2.3.2.0 on Windows 10 - Blue Screen Portcls.sys Page Fault

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Audacity is crashing with a blue screen stop code:

Page Fault in Nonpaged Area

What Failed: portcls.sys

Within seconds of Audacity completing boot up,the system crashes. This just started about a week ago. I just upgraded to 2.3.2.0 a couple of days ago hoping it would fix the problem, but it has not. I see a LOT of posts with problems in the past week so it appears something did change and is broken.

Please ASAP, I have time sensitive, non commercial commitments relying on my ability to record songs I am singing which will be exported to .mp3 files. Created a number of them as recently as one week ago.

The app was dated 5/4/19 in File Manager but was originally installed on Drive C, an optical drive where it was flawless until this past week. I uninstalled the application from Drive C and reinstalled it on OneDrive, but the same blue screen. Is it a Windows 10 problem? My system is updated on a regular basis. Please let me know if i have to return to a previous Windows version and how to find the list of back versions by date.

Thank you for a wonderful program that I love and for all the hard work support it!

Yours in music,

Richard
Tucson, AZ

2

You should not post personal information on the forum. Nobody from Audacity will call or email you. I removed part of your signature.

I see a LOT of posts with problems in the past week

Maybe not Blue Screen of Death. That’s a very serious Windows failure.

This is from a Google of your crash:

These errors can be caused by both hardware and software issues, and it can be difficult to troubleshoot…

You have a profoundly unstable machine. Audacity is just the trigger. Audacity (and other audio and video production programs) can use all the memory and great quantities of drive in normal operation. If you have anything wrong, for example in high memory, the defect could sit there for a very long time through email, spreadsheets, Photoshop pictures, etc, but the first time you try to load a large sound (or video) production, Boom!

Drive C, an optical drive where it was flawless

Drive C: is probably not an optical drive. I don’t think Windows 7 will boot from an optical drive. I suppose you could try it with a CD-RW drive and force it to be C:, but that would be super unusual and way too slow to get any serious work done.

Google One Drive is an internet drive. Audacity does not support running the program or any parts of it from internet drives.

My system is updated on a regular basis.

Do you keep track of the updates and did it fail right after an update? I make the system notify me of updates and I do them manually. I never let an update install while I’m in the middle of a show.

I don’t think a BSOD is an update or application problem. I haven’t heard of a Windows 7 BSOD is a very long time. I’m not a Windows elf. We should wait for someone with Windows experience to post.

Koz

3

In modern versions of Windows, “blue screen” errors can only occur due to faults in applications that have “kernel access”. In effect this means that “blue screen” errors are always related to low level drivers. (Audacity does not have kernel level access).

Do you use “Virtual Audio Cable” or similar?

4

Do you allow Windows to do an extensive check when you start it? I think there are two boots. One is a Quick Boot where the system does a very rapid check and gives you the working machine very quickly, but the other is much more serious and it does multiple passes of longer checks and just makes you wait. I think you should make the machine do the longer boot once just to see what happens.

This is fuzzier. Some machines will let you do an extensive check before Windows. Consult your instructions.

Koz

5

When was the last time you did the Long Virus Check? Many virus protection packages have a setting you use just before you go to bed because it takes a very long time. It does a very thorough machine test.

Do you have a neighborhood computer guru? Sometimes fresh eyes on a problem can help.

Koz

6

“PortCls” is an audio port-class driver in the Windows operating system, so the problem is very likely to be due to a bug in a low level audio driver, hence my question re. “Virtual Audio Cable” or similar.

7

The original poster’s info shows Windows 10 for the OS. I’m guessing that the reference to “optical drive” means SSD (solid-state drive) for the C Drive - correct me if I’m wrong.
@OP - Open your start window (start button); at the bottom left corner (probably the 2nd icon from the bottom) choose the “settings” icon (looks like a set of embedded gears). Choose the “System” settings; at the very bottom of the left-hand panel of the System Settings you will see the “About” offering - click it. The “About” pane will open; the first few lines will probably be about your security; the next section contains a few lines related to “Device specifications”; the next selection relates to “Windows specifications” - those are the ones I’m interested in. Probably the easiest thing would be to take a screen grab, paste the resulting grab into Paint (or your favorite paint program) then crop the result down to just show that information (there are 4 things: Edition, Version, Installed On & OS Build - if you try to type them in make sure you get them exactly right).

