charles kasler Posted Tuesday at 09:30 PM Share Posted Tuesday at 09:30 PM I just opened up several old projects and the files are missing. There hasn't been any change in my setup or settings or interface. I did a search in one project but nothing showed up. What causes this? Is there any other recourse? Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sjoens Posted Wednesday at 12:48 AM Share Posted Wednesday at 12:48 AM Audio files?? Were they stored on an external drive? Check all global and per project audio folders. If you know the name of the files you can use a search tool called EVERYTHING which will find them if they exist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amberwolf Posted Wednesday at 01:10 AM Share Posted Wednesday at 01:10 AM 3 hours ago, charles kasler said: I just opened up several old projects and the files are missing. There hasn't been any change in my setup or settings or interface. I did a search in one project but nothing showed up. What causes this? Is there any other recourse? Thanks! Have you removed or moved any files? (this might be covered in " There hasn't been any change in my setup" but just to be sure....) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charles kasler Posted Wednesday at 10:58 AM Author Share Posted Wednesday at 10:58 AM Thanks for the responses. Yes audio files, no external drive, I haven't moved or removed any unless I did something by accident Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mettelus Posted Wednesday at 12:56 PM Share Posted Wednesday at 12:56 PM Cakewalk doesn't delete audio files, so missing audio would imply you ran a cleanup utility. Write down the name of one of the missing audio files and try searching your entire computer with Windows Explorer for it. If you moved it or changed folder settings that will find it (so you can recover them). If you cannot, did you run any cleanup utility since you opened those projects last? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charles kasler Posted Wednesday at 05:54 PM Author Share Posted Wednesday at 05:54 PM I did run it but only a few files found. I thought it was safe. I did get a message that some files were corrupted. What causes that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Baay Posted Wednesday at 08:40 PM Share Posted Wednesday at 08:40 PM 2 hours ago, charles kasler said: I did get a message that some files were corrupted. What causes that? The combination of missing files and corrupted files suggests some systemic failure or 3rd-party software involvement. As Mettelus suggested, it's virtually impossible to have Cakewalk lose track of audio or delete it unintentionally without someone or something meddling with the file system directly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amberwolf Posted Wednesday at 09:53 PM Share Posted Wednesday at 09:53 PM (edited) Does the cleanup utility have a log file that shows you which specific files were deleted? Do those match the missing files? If not, then it didn't delete them, and some other process or program or action has done so. If files have been deleted from the drive, there are recovery utilities that can locate and undelete them, but it's likely that parts of them have been overwritten by other data, a problem that grows worse the longer it has been since they were deleted. With wave files (audio) it's likely that even with missing chunks you can still use the portions that are still present, but you would have to recreate or rerecord any missing bits. Just be careful and read up on reviews of any utility software before you download, install, or use it. I've found over the years that while there are good ones, some of the utilities and "undelete" programs out there are not very good, some are not even real (just scamware to infect your computer with spyware/adware), and some are baitware, where they say they'll do some job but only do a scan to find things to fix but then charges you (more) to actually fix them. I don't have any lists of which ones are any good these days as I haven't done this sort of thing in a long while. If the files were corrupted originally, you could have some program running that interferes with file operations, or that auto-defragments a drive but poorly and doesn't properly keep track of all the file chunks, or an actual hardware problem with your drive (bad sectors, etc) that is causing data loss. Edited Wednesday at 09:55 PM by Amberwolf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charles kasler Posted Wednesday at 11:51 PM Author Share Posted Wednesday at 11:51 PM Wow thanks for all of the input! I need to sit with this and think about any third party utilities, nothing comes to mind at the moment Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sjoens Posted 23 hours ago Share Posted 23 hours ago Again, I recommend downloading EVRYTHING to search with. Windows search is much slower and hit&miss at best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amberwolf Posted 20 hours ago Share Posted 20 hours ago (edited) 5 hours ago, charles kasler said: Wow thanks for all of the input! I need to sit with this and think about any third party utilities, nothing comes to mind at the moment Hmmm. In this post it's implied that you used one...which specific utility did you actually run that is referred to in that post? Knowing what it is might suggest a recovery option. Being very specific with the info in your replies to us will help us help you better. Edited 20 hours ago by Amberwolf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charles kasler Posted 13 hours ago Author Share Posted 13 hours ago I just used the cakewalk audio finder which is supposed to be safe and then once a month I use privazer, however it's spelled. I researched it well before using it and it's been very good for several years causing no problems. That's all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sjoens Posted 13 hours ago Share Posted 13 hours ago A bad or damaged HDD can cause corrupted/missing files. Happened to me once. A $1500 recovery only found some of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charles kasler Posted 11 hours ago Author Share Posted 11 hours ago I have an SSD although it's starting to slow down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mettelus Posted 7 hours ago Share Posted 7 hours ago 6 hours ago, charles kasler said: I just used the cakewalk audio finder I have used that utility only once and the results were catastrophic for me. It decimated projects from older SONAR versions the same as what you mentioned in the OP. I had everything archived to backup drives so was just the pain to copy things back, but that single experience made me never open it again. I have seen people swear by it, but even if "operator error" can reproduce what I experienced, the tool is not trustworthy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charles kasler Posted 6 hours ago Author Share Posted 6 hours ago Thanks - do you mean Cake Audio Finder or Privazer? If it's Cake AF, how else do you delete clips that are no longer needed? This is good, I'm getting an education here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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