I’ve been using Audacity for a few months perfectly fine, but now when I try to play audio, it only plays 0.03 seconds before stopping. Audacity still thinks it’s playing audio as well. If it helps I checked the diagnostics log and found some possible clues/answers.
“16:44:54 FFmpeg directory is in PATH.
16:44:54: Checking for monolithic avformat from ‘avformat-55.dll’.
16:44:54: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avformat-55.dll’ (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
16:44:54: Loading avutil from ‘’.
16:44:54: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘.dll’ (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
16:44:54: Loading avcodec from ‘’.
16:44:54: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘.dll’ (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
16:44:54: Loading avformat from ‘avformat-55.dll’.
16:44:54: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avformat-55.dll’ (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
16:44:54: Error: Failed to load FFmpeg libraries.
16:44:54: Error: Failed to find compatible FFmpeg libraries.”
I’ve already tried restarting my computer to no avail. Can anyone help me out with this? Thanks in advance.
Do you see the waveform? Is the waveform timing/length right for the playing time?
What’s the file format? (MP3, WAV, etc.)? Try a known-good WAV file. MP3 is pretty foolproof too, but sometimes we see files named MP3 are actually a different format.
Double checked the audio file, it is an MP3. The arrowhead that shows what audio is playing is on the waveform (not on a flat part of it either).
Does this file play correctly (5 second rising tone):
Nope, the issue still occurs. It goes 0.03 seconds and stops. I tried cutting a bit of emptiness at the start, and the result was no different.
Try resetting the Audacity Preferences. To do that, run the Audacity installer, and select “Reset Preferences” when that option appears.
(This would be a good time to update to the current version of Audacity https://www.audacityteam.org/download/windows/)