Audacity won't open

[InvisibleWolfMan]

Hi,

I'm running my PC using Windows XP with SP2 and I have a SB Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro sound card. I've been using Audacity for a few years now and much to my dismay over a week ago it just wouldn't open anymore. I can't figure it out one bit. I've not installed anything that should have a conflict with Audacity, nor have had any hardware fail me. All I did was simply close Audacity the last time that I was working on some audio files. Then when I went to access the program later on (after a shutdown of the PC) it wouldn't open. I've made sure that I don't have excess processes/programs running at the same time to no avail. I've done a total uninstall and reinstall several different times, alternating between 1.2.x and 1.3.x, and no matter how carefully I removed every trace of Audacity and associated reg keys /leftover files I get the same problem. I finally uninstalled it and let it sit until today. I then installed 1.3.x onto my PC and for about 4 minutes it seemed to be working fine.

Then I closed it.

Again, same problem. It tells me that AUDACITY HAS EXPERIENCED AN UNEXPECTED PROBLEM AND WILL NOW CLOSE just as it did over a week ago.

Anyone with any clues or ideas as to what is going on? Thanks in advance.

[steve]

Have you tried resetting Audacity preferences?
In Audacity 1.2.x, preferences are in the registry, but in 1.3.x they are in a configuration file.
For details, see here: http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... references

[InvisibleWolfMan]

Thanks for the reply. Thankfully, it worked out this time. In the registry, it was telling that the PrefVersion was 1.1.1 and the current version was 1.2.6 I actually ended up deleting the audacity.cfg file, the registry keys AND Audacity plugins (which were in a separate folder), then UNINSTALL, then REINSTALL and it FINALLY worked then.

Thanks again, as now Audacity is working without fail!

[InvisibleWolfMan]

After having the problem occur AGAIN.... I carefully repeated all my previous steps which I mentioned in the post above. Worked fine. Then I started to install a few plugins. I started with the VST Bridge Setup 1.1 and after installing this one I got the same problem. I then just uninstalled that plugin and Audacity began working again. There are a few choices but the VST Bridge is obviously one of the main culprits. Just thought to inform this so the information how to fix this problem remains useful.

[steve]

It's probably not the VST bridge itself that is causing the problem, but nevertheless related to the VST bridge.

When the VST bridge is installed, it will look for any VST effects installed on your computer, and make them available for Audacity. The problem is that not all VST plugins are compatible with either the VST bridge, or Audacity, so if you have an incompatible VST plug-in installed on your computer it can cause major headaches until you find out which one is causing the problem and exclude it.

Personally I do not use VST effects as I find them to be more trouble than they are worth. Audacity cannot support the graphical interfaces for them due to licensing restrictions, and most effects can be created using Nyquist or LADSPA plug-ins.

There is a list of VST plugins on the Audacity wiki (link at top of page) with information about many VST plug-ins and whether they are known to work or not with Audacity. There are also links to Nyquist and LADSPA plug-ins.