XML Fatal Error: Invalid Document Structure

[timjackman]

After saving my audition project as usual, I tried to open it and get the message

Error: The file is either corrupt or using an unsupported format

XML FATAL ERROR: (line: 1, col: 1) [ (file directory).sesx] invalid document structure

I have no idea what this means, I'm new to the whole adobe infrastructure. None of the audio files have been moved, and I don't know what a "document structure" is or what could have changed about it between previous drafts. Perhaps adding DeEsser and a Compressor? With previous versions I've sometimes had to link media upon opening it, but that seemed like random chance whether I had to or not.

This is draft 21. Draft 20 has the same error code, while draft 19 has the error "unexpected end of input". Draft 18 works fine.

Is there any way I can recover draft 21? A lot of progress has been made - draft 21 is basically the finished product.

I'm using Audition CC 2018 on a Mac

Thanks

edit: I've just opened the .sesx files in a text editor. 21 and 20 are both blank. 19 has text, and 18 does too. Are 20 and 21 both lost forever?

[_durin_]

If the session files are blank or corrupt, then that's the sort of error message you're likely to encounter.  Generally, there shouldn't be a problem writing the session files to disk (as the first 18 were successfully done) but if they are no longer writing as expected, that's a red flag that something is wrong.  It could be application, OS, or hardware-based, so it's tough to know where to begin without some troubleshooting.

But first, it's probably that Audition was saving regular backups of the session every few minutes.  The default location is in the ~/Creative Cloud Files/audition/ directory, but the preferences to customize that are under Audition's Preferences > Auto-Save screen and can show you the full path.  Odds are, unless there's a bigger problem, you'll find a recent back up there and can recover most of your work.

However, that doesn't answer the question of why you would have blank session files being written.  After confirming you have backups, I would make a copy of it to a external drive, then try the following:

• If you make a new session from scratch, and save it to the same drive or directory, does it re-open properly?
• If you save a new session to a different drive or network location, does that re-open properly?
• Are there any errors or warnings when you launch or quit Audition?

[LionCrower]

I have the same problem!