Damaged songs
A song file can be damaged by a disk or a sync service that cut it short, or by a copy that didn’t finish. Stab reads as much of it as it can: a song with a few damaged parts opens repaired, and only a song it can’t read at all refuses to open. This page says what Stab does in each case, and where to find an earlier copy.
A song was repaired
Available on every platform.
A song opened “repaired”
When some of a song can’t be read, Stab leaves those parts out, opens the rest, and says so: ““Riff.stab” was repaired”, with how many items were left out. An item is one thing in the song, such as a note, a clip, a tempo change or a track’s setting; everything else is as it was.
The damaged file isn’t thrown away. Before the repaired song is saved over it, Stab keeps it next to it in your library, as “Riff (original)” (with a number if that name is taken). It’s a song in your library like any other: open it from the home to look at it, and delete it once you’re happy with the repaired song. Until then it counts as one of your songs (see Free songs).
A song opened from outside your library, such as from a USB stick or another folder, is never written where it is, so its file stays as it was.If only the song’s layout was damaged (its panes and windows), the song opens in a single pane, with nothing of the music lost. Arrange its panes again and they’re saved with it.
A song that won’t open
“The file is damaged.”, under a title such as “Couldn’t open “Riff.stab””, means Stab couldn’t read the song at all. To get it back:
- From Stab Cloud: if the song is in Stab Cloud, open its Version History and restore an earlier version. The free plan keeps 30 days of history; Stab Cloud keeps it all.
- From a backup: Time Machine, or another copy of your library folder. From a backup: File History, or another copy of your library folder. From a copy you downloaded or exported earlier.
For other messages when opening a file, see A file won’t open.
A song you deleted
- The Trash: a song deleted on the Mac goes to the Trash; Put Back returns it to your library. The Recycle Bin: a song deleted on Windows goes there; Restore returns it to your library. Stab Cloud’s Trash, on the Stab Cloud page, holds songs deleted on the web.
- Stab Cloud’s Trash holds cloud songs you deleted, until it’s emptied. Songs on your devices are kept by each device.
See Recently Deleted and Songs in the cloud.
Takes recorded when Stab stopped
Audio is written to disk as it records, so a take survives Stab stopping unexpectedly in the middle of it. The next time the song opens, those takes come back where they began, on their own track, or on a new audio track called Recovered if theirs is gone, each named Recovered Take 1, Recovered Take 2… Bringing them back is one undo step: undo it if you don’t want them. See Recovering takes.