Most of my ardour projects are failing to load, most of my ardour projects got deleted (only their parent folders remain), and I'm unable to save projects

#1

most of my ardour projects are failing to load, most of my ardour projects got deleted (only their parent folders remain), and I’m unable to save projects anymore.
project #1; `Session “/mnt/e34a95cc-66f5-4ad2-ac05-cc6094a925f5/music_pak/Ardour/Renai Circulation Remix (snapshot Renai Circulation Remix)” did not load successfully:
Cannot initialize session/engine: Invalid or corrupt session state.

—ERROR: Could not set session state from XML
ERROR: Session: failed to load active playlists
ERROR: Session: cannot create Playlist from XML description.
ERROR: Playlist: cannot create region from XML
ERROR: Session: XMLNode describing a MidiRegion references an unknown source id =566
ERROR: Session: cannot create Region from XML description. Can not load state for region 'Take46_sfizz-19.1'
…
`

project #2; `Session “/mnt/e34a95cc-66f5-4ad2-ac05-cc6094a925f5/music_pak/Ardour/SWEET (snapshot SWEET)” did not load successfully:
Cannot initialize session/engine: Invalid or corrupt session state.

—ERROR: Could not set session state from XML
ERROR: Session: failed to load active playlists
ERROR: Session: cannot create Playlist from XML description.
ERROR: Playlist: cannot create region from XML
ERROR: Session: XMLNode describing a MidiRegion references an unknown source id =107358
ERROR: Session: cannot create Region from XML description. Can not load state for region 'Take67_piano-12.1'
…
`

I don’t know what’s going on, seems like its failing to load because the midi files // takes are missing or something… Would downgrading ardour potentially fix this? I’m on arch linux and ardour 8.12.0.

also what could’ve happened to my deleted projects??? it’s disappointing, i wanted to revisit them, and I’m scared this might happen to future projects because there’s no lead on what could’ve caused this…

and Why can’t i save? the console says nothing, and trying to save the project with save as results in a simple error basically stating that it isn’t possible.

1 Like
#2

Okay i updated ardour and it fixed the active problems. I think some of my projects got erased due to me downgrading and upgrading wine, ardour, and yabridge in an attempt to fix my plugins, though i’d still like to know what could’ve potentially caused my projects to get deleted inorder to prevent such a thing from occuring again in the future. Anyone might have any ideas?

Thanks!

1 Like
#3

Ardour projects won’t get deleted when you install / update any software. The only reasons I can think of files disappearing are user error (accidental deletion / move) and hard disk failure. Always backup your important files / sessions to another physical disk.

Since you seems to be on Linux here is my backup - command I use after working on a session:

rsync -rtv /SourcePath/ /TargetPath/

2 Likes
#4

Maybe you’re using the wrong term: deleted.
Like mhatzel states, Ardour (using/installing/updating/removing) does not delete or erase files or projects. Maybe you mean opening a snapshot/project fails and as a result thus only brings back an empty project where only the parent folder exists?
Yes, backup is a good thing, and loading older projects in a newer Ardour-version could potentially produce some errors but doing so will not delete or erase your files.