I’m a retired IT tech and former Radio/Television broadcaster. New to Audacity. I’ve got tons of old audio tapes of radio airchecks that I’m trying to digitize. I’ve got the output of my reel-to-reel recorder patched to the audio input of my Dell Optiplex 7090 desktop PC, running Windows 10 Pro, version 22H2, OS Build 19045.3570. PC updated with BIOS, audio drivers, etc. Audacity 3.4.0 installed.
When I tap the red Record button in Audacity I get “Error opening recording device. Error code: -9999 Unanticipated host error.” I’ve created the deviceinfo.txt, log.txt and diagnostic report but not sure how to upload. Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks.
I don’t think your computer has a line input usually color-coded blue.
You may have a combination mic-headphone jack which takes a special 4-conductor TRRS plug to make the microphone connection. The mic input can “work” but it’s not correct for a line-level signal and it’s mono, and usually low-quality.
If you have an extra slot you can get a regular soundcard for your computer.
Or you can get a USB audio interface with line inputs. The Behringer UCA202 is very popular and relatively inexpensive and Behringer makes a few similar models with different features.
The “cheap” Behringer interfaces don’t have recording-volume controls and sometimes that’s a problem if you can’t control the output level on your setup. If you have a headphone output, there is always a volume control and a headphone output can go into a line-level input.
There are lots of higher-end audio interfaces with switchable mic-line inputs and recording controls.
I have an ART USB Phono Plus which has switchable phono-line input and a recording level control.
You’re absolutely correct. I’ve been getting mixed info from a Dell forum about the nature of that front jack and finally found a Dell document that confirms the front input on an Optiplex 7090 is a TRRS jack. When you plug into the port you’re prompted by the OS to define input or output. I had to go through hoops to get that part working correctly. The patch cable I’ve been using has a TRS plug so there’s the problem. Before I invest in a soundcard or Behringer device I’ve located a TRS Female to TRRS Male adapter that may work and it’s just $5.99 so we’ll try that and if it fails to solve the issue I’ll checkout the solutions you suggested. Here’s the link to the adapter if anyone’s interested: Amazon.com: COCOMK Microphone Adapter TRS Female to TRRS Male 3.5mm Mic Audio Patch Cable Converter (Black) : Electronics
To recap my situation to date, I’ve got tons of old audio tapes of radio airchecks that I’m trying to digitize. I’ve tried patching the output of my reel-to-reel recorder to the audio input of my Dell Optiplex 7090 desktop PC, running Windows 10 Pro, version 22H2, OS Build 19045.3570. PC updated with BIOS, audio drivers, etc. Now Audacity 3.4.2 installed. When I tap the red Record button in Audacity I get “Error opening recording device. Error code: -9999 Unanticipated host error.
Since my last post I’ve given up on using the front input jack on my Dell Optiplex 7090 and moved on and have acquired a Behringer 302 USB mixer. With this plugged into a USB port on my computer I setup the Recording Device in Audacity to use “Microphone (USB Audio CODEC)” which is what appears when the Behringer is plugged in. With my tape player running, and audio tickling clip levels on the Behringer I tap the Record button on Audacity and still get the dreaded error message, “Error opening recording device. Error code: -9999 Unaticipated host error.” Problem details read:
{
“timestamp”: 1703435158,
“event_id”: “48e6dd73917a48478449e5bad10e708d”,
“platform”: “native”,
“release”: “audacity@3.4.2”,
“contexts”: {
“os”: {
“type”: “os”,
“name”: “Windows”,
“version”: “10.0.19045”
}
},
“exception”: {
“values”: [
{
“type”: “Error”,
“value”: “Error opening recording device.\nError code: -9999 Unanticipated host error.”,
“mechanism”: {
“type”: “runtime_error”,
“handled”: false
}
}
]
}
}
I’m at a loss as how to proceed. “Unanticipated host error” doesn’t tell me much. Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks!
I have the same mixer as you and I really like it. I have two suggestions: try some different software like Ocenaudio, which is also free and/or revert to version 3.3.3 of Audacity. Once you have tried these, you should have a better idea of where to go from there.
Mark B
Mark B, Thanks for responding. I’ve been working on this the last few days, including testing with a second computer, a laptop. What I’ve concluded is that the issue was not any fault/problem of Audacity software but rather something else. When I was trying to use the “multi-function” audio jack on the front of my Dell Optiplex 7090 the concept of using a single jack for either input or output was new to me. I retired from IT in 2014 and so had never encountered that before. I did finally get the jack to respond properly and prompt for a decision on if it was to be used as input or output. What I didn’t realize then was that wasn’t the end of what needed to be done. Once designated as Line In mode I had to go to Settings/System/Sound/Manage sound devices, select “Line In” and click Enable. Audacity now works just fine and hears the line input. Without this last step Audacity couldn’t see it and would error out. This is all without the Behringer 302 USB mixer inline. When I put that in the loop and flip Audacity to listen to the USB it works but sounds like crap, muffled and low level. I’m going to continue testing with the USB to see if I can figure out what that problem is but if I can’t resolve that and still want to use the Behringer for the use of level and EQ adjustments I can just patch from the Behringer Main Mix output to the line in jack on the Dell. USB output not used then but would still have advantages of tweaking things on the Behringer. Let me know if you have any suggestions on why the USB output sounds so bad at this point. Thanks again.