Audio Breakup with 1.3.8

[Edgar]

Can you answer the two questions I asked? From your original post it would seem that if you play the same audio the "bad stuff" is not always in the same place.

Can you say that this is a recording problem? If you play the recorded audio multiple times is the "bad stuff" always audible, always exactly the same and in the same spot? If you export the recording as a WAV is the problem apparent?

Do a SaveAs an Audacity Project then open the Log (menu Help > Show Log... then drag select the text and paste it here as a code block.

I realize that this seems to be taking a lot of time! Don't give up. There is a solution and with persistence we can solve it!

[kozikowski]

This is a piece from the CakeWalk Forum.

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=791015

Multiple people having similar problems with the Tascam.

Koz

[rj7500]

Hi Edgar

90% of the time the 'skip' in the audio is repeatable when I replay it. It remains in the exported MP3 file. It is definitely a recording problem since the 'skip' is in the same place each time. Occasionally I'll hear a 'skip' in playback (Always through headphones by the way) and when I replay the 'skip had disappeared. That would make it a playback problem.

I'm guessing that some unknown process is causing the glitches but I've tried to eliminate everything that I possibly can.

One Process CCSvcHst seems to be a memory hog but I can't stop it without totally uninstalling my 'rather expensive' Norton Anti Virus program. I'm open to any suggestions. If necessary I can record something, hope for a 'skip' and attach it to a post here.

Thanks everyone.

Bob H

[rj7500]

Thanks Koz
There are some very interesting things in that Cakewalk Forum and I may now have to do some hard investigation into how much power the US 122 is drawing off it's USB port.

Bob H

[Edgar]

90% of the time the 'skip' in the audio is repeatable when I replay it. It remains in the exported MP3 file. It is definitely a recording problem since the 'skip' is in the same place each time. Occasionally I'll hear a 'skip' in playback (Always through headphones by the way) and when I replay the 'skip had disappeared. That would make it a playback problem.

Hi Bob!

I sure would like to see a copy of a Log from when the "skip" occurs--it would be good to see two logs--a recording skip & a playback skip.

Given that the skip can be exported to an audio file but can also disappear it might be that the correct data is being recorded and stored on disk but when that data is being read from disk (to save-as a project, play or export) the disk read is failing. This may be a symptom of bug137. Without seeing a Log I cannot be sure.

[rj7500]

Ok Edgar, will do.

You know, of course that I won't get a skip for the next 100 tries, and that's certainly a good thing. I'll keep you posted and send the log.

Bob H

[Edgar]

Whatever works <grin>!

I have been helping the Audacity Team Programmers try and pin down bug137. Over the last 3 weeks I have opened over 3000 audio files, saved the result as a Project then opened the resulting Project trying to pin down the bug. I understand about when you want the problem to appear it doesn't! In all those times I have only seen the bug 4 times--and once I set up a test to catch it, never. Last fall I processed over 30,000 files and only saw the bug fewer than 15 times; I was not looking at bug137 then.

[rj7500]

Hi Edgar.
Finally I did record something with a 'skip in it' The skip is repeatable and occurs at the same place with each playback. I did copy the log for this session. My question is......what information do you want. Should I send the saved session ( it's roughly 1 minute of recorded voiceover copy)? Should I send just the data from the log. In an earlier post you mentioned "Do a SaveAs an Audacity Project then open the Log (menu Help > Show Log... then drag select the text and paste it here as a code block." I can always copy the data to a Word file and attach .

Sorry for the ignorance but I'm not quite sure what you want.

Bob H
I

[Edgar]

Hi Edgar.
Finally I did record something with a 'skip in it' The skip is repeatable and occurs at the same place with each playback. I did copy the log for this session. My question is......what information do you want. Should I send the saved session ( it's roughly 1 minute of recorded voiceover copy)? Should I send just the data from the log. In an earlier post you mentioned "Do a SaveAs an Audacity Project then open the Log (menu Help > Show Log... then drag select the text and paste it here as a code block." I can always copy the data to a Word file and attach .

Sorry for the ignorance but I'm not quite sure what you want.

Bob H
I

I want to see the Log after you SaveAs an Audacity Project and before you exit Audacity. Just above the text entry part of the Reply page is a line of buttons:

code.png (15.77 KiB) Viewed 1426 times

click the "Code" button and then immediately paste the Log text -- it will be surrounded by a pair of square-bracketed formatting statements -- code & /code. Using them retains the formatting of the original text. What I am looking for is any indication of Read() or Write() errors in the Log.

I would also really like to see both a Log and Project from a non-repeatable example--just make sure to save the Log before exiting Audacity. In fact, until we get this straightened out it might be a good idea for you to scan the Log every time just before you exit Audacity--just look for any instance of "error" -- since the Log can get quite long, you could copy 'n' paste it into a text editor and then search on "error". I definitely want to see any Log with a Read or Write error!

At some time we might compile a special version of Audacity to examine your situation and the current "Nightly"
( http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 16&t=55295 look about half way through the message for the link to the "Nightly")
has some code which might help diagnose your problem. Of course, the "Nightly" is a moving target, so it might not contain the mentioned debugging code now/for-long!

You may also send the actual Project but you will need to zip up the project.aup file and the project_data folder and post the zip here (or, if too large, send me a PM and I will give you my @dress).

Thanks for sticking with us on this--I won't give up if you don't <grin>!

[Gale Andrews]

As I understand the symptoms, the most common scenario is that there is a recording glitch - you can see it if you zoom into the waveform, hence it is always in the same place when you play it. Occasionally the glitch will be a random playback glitch that is not in the recording.

I assume because stopping other programs has helped, power and resource issues are probably behind the remaining (recording) glitches.

• It's unlikely the USB ports are not USB 2.0, but if they are 1.1 that could be the problem.
• Have you tried the idea on the Wiki (point 11) to increase the audio to buffer setting in Audacity? The Cakewalk forum thread suggests increasing the latency is a solution where the Tascam does not work well with the motherboard.
• Is this a laptop or desktop? If a desktop, a USB PCI Card may help, as the Cakewalk forum suggests.
• In your Task Manager you have wmpnetwk.exe which enables Windows Media Player to share media files. It is a known nuisance on some machines. Maybe you want to share files but you could try turning it off as an experiment. Is any other networking going on and transferring data between machines? That is often a problem when recording. Disconnecting internet/networks is safer than leaving them connected and turning off security.

It's worth pursuing Ed's ideas also to use the Nightly build and examine the log for errors before quitting, though my money is more on the above. By the way you can ignore the error at the top of the log "Couldn't find symbol 'MainPanelFunc".



Gale