Silence button fail when multiple projects open

So when I am editing raw audio into a finished radio show, I usually have 2 Audacity projects open. The first one I open is the raw audio or source, like 2 hrs of 3 tracks, that kind of thing. Spoken word. The second open project is the destination or edited piece, into which I’m pasting bits of the raw material, re-sequencing the interview and so on.

So I experienced this strange but consistent behaviour – is it a bug? – as follows. Paste a bunch of audio into Project 2, the destination, many copy/past operations, many minutes of audio being built up clip by clip. Then I decide to do a quick on the spot edit of the latest pasted-in clip, and I try to use the Silence tool (replace selection with silence) to get rid of a bit of background noise. I select the target region of track 1 or whichever it is, and hit the Silence button.

Boom! I’m returned to Project 1! Project 1 window gets focus, Project 2 window gets buried. It’s like the Silence tool only works on the first project opened, not on the window that currently has focus. And worse, it forcibly returns focus to the first opened window. All the other tools seem to work on the window that currently has focus. Obviously I can work around this, though it’s annoying: I can Delete the offending noise and then Generate Silence to restore the missing seconds. But it would be nice if the Silence button worked properly in all open Projects, not just the first one I open.

Has anyone else ever seen this?

What is “the Silence button” that you are referring to? Do you mean the “Mute” button? (https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/audio_tracks.html#mute)

I’ve not seen that, and I can’t reproduce it at home with Audacity 3.0.0 on macOS 10.15.7.

By the way, you didn’t say which version of Audacity you are using.

What happens if you use Command+L instead of the Silence Audio button?

– Bill

Oh, this one: https://alphamanual.audacityteam.org/man/Edit_Toolbar#silence
Good idea to try Command+L.

@ RootlessAgrarian , Is the Edit toolbar docked in the main Audacity window, or have you dragged it out?

Docked (tools) not dragged out. I will try cmd-L… also will try reproducing it in various ways.

2.4.2 – am I hopelessly behind the times?

Unable to duplicate on short project with 2.4.2 on Windows using Silence Audio button on Edit Toolbar.

You are one version behind.
The current version is 3.0.0, but Audacity 3.0.1 is due to be released later this month so I’d suggest that you wait until that’s available. It will be announced on twitter and facebook, and available for download from the Audacity website: https://www.audacityteam.org/download/