Grouping Bug

[Siegfried Meier]

Not too happy about an error that has caused me to inadvertently delete files tonight. The scenario, and bug: when you duplicate tracks that are grouped and don't select "groups" to be duplicated, they randomly sometimes still are.

I had 2 sets of drum groups and deleted some edits in my 2nd set overheads. For some reason, the original overheads track was deleted in the process, but wasn't noticed until much later, and after consolidate and "delete unused files" was performed on the session. Yes, I should have chosen "trash" instead of delete, but being so used to the pt10 and older way of working, I selected delete. I clearly need to train myself to do otherwise these days in 11.

The fact is, the original overheads are not grouped with the 2nd set, but clearly were when they were deleted. I've seen this sort of behaviour for some time now, and it's really annoying despite this incident. When we choose not to keep the grouping in duplicated files, the software shouldn't just do whatever the hell it wants to, whenever it wants to. You'd think you guys would have this simple stuff figured out by now. But no, you're too worried about new releases and yearly subscription services to actually spend time fixing existing bugs in current software.

Get your priorities straight guys. There are a ton of dumb bugs in every version that you leave behind when you release the new one. All I hear from other users lately is negativity, and I really can't blame them one bit.

Frustrated, tired and now have to completely re-edit my entire drum track from the backup sessions...

[Siegfried Meier]

Also, what exactly is different from deleting a file from Pro Tools vs deleting from the Mac desktop? I tried to use Data Rescue 3 to retrieve the files from the drive. I was able to get back a number of files named Overheads, but they were all from sessions that I had trashed myself off the desktop after archiving - some dating back several months. Nothing deleted from inside Pro Tools could be found. Why is that?

[Top Jimmy]

I think bypassing the trash can effectively kill recovery. I've seen this on windows where I'm in the habit of shift-deleting. Anything deleted this way is not found in a recovery attempt while things deleted from the trash are.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Top Jimmy

I think bypassing the trash can effectively kill recovery. I've seen this on windows where I'm in the habit of shift-deleting. Anything deleted this way is not found in a recovery attempt while things deleted from the trash are.

Agreed. Once you go outside the normal way of deleting things on either Windows or OSX most recovery programs will not be able to recover the file. Operating systems, when they delete a file, change a bit (or couple of bits) to indicate a file is available to be written over. Files are rarely totally deleted UNLESS the space is written over by ones or zeroes which is how security programs wipe space that is marked as available (i.e. deleted through the normal os system).

If you go outside the normal system way of deleting things that marker I wrote about isn't there unless the developer puts hooks into the program to use the system delete. That's why in programs like iTunes if you delete a file it also shows in your Trash folder in the Dock (OSX).

Actually there are programs that will go into the disk file system and show you everything there and if you have the smarts you could pull back what you deleted but they are not for the faint of heart or non-software geeks. I've done it and it's a headache and you REALLY need to know what you're looking at as well as understand the file system in use.

[albee1952]

Did you try opening any Auto-Backup sessions?

[Siegfried Meier]

Autosave unfortunately only saves sessions - if anything destructive has happened to the files themselves, it's gone. And, because of this grouping bug, it was never noticed before it was too late...

It's a rare thing - it's never happened to me in the 17 years I've used Pro Tools. I've seen the grouping bug before, but it's never caught me like this. The lesson here, for me, is that a) I need to lock regions REGARDLESS of the fact that I consolidate every one of them from the top of the session, to the end of the audio and b) choose "send to trash" instead of "delete" from here on out.

I was not aware of this issue with not being able to recover files if they're not send to the trash first - this was an entirely unknown concept to me before today.

Thanks guys,
Sig

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Siegfried Meier

I was not aware of this issue with not being able to recover files if they're not send to the trash first - this was an entirely unknown concept to me before today.

Thanks guys,
Sig

Not recoverable by traditional methods but using a sector editor and knowing what you're looking at it's possible to recovery anything providing it hasn't been overwritten. That's how computer forensics experts are able to recover seemingly lost/deleted files. I've done it years ago, it's ugly and if you don't know what you're doing you can hose the drive and lose everything.

[Siegfried Meier]

Haha ya, I think I'll just spend the few hours it takes to re-edit the drum track...

If AVID are paying attention, fix the damn grouping bug!! That's the point of this thread anyway.