Glitching when trying to record

Hi, I’m using Audacity 3.1.3 on an older MacBook Air, which was recently updated to Mac OS Catalina 10.15.7. While I hadn’t had issues with Audacity before, I’m now encountering glitches when starting to record. (I’m using Focusrite Scarlett Solo Studio 2nd generation recording package).

I’ve received the following two messages at different times : Error opening sound device Try changing the audio host, playback device and project sample rate AND Error opening recording device Error Code 9986 Internal PortAudio Error.

When these glitches occur, I’ve sent reports to Audacity. They also seem to resolve when I disconnect the USB cord between my DAW and laptop and then plug it in again. But I’m pretty sure that these glitches did not occur before my laptop was upgraded to Catalina. (That upgrade was actually done inadvertently as I know that there had been issues between Catalina and an earlier version of Audacity.)

Thanks for any insight into this issue as I’m concerned that the problem could worsen. (Maybe it’s simply a matter of replacing the USB cord, but I thought I’d first see if there was a compatibility issue between Audacity and Catalina.)

deevoice

There was an issue with 3.1.2, but that was corrected in 3.1.3.

Note that if you unplug your USB cable, you will need to do: Tranport > Rescan Audio Devices.

Thanks, Jademan, for that tip! Fingers crossed, that seems to have worked. However, when I first launched Audacity after plugging in the recording device and pressed “record", I received a new message: Error code—9997 Invalid Sample Rate(!) But after disconnecting and reconnecting the USB cable into Focusrite and then into my laptop, launching Audacity, and then using the Transport> Rescan Audio Devices, I was able to record. There were no issues either when I just plugged the Focusrite into my laptop again after a period of time and opened Audacity. Of course it’s hard to say why the glitch occurred in the first place, as I hadn’t touched the Focusrite end of the cable at all that day! Thanks again for your help. I’ll keep you posted if the problem recurs.

Deevoice