"Something went seriously wrong. Ardour cannot continue."

#1

That was the warning message headline when trying to open a session in safe mode

It continues:

"Here are a few hints at what might be wrong:

ERROR: Cannot get existing session information from C:\Users.…
ERROR: XML error: Premature end of data in tag events line 873206 in file:/C:/Users/… .ardour at line 873229:25
ERROR: XML error: Char 0x0 out of allowed range in file:/C:/Users/… .ardour at line 873229:25
ERROR: XML error: Premature end of data in tag events line 873206 in file:/C:/Users/… .ardour at line 873229:25
ERROR: XML error: Char 0x0 out of allowed range in file:/C:/Users/… .ardour at line 873229:25
ERROR: XML error: Document is empty in file:/C:/Users/…/instant.xml at line 1:1
…"

Successive tries to open the session normally or in safe mode fail up to the point of making my pc shut down, which was why I was opening the session in safe mode in the first place. If I recall correctly .bak files are backup files that I can fall back to right? but do I just double click on them when opening a session or do I have to do anything else? right now as you can imagine I panic at making this whole thing worse.

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#2

First, make a backup (or two) of at least your .ardour/.ardour.bak project file(s), or your whole project folder if you can.

Second, yes, you can attempt to open the .ardour.bak file, but you need to erase the “.bak” in the name to do so. And to prevent two files having the same name in the same folder, you can place the original (.ardour) one into another folder, at least temporarily. There’s no guarantee the .bak copy will help you in the end, however. But yes, you can try it!

As for determining the real root of the issue you face, hopefully someone more knowledgeable will ‘chime in’ soon! :grin:

-J

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#3

Ardour has no way of making your PC shutdown. That sounds like there is an underlying problem with your computer, possibly a failing disk. Or did you mean that you gave up attempting to open the session and resorted to restarting your computer?

I am not sure if there may be a newer menu driven way to use bak files, but in the past you just copied your existing project file somewhere safe, then copied your bak file to the same name with .ardour extension to make it the current session file.
See this old discussion:

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#4

Thank you guys for your answers, so far I was able to copy the whole folder, rename pertinent files and open the .bak file. Everything important seems to be there :sweat_smile:
Still I just opened it in safe mode, will report back when I have the whole thing back working.

As for this, well yeah computer went off midway trying to open the session, it’s a bit dramatic but sadly something I am not strange to, even with different computers or Ardour versions. I always thought it had to do with memory handling and my machines never being top of the line. It seems the heavier the session becomes the more likely this is to happen. Lighter versions run alright and other tasks in my computer do too, so I don’t really know what to make out of it, I just wanna finish this project already and go on with my life xD

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#5

Means the file is corrupted on disk. Either an unclean shutdown of the system or some other disk problem. Unlikely that this can be recovered.

If this was not caused by a power-outage on file system without journaling, Test the hard-disk’s heath, and make an immediate backup.

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#6

The .bak file now renamed .ardour is working perfectly fine. Thank you all for your tips and apologies for a maybe too rushed and apocalyptic thread, but yeah for a moment there I thought it was lost :melting_face:

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