I just downloaded Audacity 2.1.2 today, and whenever I load audio (Opening a file, Importing Audio, recording audio) the program crashes.
I should note that the reason I downloaded 2.1.2 was because of a similar problem I had been having on my previous copy (Audacity 2.0.3) where the same thing would happen but instead of crashing, it would load a flat waveform (same length as the file that was supposed to be loaded, but no actual sound.)
So these problems are occurring in similar circumstances (Opening a file, Importing Audio, recording audio) but having different effects (blank waveform vs crashing) on two separate versions of Audacity (2.0.3 and 2.1.2). What’s going on?
Some other things:
2.0.3 was working fine for a while, but one day just started having issues.
When I’m recording audio, the waveform will show, but as soon as I stop the recording it turns blank / crashes.
Probably you have a corrupt Audacity temporary directory, or that directory is being locked or interfered with by other applications or perhaps by viruses on your computer. Or perhaps the temp directory has incorrect permissions so that you are not allowed to write to it.
Install or reinstall Audacity 2.1.2 from http://www.audacityteam.org/download/windows. Half way through installation, you will see a checkbox “Reset Preferences”. Check (tick) that box. When you launch Audacity, say yes to resetting preferences.
If there is still a problem, go to C:\Users<your user name>\AppData\Local\Audacity, right-click over “SessionData”, choose Properties and click the “Security” tab. You can check permissions there. If you can’t see that “Session Data” folder, copy the following:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Audacity
paste it into File Explorer’s address bar, then hit ENTER on your keyboard.
If there is still a problem, do a deep anti-virus check.