So randomly Audacity has decided to not work under certain conditions.
If I open Audacity (a bran new project) and start recording, the audio tracks are shown to be recording. However, when I stop recording, the audio tracks DISAPPEAR. Meaning, the audio tracks are still there, but the recorded SOUND is gone.
All of the meters are fine, and are shown to be recording. The tracks even show the audio being recorded, but when I stop recording, the audio is gone.
HOWEVER.
If I open a previously recorded project, with audio tracks already recorded, and press RECORD, the tracks ARE PERFECTLY FINE! They completely record perfectly.
I have tried everything I’ve read on the website to fix this. It’s insane. NEW PROJECTS can’t record, but OLD PROJECTS can!
…and I can’t find an older version of Audacity to see if it was an update, because I’m pretty sure it was an update…
Check the location of the Audacity “temp” folder (see: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/directories_preferences.html)
The temp folder must be in a location where you have full read / write access.
Ensure that there are no “PC maintenance” applications interfering with that folder.
Alternatively, as a quick and easy workaround - save the project before you start recording - once the project has been saved, Audacity writes the audio data directly to the project data folder rather than to the Audacity temp folder.
The temp file is saved in my C:, which is where I have (I assume) full read/write access.
It’s not that simple. Windows carves out a portion of the drive for the sensitive system and security files. If you go down the directory pathways long enough, you’ll start to find directories that have very restricted access and some are invisible. Sometimes Audacity picks one of these directories to put its music files. If that’s the case, you’ll start to get the schizophrenic behavior you mentioned.
You can go looking and try to fix it, or you can just save the show ahead of time.
Hmmm okay. I ended up just changing the temp file location and it worked out! I changed it to the desktop and I can now record without having to first save the file. Thank you for all the help!
Although that is convenient, any folder with “temp” in its name might have its data deleted if a cleanup application is the problem (which I think it is). If you have Norton, its Windows Temporary File Cleaner is almost certainly deleting your recordings as you make them, so you could turn that cleaner off.
If you are not sure what app is responsible, I would create a folder called “Audacity Recordings” in C:Users then set Audacity’s Directories Preferences to use “Audacity Recordings” as the Audacity temp folder. The easiest way to do that is to type or paste the full path to that folder into the “Location” box in Directories Preferences.