Recorded track but won't play back or save file

[Aunty Proton]

Howdy. To begin, I'm running Audacity on a Windows XP machine that has very little space left on the drive. I don't know if this could be a factor or not. Also, the track in question was recorded with a Gigaware USB headphone/mic headset that I've used for years previously with no problems. Lately the headphones on it have stopped working but the mic still works fine.

Anyway, I just got through recording a voice track as normal -- it recorded fine, seemed to have no problems. Got done, went back to beginning of the track to begin editing. I hit play and nothing happened. It isn't playing, though the track is still there. The cursor line does not move, no sound.

I tried to save the project file and Save is grayed out and not available. It will not allow me to save the file.

I haven't upgraded lately and as I said it may be the HD on this machine. I am looking in to getting a new HD installed. I was going to save this project to an SD card or a flash drive but as I said can't save it at all.

Am I just SOL and will have to re-record?


Aunty Proton
[email protected]

[steve]

I'm running Audacity on a Windows XP machine that has very little space left on the drive. I don't know if this could be a factor or not.

Yes that can certainly be a problem. To run audio recording software you must have lots of free space. For Audacity, that free space should be on your C: drive.

Windows should always have a minimum of 10% free space at all times. On top of that you are likely to need at least 50MB per minute of audio that you record (at CD quality - more at higher bit depths or sample rates). The more editing you do, the more disk space is required (for Undo files). Also the disk should not be fragmented. (if you are very short of space it may not be possible to run Defrag, in which case you will need to delete some files before you can defragment the drive.

[ellenfinkl]

I'm having the same problem but I have just over 7 GB of free space. I recorded a long session (over an hour) but now the items on the File menu are grayed out. I can skip to beginning or end, but can't use the Stop button. I can select part of the timeline, but can't cut. What could be the cause? I really don't want to lose this recording!
Thanks,
Ellen

[steve]

Can you Export as WAV?
If you can, do that. You can Import the WAV into a new project if necessary.

It would probably be a good idea to upgrade to Audacity 1.3.9 as this will probably be more reliable.

[ellenfinkl]

No, I can't save as WAV. In the File menu, the only active item is Recent Files and Exit. I can upgrade, of course, but any way to save what I have?
Ellen

[steve]

I'm trying to get a mental picture of what you have.
You have a recording in Audacity and you can see the waveform on screen?
You can play it / can't play it?
All of the menus / some of the menus are greyed out?

No, I've not got a clear picture at all of what you are asking. Could you try and describe in detail for me - It would help if I could see your computer, but as I can't you will have to paint a picture through your description.

[deceasedlavy]

Okay, I'm having the same problem, and it is very serious, as I've just recorded a phone interview with Audacity and now I cannot listen to it or save it. Here is what I CAN do, by menu:
FILE: New, Open, Recent Files, Exit. Everything else is greyed out.
EDIT: Undo, Select, Selection Save, Selection Restore, Move Cursor, Snap To...
VIEW: all active
PROJECT: Align Tracks (sub-selections all grey), Align and move cursor (sub-selections all grey), Add label at selection, Add label at playback position
GENERATE: all grey (even with the track or portions of the track selected)
EFFECT: all grey (")
ANALYZE: all grey (")

Someone PLEASE help! I can't lose this audio.

[steve]

Here is workaround that I hope will get you out of the immediate problem.
This is for Audacity version 1.2.6 ONLY.

1) Make sure that you have pressed "Stop" and are not just paused. If Audacity is paused you will get the symptoms that you describe and clicking the Stop button will resolve the issue.

If (1) does not resolve the problem....

2) Check that you have plenty of free space on your hard drive - A stereo CD quality track uses about 10MB per minute. At the highest quality settings Audacity can use more than double this amount of space. Windows should always have at least 10% free space on the primary hard drive. If you are short of space - delete some stuff to make more free space.
3) Click File > New
4) In the original project, make sure that you are using the normal "Selection Tool" and click on the track information box (on the left of the track. This will highlight the track in a darker colour and you should now have "Copy" available in the Edit menu.
5) Select "Copy" from the Edit menu.
6) In the New project - select "Paste" from the Edit menu.
7) In the New project, select "Export as WAV" from the file menu.

If this does not work, please say exactly where it breaks down.

For a long term solution, upgrade to the latest 1.3 beta version.

[deceasedlavy]

Thank you for the quick response! First of all, neither the pause nor the stop button respond at all to my clicking them. FF and RW work fine. Play and record depress and quickly pop back up with no actual activity.

I have at least 40G free on my hard drive.

When I click on the track information box, the track becomes highlighted, but "Copy" does NOT become available in the Edit menu.

(I am using version 1.2.6. Didn't know there was a newer version available!)

Any further suggestions??

[steve]

This is not looking good.

At any stage in this Audacity session, did you "Save" the project?
Are you currently keeping the computer switched on with an unsaved project in the hope that we can recover the recording before you need to reboot?
Do you have a second computer available to work on?
I presume that you have no backup of this recording?