FAQ:Errors
|< Index of Frequently Asked Questions
Contents
Why do I get "Error while opening sound device"?
This error message asks you to check the input or output device settings and the Audacity project sample rate. If the message mentions "input device", it means there's a problem with your Audacity recording settings, and if it mentions "output device", it means there is a problem with you playback settings.
The input device message most commonly occurs on Windows Vista or 7 when one of the sound device inputs is not properly enabled or otherwise cannot respond to Audacity's request to start recording.
See FAQ - Error while opening sound device for further details.
Why do I get "Error: not well formed (invalid token) at line x"?
This usually means that the AUP project file contains an unexpected non-English, accented or control character at the line quoted in the error message. There are two main causes.
- The project contains non-English or accented characters and was created in an ANSI build of Audacity, where Windows was running in other than English. ANSI builds are not properly Unicode aware, so do not support creating or re-opening projects containing non-English or accented characters.
- All recommended downloads of Audacity fully support Unicode. You can check your Audacity version at .
- The project contains imported files whose metadata (like artist or genre) contains control characters. This mostly occurs with iTunes files on OS X where the project was created in an older version of Audacity.
See FAQ - Error: not well formed (invalid token) at line x for help correcting the project.
Why does the computer reboot or show a blue screen stop message when I play or record in Audacity?
This isn't Audacity's direct fault because it does not have kernel privileges to stop or restart the computer. The only general advice we can give is to update the drivers of the sound device you are using, and to examine the memory dump for any further information as to the faulting module or library.
See FAQ - Error: computer rebooting when I play or record in Audacity for further details.
I found a bug! Or Feature X is not good enough or missing! Now what?
The most important things when reporting a bug are to be as specific as possible, and to check first if we already know about the problem.
See FAQ - I found a bug! Now what? for how and where to report bugs and request your favorite new or improved features.
