Changing recording device produces an error on recording

[ankle]

I'm using Audacity 1.3.5 in Ubuntu Hardy, and have found a bug in the recording device selection.

If I open Audacity, then in the Audio I/O preferences set the Recording Device to "OSS: /dev/dsp1", press OK and start recording, everything's fine.

If I first set the Recording Device to a different device, try recording (which produces no signal, obviously), then go back to the Audio I/O preferences and set the Recording Device to "OSS: /dev/dsp1", starting to record will produce an error:
"Error while opening sound device. Please check the input device settings and the project sample rate."

On restarting Audacity, when the Recording Device is now set to "OSS: /dev/dsp1" by default, recording works fine with no errors.

It took a while to work out that the recording device was actually working, but it was Audacity (or perhaps some other part of the audio system, I'm not sure) producing the error.

[stevethefiddle]

As you point out, setting Audacity to use the incorrect device will not work. However, when you change the device setting, you should restart Audacity so that the change takes effect correctly. This is not really a "bug", it's just that Audacity can not implement all preference changes "on the fly", so certain changes (such as changing the audio device) should be followed by a restart of Audacity.

[ankle]

Ok, that's fair enough. Maybe display a warning when the preference is changed, saying that a restart is required, so that users know what's going on?