Suddenly, cannot record in Audacity: "Error while opening so

Audacity Help Forum Windows
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Suddenly, I cannot record in Audacity: (“Error while opening sound device. Please check the input device settings and the project sample rate.”)

So I checked the input device settings and the project sample rate. Everything seems normal. I also looked online to see how other people have responded to that same error message, and I couldn’t find any explanations or fixes that seemed to apply to my situation. Windows XP Pro; 4GB RAM; plenty of space on my hard drive; everything else working fine.

I’ve been happily using Audacity heavily, every day, for over 7 months. About 2 hours ago, out of curiosity, I decided to download Studio One. I immediately noticed the ASIO4ALL v2 icon appeared down in the tray by my volume and clock icons, etc… So I’m wondering if the mere fact of downloading Studio One has somehow disabled my beloved Audacity!

If Studio One and/or ASIO4ALL are the culprits, I suppose I could uninstall Studio One and maybe do a system restore (does system restore even work anymore with Windows XP, now that it’s unsupported by MicroSoft?) but I’m hoping I can keep Studio One (it has some pretty cool features) AND get my Audacity working again.

Please help me get my Audacity back — it’s been 2 hours and I’m starting to shake and drool pathetically!

Thanks in advance!

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btw, I forgot to mention Audacity version 2.0.5 on the post I just submitted a moment ago.

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Running an ASIO application could cause the sound card to be unavailable for other applications.
Try rebooting your computer and ensure that ASIO4ALL does not launch (if it does you may need to find a way to stop it from launching automatically on boot).
Then try running Audacity.

4

Yes. Make sure you have Service Pack 3 (you can still upgrade to it or download it) as it will give you the most security.

Ensure you have a good anti-virus application and keep it updated with the latest definitions, though it will not offer complete protection against any new attacks that target XP directly.


Gale

5

Thanks, that works!

So, for future reference, (in Windows XP,at least) Audacity loses its recording-function whenever Studio One is open.

thanks again

6

It was an educated guess :wink:

“Error while opening sound device. Please check the input device settings and the project sample rate.”
That is actually quite a generalised error message that indicates that Audacity was not able to open the audio device. I’m not personally keen on the second half of the error message as many users seem to find it confusing/misleading, but it’s not easy to think of a better replacement, unless we can eventually replace it with a button/link to the FAQ.

ASIO is designed and intended to be used for music/media production, not for general computer use. As such it will frequently grab exclusive control of the audio hardware so that it can provide a highly efficient sound system for those applications using it. The down-side is that if anything has “exclusive” control of the sound system, then the sound system will be unavailable to non-ASIO applications.

It is sometimes possible to run ASIO and non-ASIO applications at the same time, but that facility is not guaranteed. Generally it is easier and more reliable to run ASIO software OR non-ASIO software but not both at the same time.