Audacity freezing every time I click/tab off it or it generates a new window.

Audacity version: 3.0.2

Operating System: Windows 10

What I’m trying to do: I’m trying to use audacity to record voiceover.

Generate Support Data: I can’t because Audacity freezes every time I try to do so.

I’ve been using Audacity 2.4.2 for awhile, but sometimes it would stop recording randomly with an error message saying it was taking up too many resources. I finally got fed up with that and checked to see if updating it would help. Now I can’t do anything with Audacity at all because it completely freezes up whenever I alt tab or click off the audacity window.

Do you use Japanese Windows, or a Japanese keyboard (or other non-Latin character set)?

I do, actually. I have some VNs downloaded that need my system location and keyboard to be in Japanese. Is that what’s causing the issue?

Not directly. The problem is caused by a bug in a recent Windows update affecting the IME (Input Method Editor). There’s some information about it here: KB4564002: You might have issues on Windows 10, version 20H2 and Windows 10, version 2004 when using some Microsoft IMEs - Microsoft Support

Microsoft claim to have fixed the issue, but I don’t know if that means that it will be automatically fixed by fully updating Windows, or whether it is necessary to roll-back the bad update first, or manually apply the fixes mentioned in that article.

Do you know when the problem started?
Are you able to correlate that with a specific Windows update?

Well, like I said, I had been using 2.4.2 until today. I was recording and it got cut off by a message saying it was taking up too much system resources, which prompted me to update to 3.0.2.

I shifted my keyboard from Japanese to English and the problem seems to be resolved.

Super. Thanks for the update.