Why does the volume suddenly jump to 100% when editing my music on Audacity?

Hello,

I have Windows 10 Home and the 2.2.2 version of Audacity. I am wondering why the volume suddenly and randomly jumps to 100% on my speakers that are connected to my laptop while I am editing my music on Audacity? For no apparent reason, this has happened 3 times and as a result I have done the following:

  1. Made sure my driver settings were correct
  2. Quit using the new speakers and reverted back to my 30 year old speakers which have never caused this to happen before
  3. Contacted Microsoft Support and spoke to someone who checked drivers and audio settings to make sure it wasn’t a Windows bug. The Microsoft rep believes this is a technical issue with Audacity and asked me to contact support to see how I can check the drivers via audacity. I do not know how to do this.

Can someone help me? Have you ever heard of this before?

Thank you when you have a moment,

Janet

Windows audio does have a playback-enhancement called “loudness equalization” which automatically turns the volume up if it’s quiet. (it’s like real-time dynamic-range-compression).
You can turn it off, (if it’s on), see … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxnUjiGgBaI

[ If it is “loudness equalization” it would affect all sound playback, not just Audacity ].

Another possibility, if it is intermittent/random, you could accidentally be moving a track gain slider …

https://ttmanual.audacityteam.org/man/Audio_Tracks

Thank you Trebor for these two ideas.

Since it is only in Audacity when the speakers suddenly jump up to full throttle, I have thought that maybe I accidentally hit the track gain slider. However, if I did, then how come I wouldn’t have to adjust the slider after the volume jumped up? In other words, when I was startled and had volume jump, I looked at the volume on Windows and saw that it was on 100. I hurried and moved it down to 0. But I never remember having to slide the track gain slider back to zero.

Since it is only in Audacity when the speakers suddenly jump up to full throttle, I have thought that maybe I accidentally hit the track gain slider. However, if I did, then wouldn’t I have to adjust the slider back to its original position after the volume jumped up?

In other words, when I was startled after volume jumped, I looked at the volume on Windows and saw that it was on 100. I hurried and moved it down to 0. But I never remember having to slide the track gain slider back to zero. Any thoughts?

Since it is only in Audacity when the speakers suddenly jump up to full throttle, I have thought that maybe I accidentally hit the track gain slider. However, if I did, then wouldn’t I have to adjust the slider back to its original position after the volume jumped up?

In other words, when I was startled after volume jumped, I looked at the volume on Windows and saw that it was on 100. I hurried and moved it down to 0. But I never remember having to slide the track gain slider back to zero. Any thoughts?

I have the same issue with the volume remaining at 100% and it can’t be moved down. I have WINDOWS 10 PRO with version update 10.0.19043. I do use a USB microphone headset for audio editing with AUDACITY 3.1.3. Is it because I use a USB headset? Thanks for the clarification. I am visually impaired and need some assistance.