Waveform goes flat after a few seconds

Windows 8, Asus laptop, Audacity 2.0.5, Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 microphone unit

Out of the blue, Audacity displayed this symptom of not keeping microphone data or import
of a file in the program. Problem not correlated with install of other software around the
same time. Uninstalled Audacity, ran anti-virus utilities, re-downloaded Audacity from
sourceforge.net (.exe version), reinstalled, rebooted machine. Problem persisted. After a few
seconds of recording or file import, Audacity purges data and goes flatline after a few seconds.


This is a mystery indeed.

Check the location of the Audacity temp folder. http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/directories_preferences.html

Just as you suspected, problem not with Audacity, per se, but with the designated temp directory
used by Audacity. Permissions on .AppsDataTempaudacity_temp somehow got messed up.

Is there a way to submit an enhancement request to add human readable error message upon
this condition, something like,

"Unable to write to temp directory, “<directory_path><directory_name>. Please check
directory permissions or Audacity Preference settings.”

Error msg:
.AppsDataTempaudacity_tempcanicreate is not writable


/* If the directory already exists, make sure it is writable */
wxLogNull logNo;
tempDir.AppendDir(wxT(“canicreate”));
if (!tempDir.Mkdir(0755)) {
wxMessageBox(
wxString::Format(_(“Directory %s is not writable”),
tempDir.GetPath().c_str()),
_(“Error”),
wxOK | wxICON_ERROR);
return false;
}
tempDir.Rmdir();
tempDir.RemoveLastDir();
}

Thanks for the help.

“.” is not a valid path. The temp dir would default to

C:Users<your user name>AppDataLocalTempaudacity_temp

“AppsData” is not standard. You may want to run:

ECHO %Temp%

from a command prompt to see what that environment variable is pointing to.

Yes I can add your vote. But there can be many causes of Audacity not being able to write to its temporary directory. Permissions is not the only test.

There is a more general problem in writing message box output from the log from Audio IO activity. See http://bugzilla.audacityteam.org/show_bug.cgi?id=437 . If you’re a programmer, feel free to offer a patch to our feedback address .


Gale

Audacity actually interprets “.AppsData” as meaning it should create a temporary directory called “AppsData” in the folder it’s running from. But I think you must have typed that in yourself, correct?


Gale