Hi,
I have a 15" macbook pro. When I plugged in a remote hard-drive and R-4 edirol to transfer files to the hard drive strange things happened. I couldn't eject either machine. I quit all the applications and then had to crash the computer. When I restarted, I found that the entire content of the Elan transcription I was working on went missing. If I open it with a text editor, there is nothing there whatsoever. I have a version backed up from Friday but I did a lot of work today and I don't want to lose that work. All my other .eaf files seem to be ok.

I am running ELAN 3.7.2-1. Until yesterday I had ELAN 3.8.0 on the machine as well but because it was behaving strangely I uninstalled it, but it is still in the trash.

I have two logs in my preferences folder. This is what they say.


elan0.log

Nov 16, 2009 6:56:51 PM mpi.eudico.client.annotator.ELAN main
INFO: ELAN 3.7.2
Nov 16, 2009 6:56:53 PM mpi.eudico.client.annotator.ELAN main
INFO: Java version: 1.5.0_20
Nov 16, 2009 6:56:53 PM mpi.eudico.client.annotator.ELAN main
INFO: Runtime version: 1.5.0_20-b02-315
Nov 16, 2009 6:56:53 PM mpi.eudico.client.annotator.ELAN main
INFO: OS name: Mac OS X
Nov 16, 2009 6:56:53 PM mpi.eudico.client.annotator.ELAN main
INFO: OS version: 10.5.8
Nov 16, 2009 6:56:53 PM mpi.eudico.client.annotator.ELAN main
INFO: User language: en
Nov 16, 2009 6:56:53 PM mpi.eudico.client.annotator.ELAN main
INFO: Classpath: lib/elan.jar:lib/cocoa_qt/1.1/JavaCocoaQTMovieView.jar:lib/mfsearch__V0.8.0.jar:ext/nl.mpi.guk__V06.jar:ext/nl.mpi.lookup__V08.jar:lib/batik__V1.1.1.jar:lib/jlfgr-1_0.jar:lib/xerces__V2.6.2/xercesImpl.jar:jmf2.1.1a/jmf.jar:jmf2.1.1a/sound.jar:lib/jhall-2.0.0.5.jar:lib/xalan-2.4.1.jar:lib/macapp__V03.jar:lib/help.zip
Nov 16, 2009 6:56:54 PM mpi.eudico.client.annotator.util.SystemInstallationSecurity verifyLibExt
INFO: verifying lib/ext /USERS/JOEBLYTHE/LIBRARY/JAVA/EXTENSIONS
Nov 16, 2009 6:56:55 PM mpi.eudico.client.annotator.integration.ExternalLauncher start
INFO: External launch thread started...
Using Cocoa QT Media Player
mediaURL = file:///Users/joeblythe/Documents/Austkin Postdoc/Transcriptions/On Nginarr/2007-08-27JB04c.wav
cue header found - ignoring contents...
LIST header found - ignoring contents...
Information from header of wav-file:
NrOfChannels : 2
Sample frequency: 48000
Bitrate : 24
nrOfSamples : 43200000
-> Length : 00:15:00.000
WAVE Format : PCM (uncompressed)
MediaUrl: file:///Users/joeblythe/Documents/Austkin Postdoc/Transcriptions/On Nginarr/2007-08-27JB04c.wav
cue header found - ignoring contents...
LIST header found - ignoring contents...
Information from header of wav-file:
NrOfChannels : 2
Sample frequency: 48000
Bitrate : 24
nrOfSamples : 43200000
-> Length : 00:15:00.000
WAVE Format : PCM (uncompressed)
cue header found - ignoring contents...
LIST header found - ignoring contents...
Information from header of wav-file:
NrOfChannels : 2
Sample frequency: 48000
Bitrate : 24
nrOfSamples : 43200000
-> Length : 00:15:00.000
WAVE Format : PCM (uncompressed)
Nr. of channels: 2
Nov 16, 2009 6:57:03 PM mpi.eudico.util.ExtClassLoader loadClasses
INFO: Extensions dir: /Applications/ELAN 3.7.2-1/extensions
No media export functionality available
Using Cocoa QT Media Player
mediaURL = file:///Users/joeblythe/Documents/Austkin Postdoc/Transcriptions/Clan Transc Movies/20091114JB03/20091114JB03.wav
Using Cocoa QT Media Player
mediaURL = file:///Users/joeblythe/Documents/Austkin Postdoc/Transcriptions/Clan Transc Movies/20091114JB03/20091114JB03.mp4
cue header found - ignoring contents...
LIST header found - ignoring contents...
Information from header of wav-file:
NrOfChannels : 2
Sample frequency: 48000
Bitrate : 16
nrOfSamples : 89925120
-> Length : 00:31:13.440
WAVE Format : PCM (uncompressed)
MediaUrl: file:///Users/joeblythe/Documents/Austkin Postdoc/Transcriptions/Clan Transc Movies/20091114JB03/20091114JB03.wav
cue header found - ignoring contents...
LIST header found - ignoring contents...
Information from header of wav-file:
NrOfChannels : 2
Sample frequency: 48000
Bitrate : 16
nrOfSamples : 89925120
-> Length : 00:31:13.440
WAVE Format : PCM (uncompressed)
cue header found - ignoring contents...
LIST header found - ignoring contents...
Information from header of wav-file:
NrOfChannels : 2
Sample frequency: 48000
Bitrate : 16
nrOfSamples : 89925120
-> Length : 00:31:13.440
WAVE Format : PCM (uncompressed)
Nr. of channels: 2
No media export functionality available
Finalize ELAN window...
Nov 16, 2009 6:57:37 PM mpi.eudico.client.annotator.integration.ExternalLauncher stop
INFO: External launch thread stopped...
Nov 16, 2009 6:57:37 PM mpi.eudico.client.annotator.integration.ExternalLauncher$LaunchThread run
INFO: Launch thread interrupted...




