I start playing, but wrong track plays

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Hi -

I am working on Audacity 2.0.3. The system is WindowsXP and Chrome browser.

I am very new at this. I put 3 files (tracks) on Audacity for a podcast and arranged them to start with a music and voice intro, then the talking podcast, then a brief musical coda.

I then hit the play button, but the first track didn’t play. The 2nd track played when it was supposed to. I didn’t wait for the third track.

The next time, after I fiddled with it (not knowing what I was doing, I might add), the 3rd track (the musical coda for the ending) played and that was all. [I stopped playing the thing after the 3rd track came up first.] It played right away without waiting for the 1st and 2nd tracks to play(yet it was pulled way over to the right, where it should be, because it’s the ending).

This is unlike what happened the first time when the podcast (1st track) waited for the 2nd track’s time to elapse. That is what should have happened. (Trouble is, the 2nd track didn’t play when it should have.)

During this time, I saw things which I don’t understand. For part of the time, the 3rd track was grayed out on the left side where the controls are.

I did push the mute button on the 3rd, but un-muted it, too, and it went off mute. Same for the 2nd track.

Did I not push some button or other? There is a yellow outline around tracks that are supposed to be playing. I could never get the yellow outline to be around all of the tracks at once. Just one.

Many thanks for your generosity in spending your unpaid time on this Labor Day weekend trying to fix my problem. IMMENSELY appreciated!

2

Obviously, make sure the all SOLO and MUTE buttons are de-selected. Try this. Cick once just above each Mute button to clear all the highlight and selection zones. See if that doesn’t help.

Koz

3

You should not need it, but you can Shift-Click just above the MUTE button on all your tracks and highlight all of them. That should certainly play everything. Koz

4

I did what you said, Kox. I.e., I clicked once above the mute button on each file (track). The first two tracks went back to highlight for the left control section. But I couldn’t get the 3rd to go to highlight for the left control section. It stayed grayed out. And when I clicked Play, that is the only track to play–the 3rd track. ( I also clicked mute and solo on and off.)