I’ve started having a problem this past week when I launch Audacity and get the Blue Screen of Death and a “DRIVER_CORRUPTED_EXPOOL” message. I’m running Audacity 2.0.4 on Windows 8 and I use the “Windows WDM-KS” audio driver. I haven’t changed anything in my system configuration recently. In the past week I’ve probably had this happen 3 out of about 10 times that I’ve started Audacity. Wondering if this is a known issue?
Yes it’s a known issue that the WDM-KS host that was added to 2.0.4 can crash or freeze a minority of computers.
Because of those problems, support for WDM-KS was removed in 2.0.5, so I very much expect 2.0.5 won’t crash. For those doing overdub recordings, WDM-KS has much lower latency than the other hosts and it can also allow Audacity to record more than two channels at once from some multi-channel devices. It allows true 24-bit recording on devices that support that. It has a lot of advantages.
Assuming 2.0.5 does not have this issue, could you post the information from Help > Audio Device Info… top right of Audacity, without changing any of the devices you were using for 2.0.4?
I was only suggesting that you connect the same audio devices that you did when you tried to use 2.0.4. If you were only using the motherboard audio then the motherboard audio had the problem with WDM-KS. It would be interesting to see from Help > Audio Device Info… what your devices are.
The alpha builds that have WDM-KS support turned on have the same compatibility problem that 2.0.4 had.
If PortAudio doesn’t fix the WDM-KS compatibility or if we don’t find a way for users to turn WDM-KS on and off themselves, are you suggesting we would never enable WDM-KS again in a release? That would mean that those who use 2.0.4 because WDM-KS gives them 24-bit recording or multi-channel recording would never advance beyond 2.0.4.
OK, I don’t have any external audio devices and am using the motherboard audio (just the same as 2.0.4 when I had problems with WDM-KS) Here’s the result of the Help → Audio Device Info:
The Audio Device Info will show the WASAPI input devices other than loopback, but you should not be able to select any of them in Device Toolbar or Recording Preferences.
No, actually my audio host = Windows DirectSound with Microphone input. If I change to WASAPI the microphone input is no longer an option. I do all of my recording and mixing on an old Roland VS-1880 18 track HD recorder then import my final mix into audacity via the microphone input to do my mastering. In 2.0.4 I was using the WDM-KS device but in 2.0.5 I get the best results with DirectSound & Microphone rather than MME & Microphone
That is what I would expect - only the loopback inputs should be enabled for WASAPI in release builds, because of Audacity bugs that need to be worked out.
Audio Device Info should not be saying that the WASAPI mic input is selected, but I see the same problem if I choose Windows DirectSound host in Device Toolbar with stereo mix or internal mic input, or with speakers output. Audio Device Info then tells me that the WASAPI input or output is selected.
It looks like this problem was introduced in 2.0.4.
Audio Device Info is correct if MME or other hosts than Windows DirectSound are chosen. It’s correct if Windows DirectSound is chosen with the “Primary Sound Driver” and/or “Primary Sound Capture Driver” rather than a named output or input.