Audacity Error Opening Sound Device

[steve]

Do you not have the original installation disks? Dell usually provide driver disks.

[prouddad]

Yes, I do have the install disks. I used them first. But since the unit is a year old, I went to Dell's website to see if there was anything new.

[steve]

Try uninstalling the sound card drivers completely - do not reboot - then install the sound card drivers from your original Dell driver disk using the driver set-up program on the disk, - then reboot.


Explanation:
If the original drivers worked before, they should work now.
If Windows has drivers for your sound chip with a later date or version number than the Dell drivers, then Windows will say that your drivers are up to date and cannot be updated to the "old" (Dell) drivers. However, generic Windows drivers will often have features missing that are available in the manufacturers drivers. Assuming that before the re-installation of Windows the sound card drivers were the official Dell drivers and those drivers provided the ability to record Stereo Mix, then installing those drivers should give you that facility back. If this works, you can then try updating the Dell drivers with the Dell drivers that you have just downloaded and Windows should accept them as a valid update. If the sound card still works, then you win on all counts. If after updating the Dell drivers you loose Stereo Mix, then you can roll back the drivers to the drivers that work.

[prouddad]

No cigar yet.
I called Dell this morning and we ran a diagnostics test. Everything according to the technician, was fine EXCEPT when we ran the audio part of the diagnostics, the "Front Microphone Record Test" failed. Dell has offered to replace the Front Mic since my computer is still under warranty. But I'm not sure how this relates to my sound card or my drivers regarding recording with Audacity, but Dell says it DOES relate to the sound card issue.

Do you think that this has significance with regard to Audacity's inability to locate a sound device for recording?

[steve]

I can't say with any degree of certainty, but if the diagnostics are throwing up a hardware error then that could very well be the cause of your problems. Get back to us after they have fixed it - hopefully you'll be telling us that everything is fine

[prouddad]

Thanks Steve,
This issue took a unexpected twist since I told you that Dell was going to replace the mic. I received a voicemail message this afternoon from the Dell tech that attempted to help me this morning. She said that upon further review of my case, she discovered that my computer isn't supposed to have a built-in mic and therefore, the mic is not the problem.

I then looked on my original invoice and discovered that she was right. So I called Dell back and said that I'm back to square-one with my problem. Now, the support dept. believes that my problem is a software--not hardware issue. Since I tried a lot of other solutions to fix this problem already, I re-formatted my HD and reinstalled Windows Vista plus all the latest drivers for my computer from Dell's website. Unfortunately, I ended up with the same result. I can hear everything fine, but I can record nothing. I see Realtek HD Audio Manager for listening to audio, but nothing listed a device to RECORD sound.

I'm stumped. What would you do at this point?

[steve]

What would you do at this point?

Do not despair, since you have reinstalled everything, we just need to work it through from the beginning.
Have you looked in the Windows Control Panel and looked at this screen?


(see here for how to find that screen http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Mixer ... trol_Panel )

Do you have an icon in the Notification area of the Taskbar (near the time/date) to open up the RealTek control panel?
Could you post a screenshot of it - (there are dozens of variations of the Realtek control panel, and some versions are radically different from others).

[btbowen]

Hiya

I have this same problem every once in awhile, seemingly randomly. I have checked the project sample rate and the stereo mix sample rate and made sure they're the same, made sure everything's turned on and working fine, and none of that works.

What I have discovered, however, is that Audacity seems to hate when I have other programs running that also use my soundcard. So just now I started going nuts trying to figure out why it wouldn't let me cut up an aiff file more than once without crashing with said error, and suddenly I remembered this odd rule of thumb and I closed Reason, which I was running simultaneously. and hey presto, no more error message!

I'm running Vista (ugh) on an Acer (double ugh) and Audacity beta version 1.3.9.

...just thought this might help some of you out there.

Cheers.

Ben

[prouddad]

Steve, thanks for the time you spent helping me with this error. In a state of utter frustration, I called my computer tech guy, who installed some of his own drivers and got it working.

Whew.........and thanks again!

Robert