For as long as I’ve had audacity, sometimes, randomly, I’ll be in the middle of a recording and I’ll stop the recording. IF I want to start the recording again, I’ll get an error message that no input device was found. This doesn’t happen all the time, but when it does, I am forced to quit and reopen audacity, when it recognizes my mic again. I can’t find any cure for this. Does anyone have any solve for this?
I am on OS X Sierra, and my audacity is 2.1.0. I know this isn’t the most recent version of audacity, but the most recently version has too many bugs that made it unusable for my purposes.
I’ve been running this without any problem for over a year now, albeit on Mavericks. I haven’t tested on Sierra and maybe the new path randomisation and sip could prevent it from running. There’s only one way to find out and that’s to try it…
USB is not the most reliable interface where continuous data exchange is required.
Check that the USB cable is secure in the sockets at both ends.
Avoid stressing the CPU during the recording.
Set power management to keep the machine awake during the recording session.
If the problem still happens, try “Transport menu > Rescan Audio Devices”, then check that the USB device is selected as the recording device in the device toolbar.
when I do rescan audio devices it appears that nothing happens. what is supposed to happen? Also, my input is definitely secure. It works like 99% of the time its just like very randomly it just stopped. Activity Monitor says my cpu is not overloaded…
Audacity looks to see what audio devices are available.
If the USB audio connection is lost, even momentarily, then it will mess up Audacity’s ability to communicate with the device. The computer will usually reconnect to the USB device automatically, but that does not help Audacity because it is a “new” connection - in effect a new device, and Audacity does not know that this “new” device exists until you rescan
If a recording suddenly stops and you get the message that Audacity cannot find the recording device, then what has probably happened is that the USB device lost its connection (at least briefly). Even if the device reconnects (makes a new connection), Audacity will not see the new connection, so Audacity will not see the device, thus triggering the error message. “Rescanning audio devices” should allow Audacity to find the new connection.
Is it a portable Mac that has a battery, and has AntiPop helped? AntiPop may help keep the USB device open even if you stop recording. Mac battery management might otherwise shut the device down to “save power”, guessing that it is no longer wanted.
If this is the reason then pausing recording rather than stopping it might conceivably help.