Win7Pro Aud2.1.1, reinstalled exe today from team site.
Suddenly all audio playback is muted in audacity but not in video or VLC. First time used in a week, since last Win update.
Audacity will not play MP3 analog recording it captures from Realtek speaker Stereo Mix. It will record from stereo mix, but not play back its own recording. The VU meter in audacity shows full volume playback but it is silent. If I save the file (or other MP3 files) it will play on VLC. I can take the MP3 recorded on win7/Audacity, move them to another PC and play back/edit on an older version of Audacity (or VLC) on XP. Then move it back to Win7 and play it on VLC, but NOT Audacity. LAME codec files are up-to-date.
I made recordings, played back and edited less than a week ago and have made no changes. But I noticed a week ago I had to save the recording as MP3, then quit Audacity, restart and reload the file to play back and edit. I could not play and edit the file unless I saved it first. It seems like a few weeks ago I could record, then playback and edit without quitting and saving. What’s going on? It’s like a progressive disease.
Unrelated but curious? I discovered that Win7 also blocks audio flv URL analysis from my Replay AV URL finder utility. I use the same version of Replay on XP and it finds the URL from an flv audio stream. I can cut-paste it to my Replay AV in Win7 and it captures the stream. It cannot analyze and parse the URL when in Win7, but it can use that URL found on XP from that very same radio station, and will then locate and capture the same packets using Replay in Win7.
Use Device Toolbar to choose the correct playback device. Do not choose “Microsoft Sound Mapper - Output” or “Primary Sound Driver” because those choices change according to whatever is the default Windows playback device at the time. Be aware that apps like “Replay AV” may make audio device changes in order to record online streams.
Then turn the Audacity playback slider up:
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Also check that the Audacity playback slider in the system mixer is not muted. To check, play some audio in Audacity, then left-click the speaker icon (by the system clock) and click “Mixer”. The Audacity volume slider will be seen inside the “Volume Mixer” window.
If you still get no Audacity playback, reboot the computer.
What happened when you tried to edit your recording before exporting as MP3? Look at Edit > Preferences…, Directories section to see where your Audacity temporary directory is. Make sure you have permission to write to that directory, that the drive is working correctly and that you have sufficient space.
You should have 10 or 20 GB free to ensure you can extensively edit three-minute recordings, and more space than that for longer recordings.
If you do export and then edit the exported file, export as WAV, not MP3. MP3 is lossy so you are just needlessly throwing away quality by editing an exported MP3.
SOLVED - Thanks for your patience, feedback and assistance. I reinstalled checked all settings and Audacity is now playing back the recording when editing and from a previously recorded file as well. Cannot explain what happened or how settings changed, as I only have one daily use Audacity. It is all voice recording so lossless reproduction is not a big requirement. I need some kind of check list to make certain nothing has changed. Thanks again.
I will mark this as SOLVED then, assuming it stays solved.
Reinstalling Audacity might have helped as long as you enabled the “Reset Preferences” box half way through installation, which would reset Audacity settings to default.
If you did not enable that box, Audacity settings would stay as before.
