Crackling static when playing any audio file IN the app.

So I’ve had this issue for a quite a while. Anything played in Audacity will sound choppy and have pops of static. But when the same audio is exported as an mp3, the static is gone. Resetting configuration helps temporarily, but beyond that I haven’t found a concrete fix yet.

Which configurations help?

I don’t know. But clicking “Reset Configuration” under “Tools” helps temporarily.

How long does it work for?
After resetting Audacity, can you cause it to fail in a repeatable way?

can you cause it to fail in a repeatable way?

That’s a big deal in servicing. “When I do this, it does that—every time.” If you can’t come up with an action like that, you have what the developers call “Moon Phase” problems.

Sometimes when the moon is quarter full on a Thursday and the humidity is over 40%, the program turns to garbage.

There are ways to service those, but it’s not fun.

Can you make it worse? I know you really, really really want to fix it, but any change is good for servicing. If you can make it worse, we need to know that.

Sound inside Audacity is not plain ordinary audio. Audacity works in a super high quality format, so when you ask Audacity to play something, it has to downconvert the show to plain sound and then present it. That’s a lot more work than just rolling out an ordinary sound file and go to lunch.

If you have erratic conditions like this, then that’s a sign that the machine can’t handle complex, real-time tasks and it might not be the best idea to be editing on it until you fix or replace it.

Koz

I’m 98% sure that it was caused by my recording set to Windows WASAPI instead of MME. Needless to say I fixed it by simply changing my recording back to MME when I wasn’t using Windows WASAPI.

Glad you got it working.

Koz