit *can* make a zip file unusable.  At least with a straight copy, you may lose one wav file (and even then it may well import) but you're way less likely to lose everything.  That's about the one downside of using bundles as Noel said earlier.

Oh, and wav files don't zip well, so it's probably a waste of time ?

Actually bundles are not so susceptible because the bulk of the data is the wave data which is at the start of the file. Any small corruption there wouldn’t prevent the bundle loading typically. The CWP is tagged on at the end. That’s the dangerous bit.

[Xoo]

Good point, although Murphy's Law would put the corruption in the "cwp" part of course ?

[John Vere]

So you don’t believe in external drives just because 1 in a million died on you.  

[Jesse Miller]

23 hours ago, John Vere said:

So you don’t believe in external drives just because 1 in a million died on you.  

Always back up your back up. 

[Terry Kelley]

It's call the original.