Audacity Forum

Hello
I use version 1.2.6 of audacity and love it. It does everything. But now the devil came visiting and I need your help.

I never used the mixer tool bar as I use the program with a USB. I never noticed that the mixer is greyed out nor did I care as long as the program worked fine. Here is what changed:

All of a sudden the program became: 1) noisy like a storm, 2)shook the entire computer, 3)froze the mouse , 4) Prevented me from shutting the program. I had to shut the computer by pulling the plug out to prevent the shaking from breaking the entire machine.

After every thing settled down and I opened the audacity again, the mixer tool bar was greyed and I was able to record again for a short while. Then all by itself the mixer lit again, but with only three items: Stereo mix-line volume- Mic volume.
But the program will no longer record. IT WORK, the line move accross as if recording, but it doesn't pick up any sound.

I have checked in WIKI, I learned that when using USB or fire wire it is normal for the mixer bar to be greyed out.

I have used the "Uninstall" button provided by the program in its own folder, uninstalled and re-installed the program twice, but It keep coming back with the same three lines, "Line,Mic volume, Stereo mix." and in this state the audacity 1.2.6 doesn't pick up the sound it should get from machine playing the audio tape . HOW TO GREY OUT THE MIXER PERMANENTLY if this is what allow the program to receive the signal, or what else I can do to make Audacity do the good job it did before.

Many thanks
Drora

Drora wrote:All of a sudden the program became: 1) noisy like a storm, 2)shook the entire computer

Do you mean mechanical noise from the computer itself, or noise through your computer speakers?
Do you mean that the computer physically shook?

Thanks for the quick reply Steve.
On the noise:
I believe it was only from the speakers but it was so loud and threatening, like a coming tornado, that I am not sure if the computer shook too. Difficult access prevented me from turning the speakers off so I pulled the plug and killed the entire machine.
Today I went back to the program, and to Edit/Preferences/Interface and UNMARKED the line: enable mixer toolbar. It made the box of the mixer disappear from the interface but when I restored it, I still got the field with only three lines: Stereo mix, Mic volume, Line volume.
I need the nixer to be there in full, yet GREYED out, as in this position it pull the signal from the player that provide the sound.
The player play and produce sound that I can hear on my headphone but the 1.2.6. will not accept it even though everything on the interface is in proper shape and the vertical needle move accross the page as if it is recording. The Blue background created when recording goes on is there, but the shape of the sound is not.
The program simply refuse to draw sound, however the playing feature of the program is intact. Calling in a recording done before will be played as good as always.

Many thanks for your help Steve

Check the USB cable is securely connected, then restart your computer. If the problem persists, what sort of USB device are you recording from and which version of Windows?

Hello again to Steve
I run window XP Pro, version 2002 with Service pack #3 . I use as a player a small "Cassete conversion system" by *ION and I attach it via USB 2 cable. This player for the last few weeks worked fine in conjunction with the audacity 1.2.6. untill I lost the content of the "mixer" box.

the program interface used to open with a mixer box with full list of drivers starting with "Record Master" ending with SPDIF-in. and when I plugged the USB cable that mixer box will grey out and I could record.
Now I open the program and the mixer box only has 3 lines, 'Stereo mix, line & mic volume'. And it won't grey out when I plug the USB cable. I guess the driver that receive the sound is missing.

Today I went all out and deleted the program again, then went to the registry and cleaned all remain of audacity , then went to the audacity site and downloaded a fresh 1.2.6. and installed it.

I still got only the 3 items in the mixer box......!!!!
So the question is now: How to restore the mixer box content in full ? I believe that wil do it.
Thanks again Steve

Have a look in the Windows Device Manager and check that the ION USB device is actually installed.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/usin ... cemgr.mspx

Hello Steve my good man.
First I want to thank you for sticking with this matter. Myself too I wouldn't have stuck with any program so much unless the Audacity 1.2.6 was THE BEST ON THE MARKET. And you can believe me that I have tried several others, some that cost plenty.
Your last idea about the ION in the "Device manager", well, it is not there nor in the ADD REMOVE because I have never installed it. Installing the program that come with the machine mean installing a stupid dumb recording program that record a tape or disk that contain 10 songs but DOESN'T SEPARATE THE SONGS, NO EDITING ABILITY, then it automatically ship it to the iTune folder where it can be played non stop end to end and this is not my idea of music.

So I stick with the 1.2.6., it is still the best available to me

Today however the 1.2.6 changed its mind, and despite the lack of all the drivers in the mixer box (Three only are there), and the mixer box is not greyed out, it started to work properly, recording while playing, and showing the shape of the wave, and it is all controllable, just as they say: Finger lickin'good.

I may be wrong but I think the problem is not in the 1.2.6 but in the computer. Some Windows drivers often act differently and this is the reason.

For me now it works. But for audacity research you may want to know where six of the nine drivers in the mixer box disappeared or if they were accidentally deleted by some quirk of WINDOWS, then how they can be restored and from where.

Many thanks
drora

Drora wrote:I may be wrong but I think the problem is not in the 1.2.6 but in the computer. Some Windows drivers often act differently and this is the reason. For me now it works. But for audacity research you may want to know where six of the nine drivers in the mixer box disappeared or if they were accidentally deleted by some quirk of WINDOWS, then how they can be restored and from where.

It is quite possible that microsoft has updated your device drivers for you without you noticing, Drora.

Drora wrote:So I stick with the 1.2.6., it is still the best available to me

Audacity 1.2 is very old and no longer supported,
patched, corrected, or updated. Audacity 1.2 can
be unstable on newer computers.

You might like to try the latest Audacity 1.3 from here...

http://audacityteam.org/download/

You can install both audacity 1.2 and Audacity 1.3 on
the same computer, but only use one at a time.

Audacity 1.2 will not open projects made on Audacity 1.3.

If you use MP3 or some of the more modern audio
compression formats, get Lame and FFMpeg software
from the same web site. Do not use older software
or software from other web sites, even though they
may have the same names.

WC

Drora wrote:I may be wrong but I think the problem is not in the 1.2.6 but in the computer.

I think you're probably right.

USB audio devices can sometimes be a bit temperamental. We have half a dozen USB audio devices at work, and they're really good most of the time, but quite regularly they will go AWOL. Either they will go extremely quiet and distorted, or will produce horrendous noise. It sounds like yours did the latter.

What we do if either of these things happen is:
1) Turn off the speakers.
2) Close Audacity (and/or any other audio programs)
3) "Safely remove hardware" then disconnect the USB device (switch it off).
4) Leave it off for a minute.
5) Reconnect the device (switch it back on).
6) Wait another minute - (it should re-appear in the "Safely Remove Hardware" window)
7) Restart Audacity.

Before bothering every body, I tried the 1.3 system. It behaved like the 1.2.6, That's when I called on you guys. When you didn't have a magic wand...I concluded it is the computer.

About the computer: It is a late model powerful computer in speed and performance, but knowing Windows since day one, I know what this in "forever under repairs" program can do when not a good mood so I went back to the 1.2.6.

It is being now three days that the 1.2.6 came back to life ALL BY ITSELF... and working perfectly. It is now playing in the background while I type.

So I will stick with the 1.2.6. Again, I believe it is the best ! And as long as it works I'll stick with it.

I thank the makers of this comprehensive Record/Play/Edit program and thank you all who tried to help.

Have a nice weekend all
drora