Pro Tools 9 deleted my files!!!!

[bongo_x]

Originally Posted by DigiTechSupt

In your case - did you check the 'Show Full Path' in the Regions bin to see where the file was supposed to be?

I'm wondering if the file was actually there but had header corruption - I don't know for sure that it would have affected a Finder/Spotlight search, but it may have…..

Yes I did, it was supposed to be right next to the other one, with all the rest of them. I actually looked around for the file in the Finder (not just searched) because I thought it had to be there in some form, but I didn’t find any sign of it.

bb

[mishar]

Originally Posted by DigiTechSupt

Ok - did you possibly rename them to the same name as other whole files or regions already in the session?

Well if that were the case then an error would be shown? Correct?

No, definitely not. When I rename to a final consolidated file I always remove the numeric sequence at the end, and at a symbol at the head of the file name. Eg. 'Kick In_03' becomes ... '++Kick In'. And for each new version of the file a symbol is added.

I also went to the Finder to manually check and see where the audio files were, and had no luck finding them.

The same thing happened to me again yesterday, and I took some screen snapshots, and have a bit more info. I also noticed I have no ability to save the corrupted session anywhere, as it keeps giving me the 'volume not mounted error' as a reason it can't save. Hence the error shows itself whenever Protools tries to Autobackup.

Let me know where I can send the pictures, if they'd be any help. They show the error shown.....Protools showing consolidated files, and a window of Finder showing the files I consolidated with two of them being absent, the ones being shown in the error box.

I won't have time to do any troubleshooting till next week sometime. I need to get this batch finished up first.

Again I stress this procedure is not new to me, I have done things this way for almost 10 years now. The only errors I've ever had were during the Protools 5 to 7 era, when the renamed file would not take on the track name for some obscure reason. That was finally fixed in 8! Although it was more frustrating, than a hinderance, as I'd be renaming the audio file anyway.

[suicune]

I've just had a hunt around, and I do have a copy of my 'missing file' session (it did allow me to save), and a session file backup from just before the consolidate also. However I'm not sure that either of these things would be of any use to anyone, as I just spent an hour trying get it to lose the files again so I could post something useful and repeatable, and failed miserably. But to answer digi's questions:

If anyone experiencing this can give me your complete system specs, including all attached peripherals, number and types of drives used, size of the session and details about what you were doing at the time the problem occurred (or near it) it will help us try to correlate some data.

MacPro Quad Xeon 2.66, 9GB RAM, PTHD2, 96io 888|24, 8.1cs2, MOTU micro express, 4xinternal SATA, session is just under 4MB with 61 active tracks.

Had just consolidated a BD drum edit, then moved on to other EA edits, a few minutes later I noticed the drum waveforms had disappeared, I tried to recalculate overviews and I got a volume not found error. Saved the session, quit, relaunched and all the consolidated drums (but no other files) had gone. Checked their location - was the normal audio files folder, tried a search both through relink and looked manually in the finder, but no files with those names existed.

I see several of you were consolidating - some say 'a large number of files'. How many files was that? What what their length?

It's a 4-min song, was about 8000 regions (plus fades, so I suppose that's 16000 total) spread over 12 tracks. Although the original file was only one take so it was really only 12 files plus fades as opposed to regions.

[bongo_x]

Originally Posted by mishar

...
No, definitely not. When I rename to a final consolidated file I always remove the numeric sequence at the end, and at a symbol at the head of the file name. Eg. 'Kick In_03' becomes ... '++Kick In'. And for each new version of the file a symbol is added….

I do that same thing, only with a • at the top. I’m not sure how that would affect things.

bb

[suicune]

That reminds me - I didn't rename mine at all. So unless these are acutally similar symptoms of different problems I don't think it's related.

[mishar]

Actually, just re-reading what I wrote. I forgot to mention, that the last time this happened (yesterday). I did NOT rename any Audio Files at the time. I was going through the session from top to bottom, consolidating as I go. And I was made aware of the problem when Protools did its autosave.

[Pythagor]

Just had the same on 8.1cs2!! Consolidated large number of files always changing disk allocation. 2 times of 10 i got 'error - 35 volume not found' and no sign of consolidated audio on drives. Meanwhile i can see this audio in session and actually play it. once i found files on a drive A while Pro tools definitely showed they belong to drive B

[suicune]

I just had this happen AGAIN in 8.1cs2 after consolidating a drum edit.

Come on Avid, random deletion of audio files is not exactly acceptable behaviour for an industry standard DAW is it? Please sort this out ASAP. I can send logs and/or sessions if you need them.

[suicune]

Ok, I'm not sure if it's the same bug as what caused all the file deletions detailed here, but I have found a 100% repeatable way of causing this to happen.

1. Create a blank session
2. Create an audio track
3. Make a selection on the audio track
4. Hit consolidate (it doesn't matter that the track is blank)
5. Cancel the consolidate before it completes
6. Repeat the consolidate immediately, I used alt-shift-3 again rather than just the redo shortcut
7. On your newly created region, perform enough un-doable actions for the consolidate operation to fall out of the undo history (eg splice it 32 times)
8. Now try and create a fade on the audio. It won't render - and you'll start getting -35 error messages. Check in the finder, the consolidated audio file has gone!

I can't honestly remember if on the previous occasion this happened I cancelled the consolidate at any point, but I definitely did this time around. I'd made an adjustment to the edit and forgotten to recreate the necessary fades, so I cancelled to do this then redid the consolidate. Does anyone else who had the problem recall if a cancel was used at any point?

[philip888]

I had similar issues and found that deleting the WaveCache.wfm and the Fade Files from the session folder stopped the bleeding.