Changed a setting, now have crackle, help!

I am running Audacity 2.4.2 on a Mac running Catalina, 10.15.6.

I did a very stupid thing…as I was moving around my equipment, I accidentally opened a window (probably a random mouse click) and got a pop-up window I didn’t recognize…and because I am a very dumb person, I changed a setting that caught my eye. It warned that changing this setting could affect playback in slower processors, but I was overconfident about my machine.

The setting was “30” and I changed it to “60”. Now I have a very unfortunate crackle…it seems to be when I de-amplify a segment, but perhaps not exclusively that. The crackle does carry through to the mp3. I have searched all over and cannot find the box again, and can’t undo what I did.

I am ashamed and embarrassed…can anybody help me? What did I do???

Right-click on the recording meter and select Options… . Change the refresh rate back to 30 (or less).
– Bill