Audacity Forum

I don't know why... Audacity has always worked fine for me, and I can't think of any important changes I've made to my set-up recently (no new anti-virus software or anything). But for whatever reason, whenever I try to open Audacity, it gets stuck on the load-up (the gray window will appear, but it won't fill in any of the contents or let you do anything).
I'm on Windows XP using the latest (non-beta) version; and I've tried uninstalling/reinstalling. I never used to have this problem, but now I can't get around it. Any ideas on what it could be?

You may have some invalid or corrupt settings in Audacity Preferences that are preventing it from loading.

The easy and safe way to reset the Audacity preferences:

Go to http://www.gaclrecords.org.uk/audacity.html
scroll to the bottom of the page and right-click over "Audacity 1.2.6 reset Preferences .reg file for Windows"
Save this .reg file to your drive
Double-click the saved .reg file and click "yes" when asked if you want to add the information to the Registry

Hi. Thanks for your reply; but unfortunately that hasn't fixed the problem. It still hangs (and turns the cursor to an hourglass) indefinitely. It's very frustrating, because I've used the program a lot before and never had this problem; and haven't really made any changes since the last time when ti worked...

If I remember correctly there was a Windows update, part of Service Pack 3 for XP I think, that breaks Audacity 1.2
If this is the issue that you are having, it may be easiest to upgrade Audacity to 1.3.8

Hmm... that could be it. I do download the automatic Windows updates whenever they come up. I'll try that and report back. Thanks!

No... I'm having the exact same problem with the beta version as I am with the regular; it just hangs.

Does Audacity 1.3 open at all? Did it open correctly once?

Can you record anything with Windows Sound Recorder?

No, it wouldn't even open properly the first time. It just opens up to the grey box (and the welcome screen in front of it) but doesnt fill in any of the words or images. And the cursor is stuck in hourglass mode.

I've never used Windows Sound Recorder, but I'll look into it...

Ok, I just tested it; Windows Sound Recorder works fine (opening, recording, saving files etc). It's just Audacity that doesn't want to open.

<<<I'm having the exact same problem with the beta version>>>

You do need to get the order right. Uninstall Audacity 1.2, run the Registry Cleanup and Then install 1.3. Audacity will ask you "English?" on first birthday. If it doesn't ask that, then you are still standing on damaged preferences from 1.2.

<<<I can't think of any important changes>>>

Any unimportant or trivial ones? Did you put Skype on your machine? iTunes?

Koz