recording inexplicably stops after a few minutes

[drrmorgan]

I am using audacity 2.0.5-1ubuntu3.2 on a Linux desktop running Ubuntu
14.04. After using Audacity for a few days to record several hours from
some tapes, I have hit a snag. The record session inexplicable stops after
a few minutes. The Help/ShowLog says:

Error: failed to get file system statistics (error 2 no such file or directory)

I have tried everything from repeated closings and reopenings with no success.

I have plenty of storage available - Aucacity window says 1132 hours
available.

Along the way, I had some problems with trying to append recordings that
caused the window to freeze several times and had to be forcibly removed.
Maybe there are some hidden files that I have to delete.

Any clues?

Dennis

[steve]

There are known problems with the Ubuntu build of Audacity 2.0.5 (their version of WxWidgets is not supported by Audacity 2.0.5).
The UbuntuHandbook PPA is likely to be a more recent and more stable version (see: http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/201 ... -from-ppa/). This should be thought of as a temporary measure until 2.1.2 or later becomes available in the main repository.

This will not necessarily solve the problem you are experiencing, but it will rule out a lot of possible problems, so please do try it and let us know if there are still problems.

[drrmorgan]

Thanks Steve. I'm a little reluctant to start new versions until I understand what my problem is. What puzzles me is why it did work for several days before I had this problem. Is there some way to reset the whole thing without removing and reinstalling? Are there files hidden somewhere that I should delete? Would rebooting my machine help?
I don't want to add new problems until I understand the old problems.

Dennis

[steve]

Is there some way to reset the whole thing without removing and reinstalling?

Yes.
Close Audacity first.
In your home directory, locate the hidden folder ".audacity-data"
To reset Audacity preferences, delete the file "audacity.cfg" (it will be recreated with "factory defaults" when Audacity when you run).
To reset Audacity preferences and effect settings delete "audacity.cfg" and, if they exist, "pluginregistry.cfg" and "pluginsettings.cfg".

[Gale Andrews]

I'm a little reluctant to start new versions until I understand what my problem is. What puzzles me is why it did work for several days before I had this problem.

Are you using a USB device to record from? USB devices do not record indefinitely without rebooting the computer.

Your Audacity version is very seriously flawed. We cannot control what Ubuntu do, but there are many serious problems in that Ubuntu repository version of Audacity that you may or may not come across depending on your workflow.


Gale

[drrmorgan]

The same problem has now occurred several times - after a few hours of
accumulated recordings, a new recording will drop out after a few minutes.
When this happens, the only thing that will fix it is to reboot my machine
- nothing short of that has any effect. I suspect that there are some
hidden files somewhere (not in .audacity-data) that are causing audacity to
hang up, and when I reboot, those files are deleted. So at least I have a
workaround - just run recording sessions until audacity starts dropping
out, then reboot. Clumsy, but the only way I know how to proceed.

[steve]

Do you "Close" the Audacity project between each recording? ("File menu > Close"). If not, try that.

In "Edit > Preferences > Directories", where does it say the temp folder is located?
Check the size of that folder before each recording - it should go down to just a few bytes when you close all projects.

[drrmorgan]

Thanks Steve. Lately, I've been using Close after each recording session, and the last four recordings have been good. So I'll see whether that solves the problem the next time I use Audacity (I finished my current project).

Dennis