It would appear that many Windows 10 users have experienced problems with the recent major update Googling for references should bring up quite a bit of information. OP might need to revert to an earlier version of Windows 10; rolling back updates may or may not work; reverting to a previous Restore Point may not work. I rely on weekly full disk images of my drives for this.

8

https://hothardware.com/news/microsoft-says-skip-update

https://www.techradar.com/news/windows-10s-latest-update-reportedly-causes-blue-screen-of-death-issues

https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2019/10/19/microsoft-windows-10-warning-bsod-crash-boot-problem-upgrade-windows-10/#201c4c3b721e


Top three Google hits. Is your hair standing up yet? I bet Macs don’t have these problems…

Oh, wait.

Koz

9

I rely on weekly full disk images of my drives for this.

How do you create and restore these images?

Koz

10

Can you see Catalina from here? I just got email from Finale saying don’t upgrade to Catalina!

11

Windows (at least as far back as Windows 7) has a built-in disk imaging tool - works great. Windows 7 had GUI access to this tool from the Settings: Backup window (top left hand corner see items for Create Restore Disk and Disk Image - not sure of the exact terminology, it’s been too long since I worked with Windows 7). Windows 8 & 10 removed the GUI access but kept the underlying nationality. Open a Run dialog (Windows key + r) and put this in the “Open:” text field:

sdclt.exe /BLBBACKUPWIZARD

click “OK” and follow the detailed steps illicitly (EDIT: that was a speak-o; Dragon should have dictated “explicitly” ). You can use an external drive (even a thumb drive it’s big enough) or backup to an optical drive (CDs or DVDs). Imaging the “C” drive automatically includes the hidden related volumes; you MAY image multiple drives but I have not tried it and would not recommend it. I start this every Saturday night just before going to bed; it takes about 35 minutes on my system (my C drive is a 1 TB SSD which has about 400 GB in use; the destination is a 2 TB external Seagate SSD on USB 3.0; my CPU has lots of course and is VERY fast). Restoring the image takes about an hour; over the years I have done this many times on a number of different computers and the restore has never failed me. When I build a desktop, laptop or tablet for myself or anyone else I ALWAYS get an external hard drive (about $50 for a one or 2 TB Seagate); after installing the OS and doing all the OS upgrades but BEFORE installing any other software (including Office or other Microsoft products) I do the first image; after installing all user-specified software (Office, Audacity etc.) and doing an additional OS upgrade I do a final initial image before delivering or using the hardware (I use to always do a 2nd version of this image on CDs as well but have only once needed to restore from CDs - it took almost 20 hours). This has saved me and my “clients” an incredible amount of grief over the years! For my clients who are savvy enough to do a disk image themselves I recommend weekly images (after the first image, subsequent images are fairly small only saving differences); you may pick any image to restore. Otherwise, every time I get my hands on one of my “clients’” computers I do an updated image and, at least once or twice a year Remote Desktop onto everyone’s computers and do images.

12

You should not post personal information on the forum. Nobody from Audacity will call or email you. I removed part of your signature.

MY REPLIES ALL IN CAPS:

THANKS, NOT FAMILIAR WITH FORUM PROTOCOLS. THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THE QUICK REPLY, VERY PLEASED!!!

I see a LOT of posts with problems in the past week
Maybe not Blue Screen of Death. That’s a very serious Windows failure.

MY PC IS A NEW (6/19) MACHINE, CYBERPOWER, AMD 64-BIT WITH AN AMD O/S WHICH MOVES PROGRAMS AND DATA BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN THE C DRIVE AND AN INTERNAL 3 TB DISK TO GIVE THE FASTER SOLID STATE DISK FOR THE PROGRAMS I USE MOST. SO, IT’S POSSIBLE THAT COULD BE A FACTOR.

I HAVE NO OTHER PROBLEMS AT THIS TIME OTHER THAN AUDACITY.

This is from a Google of your crash:
These errors can be caused by both hardware and software issues, and it can be difficult to troubleshoot…
You have a profoundly unstable machine.

