Trouble changing tools.

[Krangar18]

Hi everybody, recently I've been having trouble with Audacity 1.3.12. I upgraded to 1.3.13 and I'm having the same problem. The problem started when I was manually lining up bass kicks in a song to enhance the sound, which was not recorded optimally. I went through the process a few times and it was beginning to slow the computer down, I think because I had about 100 or probably more separate copies of a small wave file I was lining up one-by-one. I was halfway through my last run through, and when I went to save, the program crashed. Ever since, I can run Audacity normally, except if I try to switch from the select tool to any other tool, the program freezes and I have to end the program. I've tried refreshing the toolbar, restarting the computer, reinstalling the program, and installing a different version (1.3.13) of the program, and I'm still having this problem. I've even defragmented my hard drive in an attempt to solve this problem. I've saved down the essential files I need in case the Audacity projects are wasted. But no matter what project I have open, or even if there is no project open, I can do everything else I've tried to do (save, zoom in, split, etc . . .) but I can't change tools by clicking on the toolbar or it causes a crash. Is there a different way to change tools? Even if there is, that wouldn't explain the problem. Is this a problem with Audacity, or my computer, or something else? Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Another thing I noticed was that when I reinstalled the program, it still had my recent history listed, and even when I upgraded, it asked if it should recover the last project from the previous session, which was on the previous version. It seems that removing the program didn't completely erase it from my computer. Is there a way to completely wipe away any trace of Audacity so that when I reinstall it might start fresh and not have this problem (and hopefully still keep the audacity projects I have)?

Thanks for reading, friends. I hope you all can help

Krangar18

[Gale Andrews]

The problem started when I was manually lining up bass kicks in a song to enhance the sound, which was not recorded optimally. I went through the process a few times and it was beginning to slow the computer down, I think because I had about 100 or probably more separate copies of a small wave file I was lining up one-by-one.

Audacity could struggle with 100 tracks one on top of the other, If that is what you had. I would suggest selecting already aligned tracks and Tracks > Mix and Render frequently to keep the number of tracks down.

I was halfway through my last run through, and when I went to save, the program crashed. Ever since, I can run Audacity normally, except if I try to switch from the select tool to any other tool, the program freezes and I have to end the program. I've tried refreshing the toolbar, restarting the computer, reinstalling the program, and installing a different version (1.3.13) of the program, and I'm still having this problem. I've even defragmented my hard drive in an attempt to solve this problem. I've saved down the essential files I need in case the Audacity projects are wasted. But no matter what project I have open, or even if there is no project open, I can do everything else I've tried to do (save, zoom in, split, etc . . .) but I can't change tools by clicking on the toolbar or it causes a crash. Is there a different way to change tools?

You should be using 1.3.13 as it has the latest released bug fixes.

Audacity settings are always retained even after uninstall. For Audacity Beta the settings are in an audacity.cfg file. You can trim the .cfg contents to a special line that makes Audacity launch with factory settings. I think this will cure the problem. For instructions, see:
http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Preferences#stored .

Don't forget to quit Audacity before editing .cfg.


Gale

[steve]

Audacity could struggle with 100 tracks one on top of the other, If that is what you had.

I'd be interested to know if you (Krangar18) had each copy of the "small wave file" on its own track (100 tracks with 1 small wave file in each) or if you had just a few tracks with lots of small wave files in each track. The latter arrangement should run much more efficiently.

[Krangar18]

Yes, steve, I just had three tracks total. One with my original drum file, and the other two with all the copies of my bass kick, as they overlapped at times.

Thanks Gale and steve, I went through the process of trimming the .cfg file and it unfortunately did not solve the problem. It did however clear my history, so I'm not sure what to make of it.

I'll keep trying. I appreciate the help. Please let me know if you have any other ideas for me.

[Gale Andrews]

Are you using 1.3.13 now (you launched that version immediately after trimming .cfg)? Exit Audacity, trim.cfg then launch 1.3.13 is what's being suggested.

F2 - F6 can be used to switch to other tools. Does it help?


