Not recording

[bogainey]

I have a couple of problems: The first is that I am not recording. I'm not a computer person but, everything seems to be working, and I'm getting reaction from areas that I feel should be on but all I'm getting is white noise and a message that says: "stream is active - unable to gather information" . I'm using a mic. I've gone to every site I can find involving sound and clicked input devise as microphone.
I'm also running in to Audacity freezing up on me and not responding. It is sooooo important that I be able to record my voice. I need HELP!!!!

[steve]

What Linux are you using?
What version of Audacity?
Where did you get Audacity from and how did you install it?

Does "Sound Recorder" work?

[bogainey]

I am replying to stevethefiddler regarding his questions:
I am not much of computer person so here is what I found.
The Linus that I'm using appears to be ALSA.
The Audacity appears to be 1.3.4
I am on Ubuntu 8.04
I downloaded the Audacity site from my add/remove under applications
My sound - record site is reacting the same as the Audacity site. Everything seems to be working except when I go to hear my playback there's nothing.
It's like my mic isn't working. If thats the case, is there a way to check the mic?
Thanks in advance for any help,
Bo

[steve]

Open Audacity, and in the Edit menu select "Preferences" - then on the Audio I/O tab, select "ALSA (default)" as the recording and playback devices. Then restart Audacity.

Open up your volume control (double click on the loudspeaker icon in the desktop panel) and go the recording section. You need to find the appropriate sliders and switches to enable recording from the microphone. Unfortunately I can not help you with that as it varies from one sound card to another. You will probably need to enable a "switch" called "Microphone capture".

To see if Audacity is receiving an audio signal, click on the recording meter and it should start flickering with red bars if a signal is detected.

[bogainey]

Thanks for your help, but I still have one other big prob. When I go to Audacity to try your recommendations the site freezes up and turns dark and will not respond. any suggestions

[steve]

When I go to Audacity to try your recommendations the site freezes up and turns dark and will not respond

I presume that you mean that the "program" (Audacity) freezes.

I had quite a few problems with Audacity 1.3.4 on Ubuntu 8.04. The way I resolved it was to uninstall Audacity completely using Synaptic.

To uninstall Audacity with Synaptic, open Synaptic and in the search box type "Audacity" (without the quotes).
Audacity will then be listed.
Right click on Audacity (in the list) and select "Complete Removal".
Then Apply the changes.

Then downloaded Audacity 1.3.5 from here:
http://packages.ubuntu.com/intrepid/audacity (download link is at the bottom of the page)

Download it to your Desktop, then double click on it to install.

This is the version that is shipped with Intrepid. I found that it worked a lot better than Audacity 1.3.4

[bogainey]

Thanks for your directions, I really do appreciate your help.
However, I have been able to go to synaptic and uninstall Audactiy 1.3.4 , but after that I'm lost. I went to the site you gave me for 1.3.5, but I guess I don't know how to download because I saw only two small lines underneath the word download at the bottom of the page. and I have no idea how to download it into Synaptic. I have even gone to the "help" area and followed the directions explicitly. All I ever get is the same 1.3.4.
Once again, I'm not a computer person, but I'm trying to learn.
Any suggestions will help.
Thanks,
Bo

[steve]

I have no idea how to download it into Synaptic.

You don't have to do any special sort of download - just download it in the normal way. Click on the link (either "amd64" if you have AMD64 PC, or else "i386") and that will take you to the appropriate download page. Click on any download location (probably one that is in the same part of the world as you are) and save the file to your Desktop.

When it has downloaded, double click on it to open with the "deb installer" and it will install (you may be asked if you are sure that you want to install - in which case say "yes").

[bogainey]

thank you, stevethefiddle, for your response, but when I went back and tried to download 1.3.5, it started to download it when an error message popped up and said: Error: Dependency is not satisfiable: libsound2. Now, hardly knowing anything about computers, I have no idea what in this world it is referring to, much less how to fix it. Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Bo

[steve]

but when I went back and tried to download 1.3.5, it started to download it when an error message popped up and said: Error: Dependency is not satisfiable: libsound2.

You enjoy "learning opportunities" don't you?
(I was brand new to Linux a year ago so I know how it feels, but let's see if we can get this going. This may take a bit of time since it's all by letter, but let's have a go)

So your computer is not an AMD64 and you went to download the i386 version?

When you clicked on the link, it should have prompted you to either "Open with - GDebi package installer", or to"Save" the file. You should choose to "Save" the file and you will be asked where to save it to - save it to the Desktop.

Did you do that?

After it has downloaded to your desktop, you should then be able to double click on the file to install it (follow the prompts - let me know if you get stuck).