I am using Audacity 2.x on Windows Vista. Installed from .exe installer. On making a voice recording in stereo I noted the red volume recording bars sometimes come to a complete stop, while the recording voice is continuing. Then, they will suddenly resume and the recording blue bar sort of jumps into place. This stop only lasts a few seconds before resuming normally. I have compared this recording with one done on an audio voice recorder and cannot detect any skips in recording the voice on Audacity. Is it possible that what I am seeing is just a reloading pause, such as is seen on viewing videos?
It sounds as if you are fortunate not to be recording audible skips in Audacity. Even so, it seems the computer is struggling to redraw the Audacity meters properly. You might get this sort of hang when the computer is swapping out memory to the paging file (virtual memory) so that it still has enough real, physical memory left to work with.
I would go through all the tips here to see if you need to change settings or run fewer programs on the computer:
Missing features - Audacity Support .
In particular, connect to a USB port not a hub if you are using a USB recording device, and at Edit > Preferences: Directories in Audacity, make sure “Play and/or record using RAM” does not have a tick (does not have a check mark).
Gale