HARD TO UNDERSTAND - NO OTHER PROBLEMS, PC IS CLEAN AS A WHISTLE. PLUS, THE ONLY THING I WAS DOING WAS RECORDING YOUTUBE SONGS WITH MY MICROPHONE THROUGH A YAMAHA SOUND MIXER AND RECORDING STEREO TRACKS. I THEN CONVERTED 10-15 SUCH SONGS INTO .MP3 FILES, ONE BY ONE. AFTER REMOVING AUDACITY FROM MY COMPUTER I WAS ABLE TO PLAY ONE OF THOSE SONGS ON A PLAYER. I WAS STOKED BECAUSE THIS HAD NOT BEEN POSSIBLE IN THE PAST DUE TO LICENSING ISSUES. THANKS FOR MAKING THAT POSSIBLE.

Audacity is just the trigger. Audacity (and other audio and video production programs) can use all the memory and great quantities of drive in normal operation. If you have anything wrong, for example in high memory, the defect could sit there for a very long time through email, spreadsheets, Photoshop pictures, etc, but the first time you try to load a large sound (or video) production, Boom!

I UNDERSTAND. MY BACKGROUND, BTW, IS A BSEE/MSEE IN COMPUTER SYSTEMS AND A 30 YEAR CAREER IN SILICON VALLEY WITH HP, SUN, AND MY OWN COMPANY (FOUNDER, CHAIRMAN, AND CEO), ONE OF SEVERAL WHO ROLLED OUT 170 FIRST-TIME eCOMMERCE PLATFORMS FOR CORPORATE AND DOT.COM COMPANIES. MISSED GOING PUBLIC BY 60 DAYS WITH $35M IN VENTURE FUNDING!

NO LARGE SOUND OR VIDEO FILES TO LOAD, OTHER THAN ONE VERY, VERY LARGE .MP3 (RUNNING ON RECORD FOR SEVERAL HOURS BY MISTAKE) WHICH WAS RECORDED ON 9/28 AND WHICH I HAVE NEVER PLAYED BACK. IT IS JUST SITTING ON THE DISK WITH OTHER .MP3’s, ALL WITH JUST ONE THREE MINUTE RECORDED SONG.

I.E., THE PROGRAM DID NOT FAIL WHILE I WAS USING THE SOFTWARE, ONLY WHEN JUST AFTER BOOTING UP WITHOUT ANY ACTIVITY ON THE MACHINE.

Drive C, an optical drive where it was flawless
Drive C: is probably not an optical drive. I don’t think Windows 7 will boot from an optical drive. I suppose you could try it with a CD-RW drive and force it to be C:, but that would be super unusual and way too slow to get any serious work done.

I MEANT TO SAY SOLID STATE MEMORY, NOT OPTICAL (DUH)! MEMORY WHICH IS STANDARD ON THE CYBERPOWER MACHINES.

Google One Drive is an internet drive. Audacity does not support running the program or any parts of it from internet drives.
My system is updated on a regular basis.

NOT SURPRISED AND I DIDN’T THINK IT WOULD BE SUPPORTED, BUT I WANTED TO TRY IT TO SEE IF THE PROBLEM MIGHT HAVE BEEN A DISK SWAP SPACE ISSUE ON DRIVE C. I WILL UNINSTALL IT AND TRY ONE MORE TIME, BUT THERE IS NO CAUSE/EFFECT RELATIONSHIP WITH DOING THAT.

I HAVE AUDACITY ON MY LAPTOP. WILL ALSO TRY THAT NEXT.

UNFORTUNATELY, I HAVE PRECIOUS LITTLE TIME TO TROUBLESHOOT, MY DAY IS CRAMMED WITH MY JOB, FAMILY, AND PERSONAL COMMITMENTS.

Do you keep track of the updates and did it fail right after an update? I make the system notify me of updates and I do them manually. I never let an update install while I’m in the middle of a show.

NO, I DON’T KEEP TRACK OF THE UPDATES, BUT IT DID NOT FAIL AFTER AN UPDATE. PREVIOUS VERSION WAS INSTALLED IN JUNE AND I HAVE BEEN USING IT EXTENSIVELY UNTIL LAST WEEK WHEN OUT OF THE BLUE (NO PUN INTENDED) IT JUST CRASHED. UNINSTALLING AND UPRGADING TO THE LATEST VERSION ENCOUNTERED THE SAME PROBLEM.

