Phnx MT202pcs Speaker Phone gives Error in playback & record

[tlm]

Gale, Thank you very much for your efforts to help. I have been able to successfully make recordings and also to playback using Quicktime when the Phnx MT202pcs was set as the Input and Output device. I downloaded Audacity 2.1.3 alpha Aug 9 and found that I was able to record with the Phnx MT202pcs set as the input. However, I could not playback with the Phnx MT202pcs set as the output -- to listen to the recording I had to switch to other output such as internal or headphones. I also have no problem recording and playing back with Audacity using headphones/internal speakers.

So, with this newer version of Audacity the only problem appears to be with playback. I also noticed that Audacity did not pickup the headphones as an output device, although it did pick it up as a recording device (although it names it "Built in microphone" instead of "External Microphone". This computer has no "built in microphone). The attached screenshot shows this.

Regarding the utility you mentioned -- I can't do that because it's only for Windows and I'm working on a Mac.

[Gale Andrews]

What was the playback problem with MT202pcs in 2.1.3-alpha? "Error opening" again?

Is the "Built-in output" in 2.1.3-alpha not your headphones when they are connected? Try Transport > Rescan Audio Devices in the Audacity menu bar if you just connected your headphones while Audacity was open.

Also can you post the saved file from Help > Audio Device Info... in 2.1.3-alpha (and also in 2.1.2 for comparison, if you still have 2.1.2).


Gale

[tlm]

Sorry for the delay -- vacation time...

To answer your questions:

1) yes, the error when trying to play back with the Phnx MT202pcs continues to be the same error: "Error opening sound device. Try changing the audio host, playback device and the project sample rate."
2) yes, I continue to use the "2.1.3-alpha-Aug 9 2016" version
3) regarding effect of the microphone on the input and output audio, see the attached 3 screenshots. Specifically, note that the microphone does not show up in the output box at all, even if restarted, or even if Transport-->Rescan Audio devices is used

I've also attached the deviceinfo as requested

[Gale Andrews]

Audacity does not see USB devices plugged in after Audacity is already running. Transport > Rescan Audio Devices or restart Audacity.

Obviously the built-in microphone will not appear as an output device in Audacity. If you want to use your headphones for playback, try selecting the Built-in output in Audacity.

I don't know what else you can do to play to the Phnx in Audacity. You can try changing the project rate to 44100 Hz (although that would be a mismatch). You could try the dropdown menu in the audio track, set "Format" to 16-bit.

You could try Audacity > Preferences..., "Recording" tab and experiment with changing "Audio to buffer" up or down (that setting affects playback too).


Gale

[tlm]

I have tried your suggestions. I tried project rates of 44100 (the default that it goes back to) and 32000 (the value shown for Phnx MT202pcs in the Audio MIDI setup (that value cannot be edited there). I tried changing to 16bit

For the Preferences-->Recording-->Audio to buffer setting, I tried 10, 50, 100, 200, 500, and in each case after making a test recording, I also tried changing the Audio Track dropdown to Format-->16bit

Nothing allowed playback on the Phnx MT202pcs

I think I'm ready to surrender now, and just accept that I will need another playback device when using Audacity.

But thanks for trying.

[Gale Andrews]

2.1.3-alpha changed to use a later version of the PortAudio audio interface that we use for playback and recording. So it could be your device is not really compatible with PortAudio or susceptible to different versions of PortAudio.

If so you could try for example 2.0.3 and 2.0.4 from https://code.google.com/archive/p/audacity/downloads both of which use different versions of PortAudio from 2.1.2.

Have you tried rebooting the computer? Sometimes it helps with USB audio devices.

Gale

[cyrano]

I noticed you have the "LogMeIn" VPN client. The Sphnx is a conferencing device. Maybe LogMeIn is stealing its audio output from Audacity?

Is there a setting in LogMeIn to disable audio? If so, have you tried disabling that?

[Gale Andrews]

I noticed you have the "LogMeIn" VPN client. The Sphnx is a conferencing device. Maybe LogMeIn is stealing its audio output from Audacity?

Is there a setting in LogMeIn to disable audio? If so, have you tried disabling that?

I wondered about that too, but in the latest screenshot of output devices

LogMeIn is not shown. Also QuickTime can play to this Phnx device.

I would still try Cyrano's suggestion, though.

Gale

[tlm]

I appreciate that you folks are not giving up on this as easily as I have, so I went to the effort to

1) reboot the computer
2) install Audacity 2.0.3
3) testing the Phnx MT202pcs by recording a short portion of audio and then attempting playback on it
4) doing the above test with either 44100 or 32000 project rates
5) changing the sample format between 32 float to 16 pcm

Unfortunately, I still experience the same thing: recording works on the Phnx MT202pcs but playback does not.

Regarding the LogMeIn, I went through the steps to thoroughly uninstall that once I saw it was there recently. As I mentioned earlier, this is a bit of an older computer, but it's still got a lot of life left, I think after all the upgrades: a 2009 Mac Pro (tower) upgraded with a 256 SSD, 12GB ram, lots of HDD space, and up-to-date software.

Thanks again

[cyrano]

How did you uninstall logmein?

It seems stealing audio is a long standing issue with this program that still isn't fixed in the latest version:

https://community.logmein.com/t5/Pro/Di ... d-p/113013
https://community.logmein.com/t5/Pro/Di ... td-p/33175

It's possible the kernel extension that is "helping" LMI, could be left behind and it would provoke the kind of problems you're having. Have a look here:

https://community.logmein.com/t5/Pro/Lo ... td-p/79421

From which I distilled:

1- Disable Logmein auto update from
Options - Preferences - Advanced - Software Upgrades.
2- Delete the driver from
/Library/Application Support/Logmein/drivers.
Logmein copies this driver to the System folder on startup.
3- Delete the driver from the System/Library/Extensions

Restart your Mac.

Is this the recipe you followed?