Recording Button Freezes Program

[jetsfan94]

Hello,

When I first downloaded Audacity, it worked perfectly. I used it to record narration for my Youtube videos. However, my computer was infected by a virus, and I had to perform a system restore. As such, every program and document was deleted. I then proceeded to re-install every program, including Audacity. However, in both versions of Audacity (stable and unstable), the program freezes after clikcing the record button. It also freezes on my computer's sound recorder program. I'm not all that tech savy, so if there's anything I can do, puting it in simplest terms would be much appreciated. Thank you all in advance.

[kozikowski]

There are ways to hide a virus on a Widows machine that make the virus stick during a restore. Chances are it's still there. Which virus protection do you have? Have you ever done an on-line Microsoft virus check?

http://www.microsoft.com/security/malwa ... fault.aspx

When either of the two programs tries to record something, they go looking for space on the hard drive to put it. If they can't find space, then they fail. Since I'm the Mac Dude®, I'm probably not a good one to try and talk you through computer problems, but somebody needs to. You have a very sick machine.

Koz

[jetsfan94]

I use AVG since the restore...I'm not sure what the old one was, all I know is that it has allowed 3 viruses in the past year, 3 too many. The virus was one that redirected me from sites that allowed downloads of anit-virus and spyware to google, yahoo, and bing seraches, which basically left me unable to download any programs to fight it. However, I was able to download the programs after the restore, so I don't think it's still in the system.

[kozikowski]

OK, then you may be out of hard drive space. My Computer > Explore > Right Click C: > Properties. What's the size of the drive and how much room do you have?

Is the size of the drive and the size you're expecting the same? For example, if you know your machine has a 40 GB hard drive and the inspection only shows 28 GB total between software and available, then Something is eating up drive space. More likely in your case, is a 40 GB hard drive with no space left over.

That will kill both programs.

Koz

[jetsfan94]

10.8 GB is being used, while 131 GB is free. I'm guessing that's not the problem.

[kozikowski]

Go into Audacity > Edit > Directories and read what's there. That's where Audacity is going to try and put temporary files while it's working. I don't know how to do this for Windows Sound Recorder.

Open up Notepad and create a really simple document, "Hello!", and try to save that to the same directory. You're likely to run into the same file error that the other two programs had.

Audacity will not run into a badly fragmented hard drive. Have you ever done an error Check or Defragmentation?

Koz

[jetsfan94]

It says under Directories "C:DOCUME~1COMPAQ~1LOCALS~1Tempaudacity_1_2_temp" Unfourtantly, I can't find it when trying to save in Notepad. Would you suggest setting the directory to save elsewhere?

[jetsfan94]

Well, I did nothing at all...And went out on a whim and tested it again...And it decided to work. Go figure. Thanks for the help, much appreciated.

[kozikowski]

Oh, great. Windows Short Forms. Windows heritage is eight characters. The real location is probably something like C:Windows And Settings/Compact Presario/ Local...something, something.

Yes, change that to some other directory or folder and see what happens. Pick something you can get to and personally put files into.

You know you can make an anti-virus program kill Audacity? Audacity captures some sound and tries to write it to the drive. The anti-virus says, "Hold on there big boy. We need to inspect that work to make sure it's safe." Bam. There's the show in a pile.

Disconnect your network, suspend the virus program and try it again.

I'm just reading this again...

<<<I had to perform a system restore. As such, every program and document was deleted. I then proceeded to re-install every program>>>

How did you do the System Restore?

Do you have actual Sound Files and did you have any of them backed up? Do you have Windows set to show you File Extensions?

Koz

[jetsfan94]

I didn't back-up anything prior to the SR...Didn't see the need to because not much was on the computer. It was relitivly new at the point, and only had a few programs on it. The problem now most likely was the anti-virus blocking it...It only started working AFTER the scheduled scan was complete, not before or during. I'll make sure it works again tomorrow, or I'll have to tweak the settings.