I don’t think a BSOD is an update or application problem. I haven’t heard of a Windows 7 BSOD is a very long time. I’m not a Windows elf. We should wait for someone with Windows experience to post.

HOPE THE ADDITIONAL INFO ABOVE HELPS!

RICHARD

13

Tom’s Hardware is a pretty reliable source:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-10-update-kb4517389-blue-screen-of-death-bsod
The above was just posted 42 minutes ago and brings to light another issue with the October 8 & 15 updates: BSoD with some file transfer/storage operations. Tom’s has a few other articles dealing with these recent updates as well.

14

Edgar, requested About Section info is attached.

The Cyberpower “Gaming” PC is identified as C Series. It was purchased from Best Buy in June.

Thanks,

Richard
RCrouch About Section.png

15

Can you see Catalina from here?

That was the joke. Macs are having some very serious problems as well.

Yes, I can. That’s the foggy blob directly over Lori (my lorry).

3230×1944 639 KB

That’s not my house. That’s the house of a friend of mine currently on fire.

The house, not the friend.

Koz

16

Apologies in advance for the length of this post!
I am not a Windows 10 guru and I have never played one on TV! Nevertheless, I’m going to go out on a limb here… You are certainly a potential candidate for the recent Windows update snafus. Determining if this is the root cause of your BSoD could be time consuming! Here’s my recommendation…

There’s a tiny chance that the problem might lie with a driver - the software which works at a very low level controlling your hardware. It would probably be a good idea to visit the website of the manufacturer of your computer and see if any newer software (primarily drivers) are available.

Then, since Audacity is easy to remove and reinstall and does not rely on the Registry distorts preferences, I would suggest you find your Audacity Preferences folder; it’s probably here:

C:\Users\USER_NAME\AppData\Roaming\Audacity

(replace USER_NAME with your own username and be aware that \AppData\ is normally a hidden folder) and change the folder name to something memorable - I use:

C:\Users\USER_NAME\AppData\Roaming\AudacityOLD

but the name doesn’t matter. The idea is to hide Audacity’s preferences from itself so it will generate all new default preferences. Next, start your current version of Audacity and see if everything works fine; if it does something was bad with your Preferences. The Audacity developers will probably ask you to zip up the bad preferences folder and post it here.

This is almost certainly not going to resolve your problem. The next step will be to delete that new …Roaming\Audacity folder (all it has is defaults and you’re going to keep your …\Roaming\AudacityOLD folder as a backup) and uninstall Audacity. To be on the safe side, first figure out where it’s currently installed (normally I would recommend using the Task Manager for this but, since Audacity crashes almost instantly you may be forced to hunt for it). You probably won’t be able to use Settings: Apps to uninstall Audacity, but try that first; if Audacity is listed let Windows uninstall it. At this point you want to delete the folder in which Audacity was installed (the Windows uninstaller might have deleted it or you might need to do so manually) this should remove all traces of Audacity.

At this point, if it was me, I would download the most current version of Audacity from the official Audacity website (look at the very first post in the Help forum on this board for details) and install using all default options. Test Audacity to see if this resolve the issue - it probably won’t but since it is a fairly quickI am not a Windows 10 guru and I have never played one on TV! Nevertheless, I’m going to go out on a limb here… You are certainly a potential candidate for the recent Windows update snafus. Determining if this is the root cause of your BSoD could be time consuming! Here’s my recommendation…

First, since Audacity is easy to remove and reinstall and does not rely on the Registry distorts preferences, I would suggest you find your Audacity Preferences folder; it’s probably here:

C:\Users\USER_NAME\AppData\Roaming\Audacity

(replace USER_NAME with your own username and be aware that \AppData\ is normally a hidden folder) and change the folder name to something memorable - I use:

C:\Users\USER_NAME\AppData\Roaming\AudacityOLD

but the name doesn’t matter. The idea is to hide Audacity’s preferences from itself so it will generate all new default preferences. Next, start your current version of Audacity and see if everything works fine; if it does something was bad with your Preferences. The Audacity developers will probably ask you to zip up the bad preferences folder and post it here.

