I have changed nothing, my setup has not been touched yet when I went to record all I got was this and upon running diagnostics on my mic, mixer, and computer I then realized the issue was the application itself! please help me I have a book to finish!
Which computer and operating system version do you have and which Audacity?
Did you try to do an upgrade from Audacity 3.3.3 to 3.4.0?
Koz
Hi,
we have the same problem since the Update to 3.4.0
We use an MacBook Air M2 2022
OS Ventura 13.3.1
And we also have to finish a book 
Beside of the actual problem, we love your software!
I reinstalled the version 3.3.3 that I luckily had in my downloads and with the older version its working again.
You can get old versions here.
Audacity 3.4.0 had problems with some sound formats. It would give that 100% screaming sound and you couldn’t stop it. Temporarily, you can step back to 3.3.3 with the above links.
We are promised a 3.4.1 soon which doesn’t have this problem.
I would offer my own personal bias against doing any updates or upgrades during a job. If you can’t remember how many Audacity versions you used performing, for example, an audiobook, you’re just asking for trouble.
Koz