Cannot get audacity program to shut down.

System Mac Sierra OX; Audacity 2.2.1; Audacity program froze when I canceled an export. I could not quit the program. Did not even show on Force Quit screen as running. I restarted the Mac. I then tried restarting Audacity’s but pop-up window said Audacity was already running. Can’t get it to shut down. What next?

[moderator note: Similar post merged below]

Will exporting music Audacity froze. Tried to quit but unable. Could not force quit so shut down my Mac. Upon start up I tried to open Audacity but got a pop-up screen saying the program was already running. Tried to delete the program and reinstall still same message. Ahhhhh! What can I do to resolve this?

Go to ~/Library/Application Support/audacity . In there you will find a folder “SessionData”. Trash the contents of that folder.

When you re-launched Audacity, did it not offer to recover the project?

Another way to force-quit a program is to open Activity Monitor (it’s in the Utilities folder inside Applications), click on the program in the list, then click the “X” icon.

– Bill

OSX 10.11.6

I’m having this same problem right now. It’s wreaking havoc on my system and I can’t get it to stop. I’ve gone into activity monitor and can’t find it there or in the force quit window.

Will advise of any progress

Emergency Mac Shutdown

It’s wreaking havoc on my system and I can’t get it to stop.

The desperation method is hold your power button for an extended push. Press and hold it until the screen goes black. That will unconditionally shut down the system. The fans may stay running, but that shouldn’t last long. Wait. When you Start, it will ask you if you want to open all your old stuff. Say no.

When it does come back up, Do Not start working. Let the machine settle and then Apple > Shut Down… normally. Then, when you Start, the system should be roughly where it was when you started having trouble, except nothing is active or running.

This isn’t something you do every day because it is a very serious shock to the system. But if it’s going nuts and you can’t stop it, that’s one way out.

Koz

Audacity Is Already Running Error

After you do an emergency shutdown, it’s a terrific bet that the system will think Audacity is still running when it’s not. That’s when you go to a specific System location and kill a session file.

Start with Go at the top of your desktop.


Screen Shot 2019-09-20 at 10.27.04.png
Go to Folder…


Screen Shot 2019-09-20 at 10.29.43.png
Paste or type this line into the box.

~/Library/Application Support/audacity

Do not leave out the squiggly line (tilde) at the beginning and “audacity” is not capitalized.


Screen Shot 2019-09-20 at 18.41.47.png
Go. That will send you here. Those are the Audacity “back room” support files and folders.


Screen Shot 2019-09-20 at 18.42.32.png
Double click the SessionData folder to open it and it should look like this on a normal machine without Audacity running.


Screen Shot 2019-09-20 at 18.42.46.png
If yours has one of these or any other files or folders, delete them.


Screen Shot 2019-09-20 at 18.54.30.png
Close everything back out to the plain desktop and try to launch Audacity.

Koz

Thank you Koz, that did the trick!

Which issue are you referring to?
This one:

or this one:

or this one:

Please help me! I can’t shut down Audacity.

I would like to save the audio, but if Itake the recommendation to hold down power button to restart computer, the audio will disappear. This has happened previously, so not a good option.

This is what is in my screen now…

“Audacity” failed to quit and is not responding. To for “Audacity” to quit and continue the shutdown, click Continue. (Choice of Cancel or Continue buttons)

I hit Cancel and my computer did nothing.

I tried the Apple logo in the upper left corner… nothing.

I had to remove my external hard drive without ejecting, too. I got thos message… Disk Not Ejected Properly. Eject disc before disconnecting or turning it off.

I am not a Geek, so please instruct for common folk. :slight_smile:

Please hurry and Thank you!

You should always ensure that running applications are closed before shutting down the computer. The problem that you see is because you told the computer to shut down while Audacity was still running.

Note that on Mac, closing an application does not shut down the application - the application continues running in the background. When an app is running in the background the app icon in the Dock will have a dot in the corner. Right click on the icon and select “Quit”.


If your Mac is still in limbo, half shut down, try launching iTunes. With luck that will cancel the shutdown process.
If that does not work, launch the “Terminal” app and enter the command:

sudo killall shutdown

then press “Enter”.
You will then be prompted for your password, after which the computer shutdown sequence will be cancelled.
You should then be able to quit all running applications properly and then shut down the computer normally.

Thank you Steve!

I wasn’t attempting to shut down Mac at all. I just simply wanted to unfreeze Audacity, which froze without obvious reason to me.

This is not the first time… I’m up to counting on at least 2 hands by this point!

So… if I record and don’t save/export immediately (ik… saving/exporting immediately would be the best solution here!), what to do???

my mouse still moves, but clicking is ineffective. on any app.

Please advise for future! Thanks!

PS. Why do so many Geeks seem to have troubles with Audacity??? just saying…

That message says that your computer is trying to shut down. Perhaps a macOS triggered it if you didn’t.

Thanks guys!