This is almost certainly not going to resolve your problem. The next step will be to delete that new …Roaming\Audacity folder (all it has is defaults and you’re going to keep your …\Roaming\AudacityOLD folder as a backup) and uninstall Audacity. To be on the safe side, first figure out where it’s currently installed (normally I would recommend using the Task Manager for this but, since Audacity crashes almost instantly you may be forced to hunt for it). You probably won’t be able to use Settings: Apps to uninstall Audacity, but try that first; if Audacity is listed let Windows uninstall it. At this point you want to delete the folder in which Audacity was installed (the Windows uninstaller might have deleted it or you might need to do so manually) this should remove all traces of Audacity.

At this point, if it was me, I would download the most current version of Audacity from the official Audacity website (look at the very first post in the Help forum on this board for details) and install using all default options. Test Audacity to see if this resolve the issue - it probably won’t but since it is a fairly quick process…

The problem remains… The OS is almost certainly the culprit; how you resolve the problem depends on your finances and spare time . Again, if it was me, I would purchase a dedicated external drive (Amazon.com has Seagate and Toshiba 1 TB drives for under $50) and use it to do an image (see my previous post in this thread) of your current C Drive. The next step would be to roll back updates (Google “rollback Windows updates” if you need help with this); remove them one at a time in the date order in which they were installed (newest to oldest) testing Audacity after each removal. Sometimes reverting to a previous Restore Point works but I never recommend it.

Eventually, you will have an OS which functions again; at that point you might consider modifying the way Windows installs updates. For almost everyone, letting Windows automatically install updates works - for a small few it doesn’t! The last few (major) updates have had significant problems for significant numbers of users (even though most users had no problems). Windows is transitioning their OS to be more compatible with handheld devices it’s a long, ugly process and we get to be the beta testers.

17

There’s some information here about that version: Be Forewarned, The Much Maligned Windows 10 Update 1903 Is Coming For Your PC

18

you might consider modifying the way Windows installs updates.

Which might be fraught with its own problems. It seems to be the case that Windows has two update modes: Let us do auto updates gracefully in the backgound, or, go sit in the corner while we do them whether you want us to or not.

In any lunch group there will be at least one person that got to sit in the corner, usually fuming. My breakfast crew had two.

I’ve seen Youtube cartoons based on this behavior.

Koz

19

Hey guys, great news - it took me a day with limited time to spend taking your input and doing something with it. I am happy to say that the Cyberpower PC was hooked up to VIRTUAL AUDIO CABLES used with my Flex Software Defined Radio transceiver (yes, I am a ham)! I forgot to check the line in and line out for my computer which has to be connected to my Yamaha mixer, AG06/AG03, and it was instead connected to virtual audio cables for the Flex!

This all came to me during my exercises. It was a rough day today and I took the dog for a walk and then did my strengthening exercises. Halfway through it popped into my mind that was the problem. As soon as I was done, I went into my office and ham shack, went into the sound settings and set them for the Yamaha.

I then uninstalled Audacity and reinstalled it .

Started the program and it works like a champ!

Now, my big question is, Koz, how did you find that awesome place with a view of what looks like Malibu (and Catalina to the right) to the south, wow, amazing! And given that you have a lorry, does that mean you used to hang out in Merry Ole England? My Dad was in the Royal Scottish Regiment of the British Army in full dress kilts. But, by your name I suspect you have roots in Polski where I once had an amazing experience in Poznan!

Once again, want to thank all of you, Steve, and Edgar for all the hard work - I am VERY impressed with how responsive you were to me and others!

See you down the log (that’s logbook in ham speak)!

Richard Crouch
Tucson
San Francisco
Boston
Atlanta
Nashville
Virginia Beach
Birmingham, AL
Tallahassee

20

how did you find that awesome place with a view of what looks like Malibu

Other direction. I’m just north of Santa Monica—in the hills—looking south. That’s Santa Monica Bay and that lump behind the palm is Palos Verdes. The almost invisible lump to the right of that is Catalina Island—famous in song and Mac updates.

does that mean you used to hang out in Merry Ole England?

It means I hang out in every British joke ever told.

How many rocks do you weigh?

It’s not that unusual for someone with a complex system to forget what they did to it and then a Windows Update comes along and drags everybody back to the present. Glad you have it working.

Koz