Recording freezes when screensaver is activated

[phabaudac]

Hello,

On Ubuntu 10.04, recording with Audacity 1.3.12 beta freezes as soon as the screen saver gets on. Is this a known bug ? Is there any workaround other than disabling the screen saver ?

[steve]

I would call it a bug, but it's not really an Audacity bug. The problem is that often the sound system can try to shut down when the screen saver starts. You may be able to work round the issue by setting your screen to just go off rather than a screen saver, though of course you must make sure that your computer is not set to go to sleep.

[phabaudac]

I would call it a bug, but it's not really an Audacity bug. The problem is that often the sound system can try to shut down when the screen saver starts. You may be able to work round the issue by setting your screen to just go off rather than a screen saver, though of course you must make sure that your computer is not set to go to sleep.

Hello stevethefiddle,
I am sorry but I am not fully convinced by your explanation, because I never encountered this problem using arecord (with screen saver activated) (?)...

[Gale Andrews]

FWIW, the screensaver won't come on in Windows 7 x64 or Ubuntu 10.04 when there is audio playing, but does if there is only an audio input. Ubuntu is a bit more clever in that if the screensaver was due to come on, it does so once audio playback is stopped.

I can't get an Audacity freeze-when-recording (line-in) on Ubuntu (I tried both with screen saver only and putting display to sleep only). Similarly, no freeze on Windows 7. But like Steve says, if the input is lost, Audacity may well freeze. If you monitor what you are recording, it may stop the screensaver coming on.

But when trying to stop recording on Ubuntu in 1.3.13 Alpha (irrespective of screensavers), if I press Stop and hold it for a few seconds (as if I was waiting for the exact place to stop), I get a completely replicable freeze and have to force quit. Using the ALSA "pulse" or other recording devices doesn't make any difference. Not a problem on Windows. Does anyone else on Linux see that?



Gale

[Gale Andrews]

I would call it a bug, but it's not really an Audacity bug. The problem is that often the sound system can try to shut down when the screen saver starts. You may be able to work round the issue by setting your screen to just go off rather than a screen saver, though of course you must make sure that your computer is not set to go to sleep.

Hello stevethefiddle,
I am sorry but I am not fully convinced by your explanation, because I never encountered this problem using arecord (with screen saver activated) (?)...

Does the input stream stop when the screensaver comes on during an arecord session? Is this a Timed Recording?


Gale

[phabaudac]

I would call it a bug, but it's not really an Audacity bug. The problem is that often the sound system can try to shut down when the screen saver starts. You may be able to work round the issue by setting your screen to just go off rather than a screen saver, though of course you must make sure that your computer is not set to go to sleep.

Hello stevethefiddle,
I am sorry but I am not fully convinced by your explanation, because I never encountered this problem using arecord (with screen saver activated) (?)...

Does the input stream stop when the screensaver comes on during an arecord session? Is this a Timed Recording?
Gale

Hello Gale,
Each time it happened it was during a timed recording and I was not monitoring the input.
I will make a new trial as soon as possible with input monitoring on.
Also I do not remember whether it happens when the screen saver is activated only or when the screen goes off also. I will check this as well.

[steve]

But when trying to stop recording on Ubuntu in 1.3.13 Alpha (irrespective of screensavers), if I press Stop and hold it for a few seconds (as if I was waiting for the exact place to stop), I get a completely replicable freeze and have to force quit.

No problem here using Audacity ® 1.3.13-alpha-May 2 2010 on Ubuntu 9.04

I am sorry but I am not fully convinced by your explanation, because I never encountered this problem using arecord (with screen saver activated) (?)...

I've notice the problem only with PulseAudio and only with some screensavers. I got into the habit of turning off screensavers back in the days of Win98 so I don't personally find it a big deal and I've not done thorough testing on this, but setting the screen to go off rather than a screensaver works well here.

Each time it happened it was during a timed recording

There is a known bug affecting timer record, but it was thought to just affect Windows and the developers have had trouble reproducing the problem, which they need to do to find where the bug is. The description here refers to the timer recordings straddling midnight but waxcylinder reports it occasionally happening at other times. http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 18&t=30701

Could the timer issue and this freezing issue be related?

[bgravato]

On MacOS-X 10.6 Audacity never froze when recording and the screen saver activates.
Never happened on Debian (lenny/squeeze/sid mix) either.

I never used the timer feature on audacity, but I'll try to run some tests soon, whenever I get some more free time.

[Gale Andrews]

I've tried Timer Record (with "software playthrough" off) in Audacity SVN. I tried on Windows 7 (with the Screen Saver) and Ubuntu 10.04 (with the Screen Saver only and "putting the screen to sleep" only). I set a 5 minute wait to start a half hour recording then had the screensaver or sleep feature come on 25 minutes into the recording. There was no freeze or interruption to the timer or the recording, and the recording stopped normally.

phabaudac, what is your "host" and "recording device" in the Audacity Devices Preferences? Try changing Transport > Software Playthrough from whatever state it's in now. If you turn it on, it might stop the screensaver coming on. Or if you turn it off it might stop the freeze when the screensaver comes on - software playthrough has a lot of issues on Linux.



Gale

[phabaudac]

I've tried Timer Record (with "software playthrough" off) in Audacity SVN. I tried on Windows 7 (with the Screen Saver) and Ubuntu 10.04 (with the Screen Saver only and "putting the screen to sleep" only). I set a 5 minute wait to start a half hour recording then had the screensaver or sleep feature come on 25 minutes into the recording. There was no freeze or interruption to the timer or the recording, and the recording stopped normally.

phabaudac, what is your "host" and "recording device" in the Audacity Devices Preferences? Try changing Transport > Software Playthrough from whatever state it's in now. If you turn it on, it might stop the screensaver coming on. Or if you turn it off it might stop the freeze when the screensaver comes on - software playthrough has a lot of issues on Linux.
Gale

Hello Gale,
The host is : ALSA
The recording device is : C-Media CMI8738: C-Media PCI IEC958 (hw:0,2)
I do not use Software Playthrough. I mean it is disabled in Audacity Recording Preferences, and I never tried to enabled it through the Transport menu. Also, though the Terratec Aureon PCI 5.1 has input monitoring capability I do not use it during long run recording sessions.
I had no time this week to make new trials. I hope I will have some more time for that on sunday. I'll keep you informed of whatever results.