elan1.log

Nov 15, 2009 2:05:58 PM mpi.eudico.client.annotator.ELAN main
INFO: ELAN 3.8.0
Nov 15, 2009 2:05:58 PM mpi.eudico.client.annotator.ELAN main
INFO: Java version: 1.5.0_20
Nov 15, 2009 2:05:58 PM mpi.eudico.client.annotator.ELAN main
INFO: Runtime version: 1.5.0_20-b02-315
Nov 15, 2009 2:05:58 PM mpi.eudico.client.annotator.ELAN main
INFO: OS name: Mac OS X
Nov 15, 2009 2:05:58 PM mpi.eudico.client.annotator.ELAN main
INFO: OS version: 10.5.8
Nov 15, 2009 2:05:58 PM mpi.eudico.client.annotator.ELAN main
INFO: User language: en
Nov 15, 2009 2:05:58 PM mpi.eudico.client.annotator.ELAN main
INFO: User home: /Users/joeblythe
Nov 15, 2009 2:05:58 PM mpi.eudico.client.annotator.ELAN main
INFO: Classpath: lib/elan.jar:lib/cocoa_qt/1.2/JavaCocoaQTMovieView.jar:lib/mfsearch__V0.9.0.jar:ext/nl.mpi.guk__V06.jar:ext/nl.mpi.lookup__V08.jar:lib/batik__V1.1.1.jar:lib/jlfgr-1_0.jar:lib/xerces__V2.6.2/xercesImpl.jar:jmf2.1.1a/jmf.jar:jmf2.1.1a/sound.jar:lib/jhall-2.0.0.5.jar:lib/xalan-2.4.1.jar:lib/macapp__V03.jar:lib/help.zip
Nov 15, 2009 2:05:58 PM mpi.eudico.client.annotator.util.SystemInstallationSecurity verifyLibExt
INFO: verifying lib/ext /USERS/JOEBLYTHE/LIBRARY/JAVA/EXTENSIONS
Nov 15, 2009 2:05:59 PM mpi.eudico.client.annotator.integration.ExternalLauncher start
INFO: External launch thread started...
Nov 15, 2009 2:05:59 PM mpi.eudico.client.annotator.prefs.PreferencesReader parse
WARNING: Preferences file does not exist: /Users/joeblythe/Library/Preferences/ELAN/shortcuts.pfsx
Using Cocoa QT Media Player
mediaURL = file:///Users/joeblythe/Documents/Austkin Postdoc/Transcriptions/Clan Transc Movies/20090707JB04/20090707JB04.wav
Using Cocoa QT Media Player
mediaURL = file:///Users/joeblythe/Documents/Austkin Postdoc/Transcriptions/Clan Transc Movies/20090707JB04/20090707JB04.mp4
MediaUrl: file:///Users/joeblythe/Documents/Austkin Postdoc/Transcriptions/Clan Transc Movies/20090707JB04/20090707JB04.wav
Nr. of channels: 2
Nov 15, 2009 2:06:03 PM mpi.eudico.util.ExtClassLoader loadClasses
INFO: Extensions dir: /Applications/ELAN 3.8.0/extensions
Nov 15, 2009 2:06:04 PM mpi.eudico.client.annotator.commands.ExportMediaCA <init>
INFO: No media export functionality available
Nov 15, 2009 2:09:38 PM mpi.eudico.client.annotator.integration.ExternalLauncher stop
INFO: External launch thread stopped...
Nov 15, 2009 2:09:38 PM mpi.eudico.client.annotator.integration.ExternalLauncher$LaunchThread run
INFO: Launch thread interrupted...

Any ideas greatly appreciated.

If the file is empty in a text editor I'm afraid the contents is just gone. It might be that the crash happened exactly at the moment ELAN was starting to save the file (just guessing here)?
If you didn't use the automatic backup feature (creates files like name.eaf.001)I'm afraid the work of that day cannot be recovered.

-Han