I’ve been using Audacity for several years now to record my audiobooks. I’ve noticed a new problem - it tends to skip a fraction of a second now and then - so when it does it in the middle of a word, I have to re-record - annoying because I don’t find out until listening back to the session. I’m using an AT2020USB Microphone plugged into my Dell laptop.
As you know, this can happen if you are doing anything else on your computer other than recording. Specifically, you should not have any other windows open, especially browsers.
What version of Audacity are you running? Do you have show dropouts enabled ?
While I agree about something else working on the computer, how it’s getting in the way can be entertaining. Audacity will freak if it gets a dropped or damaged data stream. It’s not happy about that. So something is making Audacity stop working briefly.
Have you been using the same machine for millennia? Is it filling up? Try a Clean Shutdown. Shift+Shutdown > OK > Wait > Start. That will clear out any programs that are trying to run “in the background” or leaving stuff lying around. It takes a bit longer to do this, so leave time. If it takes way, way longer to clear, you might want to do it again after it comes back.
And do a simple size test on your drive. How big is it and how much room do you have left.?
Audacity hates external, USB, remote, network, internet, or cloud drives. If you’re using any of those, stop.
Post back what happens.
Koz