Lost timeline and wave

Hi All,

I am new to this forum and have used Audacity successfully in the past few years.

Today I wanted to make a new recording. After pressing the record button I noticed no timeline/no waveform. Above the timeline a red triangle (point down) and scrolling over it, it read “timeline-operation-switched-off-during-recording”.
My question, how do I get the timeline and waveform back while recording? I have not been able to find out how to do this.

Thank you!

That’s referring to the “Timeline Quick-Play” functions, and it is completely normal for those to be disabled during recording (Timeline - Audacity Manual)

The “timeline” is the ruler at the top of the tracks window (Timeline - Audacity Manual) so I’m not sure exactly what you mean.

When you first start Audacity and click the Record button, what exactly happens?

Tip: If you hover your mouse over the big picture of Audacity in the front page of the manual (Audacity Manual), there are “tool tips” to show you what each part is called. Clicking on the image will take you to the appropriate page of the manual.

Another Tip: also in the Manual in the left nav bar Useful links section there is “WIT” which is an acronym for “What Is That”

Clicking that takes you to this useful website: https://wit.audacityteam.org//

Update to make that link more discoverable in later releases I have just added it to the 2.3.0 alpha Manual in the Quick Help section

WC