Audacity Forum

I asked this once before after a computer crash, but got little response, and now it appears that the crash had no effect on this problem. So here goes again...

I've been using Audacity 1.3.12 beta under Windows XP Home (SP3) in a fairly new computer for a year now. I have 2 channel recording set in the preferences window, which works just fine.

Recently I decided to try single channel recording to limit disk and CPU usage, and because it seemed like an easier way to record, as the results could still be spread across the pan spectrum. So I went into preferrences window and set the recording for 1 channel. BUT...with this setting, as soon as I hit the Record button, the computer crashes!!

If I go back and set it to 2 channels, it works fine. Set it again to 1 channel, computer crashes (complete crash-I have to reset the computer to get it running again). So...is this some bug I'm not aware of? Couldn't find it in the bug lists!

How can I fix this? Thanks!

You were responded to in detail:
http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 56#p143214

Were you subscribed to the post? The "Subscribe" box is at the bottom of the page for the topic.

It isn't in (our) bug lists because it is almost certainly a problem with your computer sound device or with some driver it interacts with (as you must have seen because you responded to that). Audacity cannot directly crash the computer. It does not have the kernel privileges to do so. The only way Audacity could (possibly) "cause" a crash is if drivers it interacts with react in such a way as to access the wrong memory or some other error that makes Windows shut down. Sometimes one set of sound device drivers will work with one version of Audacity and another might not.

So the way to fix it (assuming the memory dump does not indicate some other cause) is to try and update your sound device so that it has the latest drivers specific to XP and your particular computer model, as supplied by the device or motherboard manufacturer. See:
http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Updat ... ce_Drivers

It's important to note that sound device drivers on a CD that came with the computer, though matched with your motherboard, may still be out-of-date and not have the latest fixes.

Before updating sound device drivers, please update to the current 1.3.13 Beta:
http://audacity.googlecode.com/files/au ... 1.3.13.exe



Gale

That's screaming "driver problem" to me.
You could try updating to Audacity 1.3.13 and see if that copes any better, but the cause of the problem is almost certainly a bug in the sound card driver.
If your computer is a branded computer and has the original sound card you should check on the manufacturers web site for updated drivers for your computer.
If the sound card is one that you put in yourself, check the sound card manufacturers web site for updated drivers.
If the sound card is an "on board" device (built into the motherboard) of an unbranded computer, check the mother board manufacturers web site.

Sorry about the duplication, Gale must have posted while I was typing, but at least we agree.

The sound card is a Sound Blaster Live! 24 bit internal (SB driver) in a home built computer using an Asus motherboard with 1 gig Duron cpu.

Referring back to my original post (linked to above in this thread). This problem started after an XP reinstall following a crash earlier this year. Before that crash, 1 channel recording worked fine. At that time, the sound card driver is the same now as then, but now 1 channel crashes. Unless the driver itself has become corrupted, I can't see it being a problem. If it is, then the reinstall (from the Sound Blaster CD) should have fixed it, since it originally supported 1 channel recording. I did try reinstalling the driver the last time I asked about this. It didn't help at that time. What should I try now?

This evening, after being told that the problem is a driver (several times) I downloaded and then installed the lastest driver for my card (Sound Blaster Live! 24 bit internal). The latest driver was written about 6 years ago and is roughly 23 megs big. I then went into Device Manager which shows that the new driver is installed and working. Doesn't seem to be the driver (I've tried two now).

As a reminder, I built the computer about 6 years ago based on an Asus A7V8X motherboard using a 1 gig AMD Duron CPU with roughly 500 megs of memory. This crashing when trying to record mono on Audacity is the first serious problem it has ever had (other then the original crash explained above).

But even with the newer driver, I still can't record mono tracks without the computer crashing. Works fine in 2 channels. In fact, I can record a 2 channel track and split it into mono channels just fine (although that seems like redundent work), but I cannot record mono. If this is still a problem with the (newer) driver, what can I possibly do next? I'm poor so right now a newer sound card is out of the question. ?????

I had chance to take a quick look on Google today and there's no shortage of reports of crashes when using Sound Blaster Live sound cards.
The problem is that it's old hardware and although they worked well in their day (I had a couple of these cards) it looks like there are problems with more up to date systems.

Short of updating the sound card I think that the best that we will manage is to work around the problem.
Have you updated to Audacity 1.3.13 yet?

Once again, if the computer is crashing there will be information in the memory dump. I suggest you look at it if you haven't done so yet. You may need to fix some driver that SB Live! is trying to interact with.

If you have reinstalled XP it is very likely NOT in the state it was in when the SB Live! was stable. Have you reinstalled all the Windows updates? Reinstalled Service Pack 1, then Service Pack 3 (which can be installed on top of Service Pack 1)? This point was also made before.




Gale

Yes, and as I answered before, I have done all those things except look over the memory dump (I don't know how to do that). Also, I don't have service pack 1, but service pack 3 is installed.

The SB Live is stable! It works perfectly in all my programs that use it (maybe 6), and it only fails when I try to record through Audacity in mono mode.

Looks like the only fix for me is a new sound card, but since it works fine in 2 channel mode, that will be down the line. Thanks all for trying to help!

polkat wrote: It works perfectly in all my programs that use it (maybe 6), and it only fails when I try to record through Audacity in mono mode.

Have you tried recording in mono with any other programs without using ASIO?

It may be worth trying mono recording using a different sample rate. If you're currently using 44100 Hz, try setting the default sample rate to 48000 (Edit > Preferences > Quality)

Gale may be able to help you with the memory dump.