tracks won't play after a few edits

[jfunke]

I am teaching a podcasting class to middle school students and we're very frustrated by something we cannot figure out. We import some tracks from a portable mp3 recorder and everything plays fine. But after making a few simple edits (things like time shift or cut and paste or insert silence) the track we were working on no longer plays. The output level meter is still working and makes it look like it plays, but there isn't anything there. Other tracks still work fine. The audio I/O settings haven't changed. Any ideas? Our current quick fix is to save very often and when the track messes up just close without saving. When we reopen the file it works fine. Thanks.

[steve]

Make sure that you have plenty of disk space for temporary files. Every time you do an edit, Audacity saves "undo" data in temporary files, so these files can rapidly grow huge, especially if you are editing a long recording such as a podcast.

Also, what soundcard are you using? External USB devices are a bit prone to "going off-line" without any notice.