Audacity keeps crashing out

[alatham]

Ugh, virus scanners. Norton Pro-fascism (aka antivirus) would certainly cause problems like that if it is scanning everything the Audacity writes to disc.

I hate virus scanners.

[dannyyoung]

Hi all, I am just joining this post now but I have a similar problem - I get the same error message but it occurs as soon as I run Audacity. The program does not open at all, I just get an error message that says "audacity.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience".

I am running Windows XP SP2 on a HP Pavilion zd8123ea laptop, with a P3.0 Ghz processor, 1.25GB RAM, my sound card is an Echo Indigo PCMCIA.

Could this possibly be linked to another audio problem I have - I cannot hear audio from web-sites such as MySpace, YouTube and Facebook. When I click on Sounds and Audio Devices in Control Panel, the chosen device is shown as Indigo io 3-4 Virtual Out. No matter what changes I make (even if I try to change to the default sound card - Conexant AMC Audio), when I click on Apply and then OK, and then open the Sounds and Audio Devices in Control Panel again, the settings have not been updated and the chosen device is still being shown as Indigo io 3-4 Virtual Out. It is more puzzling because audio applications such as iTunes are working fine and I can hear audio from my speakers, however audio from the internet, such as MySpace, or YouTube, does not play.

I rebuilt my Windows XP laptop around 4 months ago, and everything has been running fine until around 2-3 weeks ago. I am using Norton 360 also.

I'd really appreciate any help, I am also in touch with Echo technical support but haven't managed to solve the problem so far - and the last thing I want to do is to have to rebuild my laptop again!

Thanks

Danny

[alatham]

Does the Echo Indigo use ASIO drivers? Audacity cannot use those for legal reasons (somebody kick Steinburg for me).

I noticed that you default to using Outs 3+4. That should work fine, but I wonder if your internet browser is only sending audio to outputs 1+2 instead of where it should be going.

In any case, I have a feeling that the Browser audio problem is unrelated to Audacity.

[dannyyoung]

Hi, that sounds like it makes perfect sense. Echo Indigo does use ASIO drivers, as far as I am aware. I'm not sure I understand why Audacity can't use them - how do I fix this?

Also, how can I tell if my internet browser (Firefox and/or IE7) is outputting to channels 1 & 2?

Thanks for your help.

Cheers

Danny

[dannyyoung]

I have now uninstalled the Echo Indigo completely and am running on the standard audio (Conexant AMC). I still have the same problems where Audacity crashes as soon as I try to open it, and also I can still not hear any audio streamed from web pages such as MySpace, YouTube etc. I can hear audio from my laptop speakers from iTunes.

Can anyone help with this, it is driving me crazy?

Thanks

[alatham]

You have two options for ASIO drivers. Most cards also come supplied with WDM drivers that you can use instead of the ASIO drivers. Alternately you can recompile Audacity yourself with ASIO support. This wiki page details how to get started with that (I wish I could, but I can't help you with that):
http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... _Interface

As for your other audio problems, I've never heard of anyone having this problem. I would assume that most non-audio applications in Windows would ask Windows what is set as the default output device and use that. I also think that audio applications will talk to the device more directly, which may be why iTunes works, but other apps don't. But my assumption isn't bulletproof.

Can you hear regular OS sounds?

Maybe those two problem are more related than I initially thought. Most likely you've got an audio driver / OS setup issue. This link is a more general link for getting that OS set up correctly, XP help is about 1 page down:
http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... trol_Panel

[dannyyoung]

I have changed the settings in Sounds and Audio Devices so that the Windows Default sound scheme is applied - and I do not hear any sounds either. If I try to preview the sounds, the "play" button is greyed out. Hmm.

I have been in touch with Symantec to see if the issue is Norton 360 related, they took remote control of my machine, made some firewall changes, made some IE settings changes, and I had high hopes, but alas no, the problem still exists.

On checking the Mixer Toolbar Issues page, as suggested in the link, I go into Sounds and Audio Devices, enter Volume of Sound Recording and then go into Options -> Properties. When I check PC speaker in Playback, interestingly the PC SPeaker slider is also greyed out, and cannot be adjusted (although it is not at the bottom, i.e. muted). I see a pattern forming here - but don't know where to go... do you have any ideas?

[alatham]

The PC speaker is just a piezo buzzer attached directly to your motherboard. It's the thing you probably hear making short shrill beeps when you turn on your PC, it has nothing to do with the speakers you plug into your computers.

Also, since it's just a piezo buzzer, I'm not surprised you can't change the volume, it wouldn't be very useful to do that.

Can you take a look at iTunes and find out what audio device it's using? I'm not sure how to do that, but I would hope there's a way.

[dannyyoung]

I've had a look at all of the settings in iTunes and I cannot find any way of seeing what audio device it is using. I have tried running audio through Windows Media Player, and this works (although I do have a Windows Installer message pop up after I try to run a file, it asks me to "Insert the Roxio CinePlayer Decoder Pack" - I have no idea what this is, I don't recall having used it, so don't have the CD - anyway if I cancel three times the audio plays fine). I have checked settings on Windows Media Player, but also I can't find out which audio device it is using.

However, as I have disabled anything other than the internal sound card (Conexant AMC audio), shouldn't all devices be pointed at this? Thanks for all your help so far, I am determined to try anything possible before having to rebuild the laptop (which incidentally I have done twice since I've had it, which has been for around 2 years - is this excessive, especially as it looks like I may have to do it for a third)?

[dannyyoung]

Success! I trawled the web and came across the following site - http://www.codecguide.com/fix_for_flash ... oblems.htm. It looks like there was a problem with my codecs, but after running the checks detailed on that page, my audio is back - and Audacity is working again!

I'd be interested to hear any comments anyone has on this? I haven't had a chance to do anything with Audacity yet but it opens which is a big step ahead from where I was previously!

Thanks for all your help with this, especially Mr Latham for your perseverence.