Audacity Forum

but basically, since wednesday, Audacity crashes after recording. when i press the stop button, i get a message saying that Audacity has stopped working and it has to shut down and windows is looking for a solution. i just cancel it is it cant find the solution and then audacity closes itself and i lose my recording. so i would like to know whats casuing this. and whether or not i can recover the recording that i made. here are my specs and other info you may need:

Laptop - Samsung R510 (brand new. only got it 2 weeks ago)

OS Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit
Intel Dual Core CPU @ 2Ghz
2GB RAM
140GB HDD (well its actually 2 70GB HDD's)

C drive, the one where all programmes etc and their files are saved. since the only thing i have oon my computer is my music and programmes and software. has 30.8 out of 69GB free.

D drive. i decided to move all my music to this drive to help free the C drive to try help the skipping when recording (i'll come to that problem later) and that drive has 32.4Gb free out of 69.9GB.

i use a external sound card as the laptop doesnt come with a Line-In jack. the sound card is cheap as its all what i can afford. it was £20 5.1 but can support 7.1 surround sound. i have all the latest drivers for my sound card.

my recordings are normally between a hour and a hour and a half as im a DJ and im using Audacity to record my mixes. when i record i turn everything off, anti virus, internet and other background programmes (i guess this is more to do with the skipping problem). but anyways, sorry for the long message and any help would be gladly appreciated, thank you for your time. Hutchie

Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Mar 28, 2009 5:02 pm
Private message

Hutchie wrote:I've never had this problem before, only since Wednesday.

So what changed on Wednesday? Possibly a Windows update?

Give Audacity 1.3 a go - most Vista users report that it is more stable on Vista than the old 1.2 version.

Hutchie wrote me a very long and detailed summary of his complaint...in an email. I stressed I was a lot better with Mac problems and he needed to post the whole mail back out on the forum for the enjoyment of the Windows people.

Koz

Okay. I've edited the OP by copying the message i sent you. Thanks i'll try using the latest Beta version. But can anyone telling me why my recordings are skipping badly unless i reduce the quality of my recording and record in mono instead of stereo? These are bad sacrafices i have to make to improve recording as i do need quality, but i can accept losing some quality if it improves the skippping. now, im recording at 16-bit sampling rate at 44,100Hz and im recording in mono and then export as mp3 at 128Kbp/s.

Ideally i want to be recording in stereo and at a higher bit depth, but when i record at these levels the skipping is just too much. So im wondering, is it just the fact that my sound card sucks? or maybe its to do with the fact that Vista is hogging 700mb of RAM at all times? one reason why i dont think its the sound card is because it is able to handle music making software with no hic-ups at all.

stevethefiddle wrote: So what changed on Wednesday? Possibly a Windows update?

Give Audacity 1.3 a go - most Vista users report that it is more stable on Vista than the old 1.2 version.

And Steve, nothing has changed at all. There are Windows Updates available, but i just havent had time installing them.

Hutchie wrote:And Steve, nothing has changed at all. There are Windows Updates available, but i just havent had time installing them.

Something HAS changed (assuming that you have reported the facts accurately).
Tuesday > Audacity works.
Wednesday > Audacity does not work.
So something has changed between Tuesday and Wednesday.

So it's not a Windows update....
How about an anti-virus update?
Perhaps a virus?
Perhaps your computer has picked up some spyware or adware?
I presume that the free disk space has not changed appreciably and you have not installed any new programs.