Audacity has lost ability to record on-air radio

[Nathan Silver]

When I turned on my Audacity 2.0.5 yesterday I found it had lost the ability to record on-air radio. I suspect this has to do with an inadvertent change of Audacity's preferences, but I can't seem to solve it. I'd be very grateful for anyone's help.

I have an iMac using an OS X version 10.9.4 operating system. I play music through a Musical Fidelity V-DAC 24/96 system, with the input a USB PnP Audio Device. I've tried with the same setup on my MacBook and all's well, which is why I think there must be a preference re-adjustment (or perhaps some reinstall, or an added new installation) that's necessary in the Audacity software loaded in the iMac. The Audacity was originally downloaded from the web, and it wasn't zipped.

Very many thanks--

[Gale Andrews]

Use the same Audacity settings as on the machine that records, if you think those are relevant. Quit Audacity on both machines then copy the audacity.cfg settings file at ~/Library/Application Support/audacity/ on the machine where recording works to ~/Library/Application Support/audacity/ on the machine where you can't record.

Audacity does not record streaming audio directly on Mac because Apple does not allow it. You have not said how you are doing it on the other machine but the usual solution is Soundflower - see Recording Computer Playback on Mac - Audacity Manual .


Gale

[Nathan Silver]

Thanks for your quick reply, but the problem persists.

I downloaded Soundflower. The (2ch) version appeared in the Audacity panels for Recording and Playback. I tried recording with Audacity tuned for the BBC Proms on BBC Radio 3 (I'm in London), but still silence. So I uninstalled Soundflower, using the Run button to uninstall all parts. Then I reinstalled it and got the reply that the installation was successful, but still no recording via Audacity.

It may be worth mentioning that, though Soundflower comes up in Applications, when I click on the flower icon I don't get a menu of any sort, including for a choice of settings. I'm wondering if Soundflower has installed completely-- or if it has, what the problem still is.

I'd be very grateful for further advice.

[Nathan Silver]

I forgot to mention that Audacity now can't record off-air on my Macbook either, so transferring Audacity from that isn't a useful option. Maybe in the last 24 hours Apple has sent out an enforcement whack signal that now prevents such downloads.

[Gale Andrews]

You still have not said how you were recording computer playback before without Soundflower. If it was with a cable connected between audio out and line-in you can use that method. Choose the line-in input in Audacity's Device Toolbar .

If you open Finder then double-click on Soundflowerbed.app the Soundflowerbed icon is in the Finder menu bar at the top of the computer screen.

Completed Proms seem to be offered online in a Flash Player so it should not be too hard to download the MP4 file or MP4 file in a FLV container using the usual browser extensions or standalone tools (I have just done this for a concert).


Gale