Gale

[Krangar18]

Well, Gale. I went through the steps of exiting Audacity, trimming the .cfg, then launching 1.3.13. I'm still having the same issue. In addition to that, Audacity will now no longer save my history at all, and every time I start it up it shows me the "Welcome to Audacity, how to get help" pop-up, even after having clicked the check box to not show it anymore. I've reinstalled the program after making sure the .cfg file was trimmed, and this is where I'm at.

Thank you for telling me about the F2-F6 commands. They are also causing a crash. For some reason, I just cannot change tools. I've gotten around the problem by copying the section I want to move, deleting it, and then moving the cursor to where I want it and pasting it there. It's a bit of a hassle, but it works. At this point I'm glad that I can use the program at all, and still save and export, and in round-about ways, get things done.

I noticed in the Application Data folder, where the .cfg file is located, there are like 37,000 .tmp files. Would it help to delete these? Will this erase my EQ presets?

Again, thank you for your help.

Krangar18

[Gale Andrews]

Well, Gale. I went through the steps of exiting Audacity, trimming the .cfg, then launching 1.3.13. I'm still having the same issue. In addition to that, Audacity will now no longer save my history at all, and every time I start it up it shows me the "Welcome to Audacity, how to get help" pop-up, even after having clicked the check box to not show it anymore.

If you are having to force quit Audacity, the .cfg file will never get updated with your recent files or other settings; it only gets written on clean exit.

Thank you for telling me about the F2-F6 commands. They are also causing a crash. For some reason, I just cannot change tools. I've gotten around the problem by copying the section I want to move, deleting it, and then moving the cursor to where I want it and pasting it there.

Sorry, it obviously isn't right at the moment.

I noticed in the Application Data folder, where the .cfg file is located, there are like 37,000 .tmp files. Would it help to delete these? Will this erase my EQ presets?

What version of Windows are you on? There should not be any .TMP files in the Application DataAudacity folder. Are they all of recent date?

Are any of these TMP files less than 1 MB in size? If so it might be useful to upload an example of one of these files to your reply (use "Upload attachment" underneath where the message post buttons are).

The EQ presets should be XML files.



Gale

[Gale Andrews]

Also please right-click over audacity.exe in its installation folder > Properties then click the "Compatibility" tab. It should be set to no compatibility mode, but try setting it to compatibility for earlier versions of Windows.


Gale

[Krangar18]

Ok, it was running in compatibility mode. I was messing with that before and didn't switch it back. I'm running Windows XP. Compatibility mode didn't seem to make a difference.

Also, I forgot to mention in my last post that after I close out Audacity, it still runs in the background, and I always have to Ctrl+Alt+Delete and end the process. That would explain why it's not updating the .cfg file. But this is something that was not happening when I first came here with a problem. It was some time after I cleared the .cfg file.

I didn't look at every single .tmp file, but they all seem to be 0 bytes, and were created and last updated on 09/22/2011, between 7:26PM, and 7:32PM. That could very well be the time that Audacity first crashed or became problematic. I made my first post here on the 24th. I can't seem to upload one for you because it is an empty file.

Thank you,
Krangar18

[Gale Andrews]

Audacity should always respect audacity.cfg on launch if you force-quit then edit the .cfg file.

Did you add any VST plug-ins to the system since this started happening, or maybe, new audio programs that may have done so? Can you force quit Audacity then edit .cfg so that it only has this content:

Code: Select all

NewPrefsInitialized=1
[VST]
Enable=0
GUI=0
Rescan=0

This disables VST plug-ins in Audacity. Try exiting Audacity straight after launch (using File > Exit) and see if it quits of its own accord. If it does, please zip the updated .cfg file (or change its extension to audacity.txt) and upload it here. Then restart and try switching tools and let us know what happens.

If you still have to force-quit after launching with the above .cfg, please force-quit then try this .cfg:

Code: Select all

NewPrefsInitialized=1
MultiToolActive=1

This enables Multi-Tool mode. I'm not suggesting you will find that mode convenient, but it might be interesting to know if you could switch tools in that mode.

Before you delete those .tmp files, can you give a few examples of their names (before the .tmp)? You could do that by selecting them, F2, then Edit > Copy and paste here.


Thanks


Gale