I am also having this problem and extremely frustrated. Other than playing audio and selecting, everything else I do prompts the dreaded rainbow beachball to appear, taking anywhere from 15-30 secs to complete the task. I had been using Audacity (I believe version 3.1.3) on my Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, 2019 iMac (currently on Monterey 12.6) for the last few weeks without issue. I upgraded to version 3.2 and have had nothing but issues since, to the point where now Audacity is practically unusable. Things I have tried:
uninstalling new version of Audacity (including manually removing associated “buried” files) and reverting back to Audacity 3.1.3
changing the info.plist resolution code from true to false
The Audacity folder in “Library/Application Support” and anything related to Audacity that appears in this “hidden” Library location (tho that seems to be the main one).
Something strange is going on here. You were using 3.1.3 with no problems. When you upgraded to 3.2.0 problems started. Then when you went back to 3.1.3 the problems remained!
Is it a specific project that is creating the problem or is it with all projects?
I’m only working on one project at the moment. It’s possible the issue might be the file itself, but I’ve not had any issues with that file until I upgraded both my Mac OS & Audacity
I’ll try opening up and working on a different file and see if that’s any different/better.
Ok, I opened a different project file and did some simple edits (e.g. deleted a silence), and Audacity was working fine (no lag in executing anything I did). Then I opened the previous project file I was working on and the lag started again. Any ideas about what could be wrong with my file? At one point, I may have closed Audacity before it completely saved (before I upgraded my OS but after I upgraded Audacity), but that’s the only thing I can think of. Is there a way to tell whether the file has been damaged or corrupted?
For reference, I use Audacity to edit my podcast, so the Audacity files I work with usually contain a mix of 4-7 voice (mono) and music (stereo) tracks, ranging from 45-70 mins long.
The file that’s potentially causing problems is currently 2.67 GB. The other file I tested yesterday (and worked without issue) is 3.11 GB. Both files currently have three voice-only mono tracks and are about 40-45 mins long.
I looked back at some older files I edited with Audacity (see above) and they are all under 2 GB; curious why these are suddenly larger files.
It seems that project may be damaged. You could export each track as an AIF or WAV then import those into a new project. You’ll lose any envelopes you may have applied.
In Audacity 3.2.0 and 3.2.1 if you copy a selection of a track, apparently the complete audio information from the original track is referenced ala “smart clips”. This happens behind the scenes - you just don’t see it, but it magically re-appears if you drag the edges out. This doesn’t normally cause problems, but if the selected portion is copied to a new track, the entire referenced audio now gets copied. This was an unannounced and I believe undesirable feature somehow introduced in 3.2. See here:
and here:
I don’t know if this is the cause of problem you are having, but if so, billw58’s solution should work for you, regardless.
