Audacity randomly stops recording after a few seconds

[sammay]

I've been trying to record a few things with audacity, which has generally worked pretty well for me in the past.

However, whenever I try to record a second track, it only records for a second or so after I hit the record button, and then randomly stops, although the cursor keeps on moving forwards and the meter keeps showing the input.

I haven't been able to find any reason why it would be doing this, in the audacity FAQ, Wiki, google etc and it is EXTREMELY fustrating. It has also done this when I tried to record for the first time in a new project, but I switched a few settings on and off again and it worked for some reason. Can anyone offer any help?

System is:
Arch Linux current, 2.6.28 kernel, on x86_64.
Audacity 1.3.7
alsa-lib 1.0.18
alsa-utils 1.0.18
I am also using KMix version 3.5 with KDE 4.2

lspci output for sound card:
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
and the 'snd_hda_intel' driver is being used.

[besto]

I have the same problem. The recording stops after about 1s (not always the same). The recordings itself goes on, but no sound is recorded anymore.
This is on a debian testing system:

audacity is 1.3.7
Linux 2.6.26-1-686 #1 SMP Sat Jan 10 18:29:31 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux

It should not be a general alsa-problem, since the 1 second is recorded correctly.

[dgun]

Same problem here on debian lenny (currently stable). I tried 1.3.5 and 1.3.6 with the same problem. I downgraded to etch 1.2.4 and it works no problem! Now I have to switch back and forth between versions. 1.2.4 to record and 1.3.5 to remove noise. What a pain. Please reply if you have a solution.

For 1.2.4, I'm using "aoss audacity" to start it. Versions 1.3.5/6 will hang if I start them using aoss. Instead, I set to them to use alsa as input and output in the preferences. Sound is VIA 8237.

I downloaded 1.3.7 and compiled and ran it. Same problem.

[steve]

I've not had this problem myself, though I did experience several issues with Audacity 1.3.7 - I am now using Audacity 1.3.8 alpha (from cvs) and it runs beautifully - There have been a lo of bug fixes, and I think I would go as far as to say that it is the best version of Audacity so far.

You can download cvs with;

Code: Select all

cvs -d:pserver:[email protected]:/cvsroot/audacity checkout audacity

I then used;

Code: Select all

./configure --prefix=/usr
make
sudo make install

[dgun]

You can download cvs with;

Code: Select all

cvs -d:pserver:[email protected]:/cvsroot/audacity checkout audacity

Hmm. Doesn't seem to work:

Code: Select all

$ cvs -d:pserver:[email protected]:/cvsroot/audacity checkout audacity
cvs checkout: warning: cannot write to history file /cvsroot/audacity/CVSROOT/history: Read-only file system
cvs checkout: Updating audacity
cvs checkout: failed to create lock directory for `/cvsroot/audacity/audacity-src' (/cvsroot/audacity/audacity-src/#cvs.lock): Read-only file system
cvs checkout: failed to obtain dir lock in repository `/cvsroot/audacity/audacity-src'
cvs [checkout aborted]: read lock failed - giving up

[steve]

Hmm. Doesn't seem to work:

Just checked the cvs command, and it is correct.

I'm not very familiar with cvs myself, so I'm not sure what the error means (other than something that needed to be written couldn't be).
I presume that you are running it from within a directory where you have full read/write permissions.
Perhaps there was a glitch with the server when you tried it?

[Update] - just heard that Sourceforge have been having some problems with cvs. These sort of problems don't usually last long, so wait a while then try again.

[Update 2] See here http://apps.sourceforge.net/wordpress/s ... -downtime/

[dgun]

That hopefully explains the cvs problem.

As for the recording problem, I discovered just now that if I turn off software playthrough,everything works fine. So it appears to be a problem with software playthrough.

[dgun]

Got it working in 1.3.7 and 1.3.8. I have to select the following in I/O settings: ALSA hw:0,0 for input and output. 48000 works better than 44100, but still has occasional clicks in playthrough, more than version 1.2.4. (Recording is not affected by playthrough clicking.)

[steve]

"software playthrough" should normally not be selected. (it is "off" by default).

"cvs" is up and running again.

[sammay]

OK thanks everyone! I've just finished compiling and installing the latest CVS version so we'll see how it goes.