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[Gorath]

Hi,
one of our customer reported serious problem with recording from sound card. Sometimes it record corrupted file. Sample file can be downloaded from http://frix.fri.uniza.sk/~gorath/sample_bad.mp3. Any idea where can be problem?
Version of bass.dll is 2.4.9.1, system is Win7.

G

[Ian @ un4seen]

A few questions to hopefully get some clues... Does the problem happen immediately, or is the recording OK initially and then it becomes dodgy, and if so, does it become dodgy at a particular point? How often does the problem happen (eg. what percentage of recordings are affected), and can the user reproduce it with other recording software too? What is the source of the recording (eg. line-in/stereo mix/etc), and are they sure the problem is not already present in that? What soundcard are they using, and do they have the latest drivers for it? If they happen to have another soundcard available, does the problem happen with that too?

[Gorath]

I will try to answer all questions ...
- problem happen immediately from the start of recording, all the time, application restart will fix it, I'm not sure if Bass_RecordStop + Bass_RecordStart will fix it, but I could try to test it
- it's rare common now, but the problem if it occurs, all records are useless. Our application is monitoring application and records 24/7 and is restarted only few times per year ...
- Can you specific any other software? There are several ways how to record in Win7. Do you want to know if specific way of capturing data from sound card is faulty?
- I am aware that problem can be in drivers/directsound/wasapi/windows... I was solving similar or the same problem several years ago in another application, I don't remember exactly why I write own methods to capture data from sound card, probably drivers issues and I had to write some "hacks", but I couldn't use bass to do it.
- I'm almost sure the source data are correct. Sound card is M-Audio Delta 1010LT, 8 channels (4 stereo), input is from line-in. Application records from all four stereo channels (that means after application start, Bass_RecordStart is called in 4 threads simultaneously) and only 1 of 4 records was corrupted. Sample from another source http://frix.fri.uniza.sk/~gorath/sample_good.mp3
- yes there are latest drivers installed
- there are no other soundcards installed
- Edit: wrong info ... there are 3 soundcards - on-board, Creative SB Audigy, and M-Audio Delta 1010LT, only Creative SB is problematic, so it may be some drivers issue. Anyway if it is driver issue and occurs, is there a way to detect it somehow?

Hope it helps and ready to provide additional information.

[Ian @ un4seen]

Please confirm what format you're recording in, ie. your BASS_RecordStart parameters. Does changing the format make any difference, in particular adding/removing the BASS_SAMPLE_FLOAT flag? Regarding other software to try (to see if they're affected too), you could try Window's Sound Recorder and the free Audacity editor, and any other recording software that happens to be installed. Please also try the pre-compiled RECTEST.EXE example from the BASS package (in C\BIN), and the RECTEST.EXE example from the BASSWASAPI package too, to see if WASAPI is affected.

[Gorath]

I do more tests and it seems SoundBlaster drivers are piece of !@#$%^&*. I was able to get that card in strange state when any application records corrupted files. There was a way to normalize it, but restarting machine was the easiest way.
From my perspective it looks like the problem occurs when multiple applications/users initialize device for recording, so some problem with shared access to device.
Has anyone similiar problem with SB cards?

[Ian @ un4seen]

It might be worth trying moving the SB card to another PCI slot. If the user happens to have another system, they could also try putting the SB card in that and see if the problem happens there too.