Garageband cant find my recordings!??!

If you want to make Apple aware use the Feedback item in the GarageBand menu. This is a user to user forum.

It seems the problem has been fixed with 10.6.3 update. If I understood well, previous version had a problem finding files with the character # when running under Rosseta.

I am not sure how many of us have this problem. I do and if the number of viewers are an indication then there are many of us.
My temporary solution is to lock the audio track after recording, before saving the project. I think this transfers the track to the hard drive so although GB indicates that the track is lost, it will still play. Once you unlock the track however, it will be lost.

A second approach is - after recording the audio track but before saving the project, go to the package contents and look in the media folder and make a copy of the audio file (or files) then paste the copy in a file on the desk top. You can then reintroduce this audio file (from the desk top) in the project and be able to heat the audio track, even after opening and closing the project.

One problem with this approach however is that you cannot modify the track. Additionally, if you change the tempo of the project/song, the tempo of that specific audio track does not change although all other track do change.

My suggestions however are not really practical where you are trying to develop a song.

I suggest that all affected GB9 users (seems that some users do not have this problem) send an e-mail to APPLE, informing them of this problem experienced with the GB9 software as below
Address - http://www.apple.com/feedback

I am running OS X 10.6.3 and GarageBand 5.1 (398)

I have been using GarageBand since I bought my Mac at the end of last year (first Mac I've ever owned). Up until now, I had been enjoying it very much! I have made several multi-track songs using a mic hooked to a USB interface, and a keyboard connected via USB.

Last week, I was able to save these multi-track songs and replay them in GB without issue. Starting a few days ago, when I attempt to open the .band file, I receive:

Audio file "Male Basic#02.aif" not found.

It appears to be an issue with individual vocal tracks (which I typically layer), because they no longer have any data associated with them in GB. Whatever I record is saved without any noticeable error. Any track recorded with the keyboard loads for playback in GB. When I browse to the .band file, right-click, and select "Show Package Contents," I look in the Media sub-folder, and see no .AIF files. When the file opens, I can playback anything I recorded with the keyboard, but the vocal tracks say:

File Not Found

I have run the Disk Utility > Repair Disk Permissions, but to no avail. I have also deleted my GB prefs files, but to no avail. I have no idea what else to try, but I need to produce music, and I can't, because I can't save it.

If the Media folder is empty, there's unfortunately no way to retrieve your recordings!

I understand that. How do I prevent it from happening? How do I get back to saving my songs in GarageBand? I'm crippled right now. I can't save anything on which I work.

Here's another very frustrated first poster hoping that this issue gets resolved very quickly.

I feel inspired enough to actually write music maybe once or twice a year. I really don't like that garageband is standing in my way.

Recently, I've had a few recording sessions lost down the drain due to this. However, I've found that the "Save as" command coupled with the checking of the "archive" option saves the file properly, whereas any routine cmd-S-clicking inevitably produces a ~1 MB file devoid of any recordings.

Irritating, to say the least.

The OP must have worded his problem better then me. I posted exactly the same problem earlier the same day, no response yet...

Does Apple themselves monitor this forum? This is obviously becoming a common problem and people are obviously as upset as I am. So many days now I've been keen to record something but theres no point.

Alright, so I think I'm getting somewhere...

I created a test song called "My Song.BAND" at a higher directory level (just to rule out it being a file name length issue), and when I look at the size of the .BAND file, it's 4.6 MB. When I choose "Show Package Contents," and traverse the structure, I see:

Contents\PkgInfo = 4 KB
Media = 0 KB
Output\arrange_screenshot.tiff = 393 KB
Output\metadata.plist = 4 KB
projectData = 516 KB
Thumbs directory = 0 KB

So, the grand total = less than 4.6 MB

Thinking my Mac is hiding things from me, I logged into Terminal as the root user, and traversed down to "My Song.band\Media" and it contained nothing as well.

What am I missing here? The data appears to be somewhere within the .BAND file.

I've also noticed that I only lose the "Real Instrument" recordings. All of my "Software Instrument" tracks are saved and in tact, even on the songs where I've lost the Real Instrument tracks (though they don't seem to get a file in the "Media" sub-folder in the .BAND file). Most of my songs are multi-track songs with an Interface + Mic on the "Real Instrument" tracks, and USB keyboard on the "Software Instrument" tracks. If I record a voice from my keyboard using a "Real Instrument" track, I lose it.

Hi everybody, I'm sad to be here again, but after upgrading to mac OS 10.6.3 the problem with garageband seemed to be fixed, but today I went back to edit some podcasts and I founded the audio files weren't there again.

When I open a recently saved brand new project, GB asks me again to find the lost files, which is useless since the files can't be located anywhere, as many people has explained here.

So I've come back to the point I was before upgrading to 10.6.3.

As I said, I'm editing podcasts, so I usually import music tracks from iTunes. Those tracks are still there on the GB project after saving, closing and opening again. For sure this is due to that those files are stored in the iTunes library itself, not in the GB package.

I can see this is obvious, but maybe can help someone to realise what's going on here.

Anyhow I'm also going to address Apple customer service right now.

pa_co wrote:
For sure this is due to that those files are stored in the iTunes library itself, not in the GB package.

I can see this is obvious

just so no one gets misled, this is incorrect, imported songs are stored within the GB project.

Hi there
Those who have been having problems loosing audio recordings, please read the entry of Capaclone, of March 26. It really works. I have been using this solution to get around the problem of loosing audio/real instrument files.

Capaclone's solution is as follows:
"you can try and do the following: Record with garageband, then WITHOUT SAVING go to the package contents of your file, then copy the .aif files from the Media folder to the root folder of the project, then save from garageband. in this way, the next time you open the project it will automatically search and find the .aif files needed. Do this ALWAYS BEFORE SAVING, and your project will stay intact. hope this helps."

Alright everyone, I finally got it fixed with the help of Cheryl @ Apple, the nicest woman on the planet! First, she had me create a new user and attempt to record. I did, and when I recorded, I had the same problem, which meant it's an issue with GarageBand, so the next step was to reinstall the software.

I logged in as Administrator, and I went to the following folders:
Macintosh HD\Library\Application Support > delete the GarageBand folder
Macintosh HD\Library\Caches > delete anything with GarageBand in the name
User\Library\Preferences > delete all com.apple.garageband... files
User\Library\Application Support > delete GarageBand folder

Once I did this and reinstalled GarageBand from the Install DVD, it works perfectly like it used to!