a possible cause of Audacity 2.0.4 failing to open

[dadarudran]

I have a suggestion about the failure of the latest version of Audacity to open on some computers.
The background is that I tried to update 2.0.3 to 2.0.4 but the new version would not open. (So I went back to using 2.0.3.) Just by chance, I had the same problem of "Crash on start-up" with another program (Corel Video Studio). In that situation, I was sent a clean-up tool that not only de-installed the program but also removed any conflicting (duplicate) files of the same program. After using the clean-up tool and then re-installing, I was able to open the program successfully. So, perhaps it is the same problem that prevents Audacity 2.0.4 from opening in some rare cases. My suggestion is that if de-installation of the old program and installation of the new program doesn't solve the problem, you might try to make a similar "cleanup" tool that completely removes all files related to Audacity. Then perhaps the new version might open.

Regards,
dadarudran

[steve]

Thanks for the thought, but the cause of the problem has been identified. The problem is that 2.0.4 includes support for WDM-KS, which should provide lower latency recording, but unfortunately with some sound cards (mostly older ones) the sound card drivers misbehave and Audacity gets locked in a loop trying to access the driver. What should ideally happen in this situation is for Audacity to give up trying to access WDM-KS, but from what I understand of the problem, this is handled by an external library.

I've not been following this very closely so I'm not sure of all the details, but the developers have made some sort of workaround so that Audacity 2.0.5 will not have that problem. Audacity is currently developing with a short release cycle (smaller upgrades more often rather than big upgrades less often) so it should not be long before 2.0.5 comes out.