Help with the Timer Record feature.

[Locdog]

I really enjoy the Jason Ellis Show and with schedules changing and everyday occurrences I can't always be around my XM/computer to listen for the whole 4 hours. I was searching and searching for a way to record and stumbled upon Audacity and then grabbed the beta version so I could use the new Timer Record feature.

So I was just overjoyed the first 5 or so times I used it, perfect quality, perfect start and stop time, everything went great. Now for two days (Friday and Monday) in a row something strange has happened, the recording started at the right time but then just stops after 3-5 minutes, the program kept recording but it was nothing but dead air. I'm about 90% sure it's not my audio source because it worked the first 5 or so times just fine and I specifically got a way to get the Internet XM to not cut off after an hour (like the standard window option does) and both times this has messed up the audio was fine when it started recording but something happened after the program started.

So I've researched potential problems and haven't found a solution so I'm guessing maybe it's some kind of bug with the new Timer Record feature and just wondering if anyone has had similar problems or potential solutions.

[steve]

The timer record has been out for a while now, and I know a couple of people that use it regularly with no problem - my own limited experience with it has shown it to be very reliable. Does your computer have any "power saving" features enabled? Check that it is set to "always on" and no screen saver.

Also check that you have plenty of free disk space on your C: drive

[waxcylinder]

I'm one of the people that use it very regularly (like you, to time-shift late broadcast FM radio).

And while it works well most of the time I have had two occasions wher it failed. So I think it is still alittle buggy. On these two occasions I had it set to record a show from the BBC duration about 1hour 45mins - and on both occasions the recording had not stopped at the preset time but was still recording merrily away the next morning when I woke up. I cannot reproduce this bug, so have not reported it yet - the only common factor seems to be that both of these timed recordings straddle midnight (but I have had other timed recordings of the same show stradding midnight which stopped just fine at the preset time - somewhat puzzling).

On both occasions I had to force Audacity to stop/crash with the Windows Task Manager. The good news is that because the crash recovery is much improved in 1.3 on both occasions Audacity pulled both of them back properly - but with very long projects (triiming it down to the required size, however, was painfully slow !!

BTW my set up is Technics ST-X902L FM tuner => Edirol UA-1EX external USB soundcard => PC Windows XP-HE-SP2.

WC