There was an error parsing the specified project

[bogo]

I had this message on about 4-5 different projects since last summer. I'm working on 3 different computer (rehersal space, work, home). The issue happened on two new Kingston SSD drive.

When it happends, Windows chkdsk finds and correct error on the drive (it also deletes some files).

Both .rpr and .bak are corrupted.

I've attached some corrupted files if someone wants to take a look at them.

Thanks for your help.

[bolgwrad]

Are you talking about USB drives? What flavour of Windows? Are you using the drives as delivered (no reformatting)?

[bogo]

Yes USB drives NTFS formatted. I suspect the drive enclosure usb connector being flimsy but it's the second one I have and the same issue happened with the other one too. I'll see if it happends with my sata docking station. And I'll turn ON Autosave in the preferences.

[Fabian]

Originally Posted by bogo

<snip>

I've attached some corrupted files if someone wants to take a look at them.

Thanks for your help.

Yeah, those files seem beyond saving. RPP files are readable text, these seem to be binary files, the middle one looks like 20 kB of zeros, while the other two are just binary stuff.

I would not use NTFS when moving a USB or SSD between computers. NTFS encodes user access permissions on the files, I am surprised that you can at all access on one computer files created on another computer. I am not even sure that this should be possible, not easily at least.

[bogo]

Originally Posted by Fabian

Yeah, those files seem beyond saving. RPP files are readable text, these seem to be binary files, the middle one looks like 20 kB of zeros, while the other two are just binary stuff.

I would not use NTFS when moving a USB or SSD between computers. NTFS encodes user access permissions on the files, I am surprised that you can at all access on one computer files created on another computer. I am not even sure that this should be possible, not easily at least.

Are you sure ? I used external 7200 rpm NTFS drive (into a usb docking station) for years between different windows pc without any trouble. How should I format it ?

[bogo]

Is it possible that working on the same session on two computers with Reaper V5 on one and V6 on the other gives me some trouble with the drive and parsing ?

The .rpr session that was working perfectly this morning while I was recording now does a ''error parsing'' at home. I opened the drive and the folder was almost empty despite having recorded a lot of track.

Then I did a check drive using windows-properties-tools and it did find errors but I choose not repair it. I opened the drive again and the files were almost all back. So it seems something is corrupting the drive when I'm working on the rehersal space computer.

Any input would be appreciated.

Thanks

Edit : One of the two pc I have has a 32bit os/reaper version

[bogo]

Ok this one has the parsing error but looks readable into notepad.

I did a lot of takes. I'm wondering what are all those TAKE NULL.

Reaper was in autosave (15 minutes). I can open the .bkp but it's a big mess. Missing files and a lot of empty takes.

Next time I will reopen the session after closing it before leaving the place and see if it plays fine.

[Fabian]

Originally Posted by bogo

Ok this one has the parsing error but looks readable into notepad.

I did a lot of takes. I'm wondering what are all those TAKE NULL.

Reaper was in autosave (15 minutes). I can open the .bkp but it's a big mess. Missing files and a lot of empty takes.

Next time I will reopen the session after closing it before leaving the place and see if it plays fine.

This file at least looks like a real rpp, but it is not the full file, there is a part missing at the end. The last "<TRACK" has no ending ">".
I don't know about those "TAKE NULL" but I guess those are just empty takes, sometimes Reaper generates those. No, I definitely think that the problem with this file is that it is cut off, there should be at least two ">" at the end, one to finish the "<TRACK" tag, and one to finish the "<REAPER PROJECT" tag, both of those are missing, and maybe more (the last track has no source file associated with it).

One thing you could try with this particular file is to add those missing end tags ">", see if Reaper can parse it.

But that does not solve the problem of *why* these files get corrupted, or how to avoid it.

Do you have W10 on all computers that you share this drive between?

And on one of then the OS is 32-bit, but on the others it is 64-bit, I guess. I do not think that either Reaper v5 and v6 nor 32-bit/64-bit Reaper would cause this. To me it seems more like some kind of OS issue.

For sharing drives between computers, I would use FAT32. Of course, that limits file sizes to 4GB, but with audio that is typically not a problem.

[bogo]

Hi Fabian, thanks for your time.

I've added the missing end tags and it doesn't parse neither.

I will format the ssd to FAT32 and see later tonight.

Yes I have W10 on all the computer I use and the one I record audio on is 32-bit.

[bogo]

Another strange behavior with that PC (Optiplex 990) and Reaper (the 32-bit one) is that Reaper won't start unless I open an existing project. If I click on the icon it starts bug it hangs from the begining and I have to ''force quit it''.

I have the feeling it's related to the sound card (Lynx AES16). It did the same when I was using another older pc (but with same OS drive).