Recording has stopped working

Audacity 3 Help Forum Windows
1

I’ve always used Audacity 2.3.3 in Windows 10 without problems, but I haven’t tried to record from “Stereo Mix” for about a year. Now it doesn’t work! (Could it be a Win10 update?)

My settings are “MME” and “Stereo Mix (Realtek High Definition Audio)” with all sound effects disabled.

When I hit the “record” button, I now get “Error opening recording device. Error code: -9999 Unanticipated Host Error”.

I have seen advice to use WASAPI instead of MME, but that just changes the error code to -9996. Then I change the recording device to “Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio) (loopback)” and still get error code -9996.

For what it’s worth, I tried CoolEdit 2000, which also used to work. The record button now gives “Undefined external error”

Windows says that Stereo Mix “is working properly”, and the same for “Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio).”

Any ideas welcome!

2

Because this is happening on more than one program, it sounds like a Windows permissions problem. An update probably wiped out any previous permissions that were set.

The reason for Windows making you give permission to a program to use the microphone is to stop some program from surreptitiously recording you.

3

Yes, that was it! Many thanks.