This is serious. I have a project, been working on it for 3 months, we’re just ready to launch, so I saved the recording as usual, then, to cut out setting up time for any future projects, I saved the layout as a template.
I then opened the template I saved from that project and cleaned it out, ready to be used as the new template for all our recordings. I cleaned the media pool out, all to trash then deleted the trash, as you’d do of course.
I then reopened my project to finalise the mix & master the song and the friggin “missing files” window opens and says it cannot find my audio files??? WTF!!!
Where are they?
I closed the project, went to the hub to open the template I saved, and that’s gone as well. I mean can anyone show me where these very very important vocals, harmonies, kick drum bass lines etc are? They must be somewhere?
We’re supposed to be releasing this song in 2 weeks? I mean I’m in tears over here, all that work.
If you are lucky you may find them in the trashcan of your OS.
When emptying the Pool’s Trash folder there are two buttons - one simply removes the entries from the pool, the other lets you delete the files from the hard drive. I assume you used the latter one.
If they are not in the bin then they might be gone. Maybe there are file recovery tools available but I don’t possess a great deal of knowledge on this topic. In case there is such a software - you should try to avoid using the particular hard drive. The place where the files might still be on the drive is now officially allocated as unused space and can therefore be overwritten at any time. This is not happening on a Cubase level but an OS level.
As I said I am not knowledgeable in this topic. I found this tool here, which seems to be for free (don’t know if it wants to fetch some personal data in return):
Thanks Johnny. I’m using or rather trying out Recuva from MS store. Also, asking Gemini Pro what else is possible. Fingers crossed. Thanks again for caring.
After you hopefully recover your lost files, I would strongly advise to begin making regular backups of your data (I assume you don’t have one yet, else you would’ve already checked for those files in the backup)!
Well what a friggin devastating thing that was. I’ve got them back, helped by Gemini, Windows Recovery Tool and focus. I will back things up from now on. I though CuBase was doing that every 5 mins or so.
This is good news - I’ve had this issue in the past, and it is surprising that Cubase does actually delete the files, rather than sending them to the recycle bin.
Useful to know for future reference that files can actually be recovered, and how to go about it. I guess we all have had one of those ’ Oh S***!’ moments’ that prompts us to get serious about backups. This was yours
Cubase can auto-save the project you are working on if configured so in the settings. This is not a backup. A backup is saving all your important data in regular intervals to a completely different location, i.e. on a separate USB disk, or the cloud, but definetely not on a disk that is inside you’re computer.
I agree … but there are plenty of applications on my PC that ask the same question but files nearly always end up in the recycle bin rather vanishing completely.
I’m pleased to hear you’re perfect - just like me - and never, ever click on something accidentally
glad you were able to recover your audio data this time.
Next time please use the following option:
This is how regular full Cubase project backups should be done:
after recording, and before editing anything, create a new folder, and create it twice, like [Project_Name_Date_Status]_BACKUP_1 and, for your additional template, also [Project_Name_Date_Status]_BACKUP_2 (can be removed later)
backup your whole project - without deleting anything, to both folders each. Use the backup dialog’s switches the way you need them
by this method and for each full project backup, all references to your active project’s audio / MIDI data will be removed from that backup’s internal structure and thus it gets “isolated”, but none of its backupped contents would of course get lost - including all internal project structure - (provided you didn’t explicitly tell it to do so, via the backup dialogue or by tidying up the pool manually)
zip the first backup folder and - ideally - move it far, far away, if possible to a persistent backup medium (external storage)
close your active project, open the one from your second backup folder
remove everything from there as you see fit and then create your template
close your “template generator” and re-open your main project
some users (like “data-paranoid little me”) even make a “cascaded backup” since day one, which means after having recorded everything and after the musicians have left. So, in order to be on the safe side, a copy of today’s work project backup would always be the starting point for tomorrow’s recording / editing / mixing session.
and yes, by this consistent “backup-eritis” you might certainly need a lot more of (mostly temporary) data storage space, yet in the end you’d have to decide if it’s worth it or not anyway.
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Hidden screenshots (these were taken from Cubase Pro 13):
