Bug#602070: audacity hangs while recording with no apparent reason

[Aldo Maggi]

Package: audacity
Version: 1.3.12-6
Severity: important

lately i've started transferring my old audio-cassette to my pc with the aim of making cd's.

i'd utilized audacity some years ago for a similar task so i've decided to use it in this case too.

the problem is that it allows me to record a whole audio-cassette, then (maybe not in the same session) i start recording another cassette but audacity hangs randomly (i.e. maybe once after ten minutes, and when i try again it hangs after seven minutes) anyway i cannot go on up to the end of the cassette. it hangs but the cpu usage continues to be very high, it lowers only if i press the "virtual" stop button.  i do not use jack with audacity.
i've tried a dpkg-reconfigure with no avail, then i've decided to perform an install --reinstall, this procedure allows me to record another whole cassette, maybe even two, but afterwards the problem shows up again.
though my main distro is debian (testing) i've ubuntu maverick on another partition and (maybe) obviously i have the same problem.  This is the reason why i've started thinking that it could be an hardware problem.  So i've installed both gramofile and ardour (the former doesn't use jack while the latter does) and both record flawlessly, therefore i do not think anymore that it is an hardware problem.
i find interesting similarities with 520395 bug but i could not try the proposed workaround since i do not have a .asoundrc file and i don't know if it is still used by the system.

i enclose two strace files (strace-audacity.txt refers to the use of audacity while gdm was running, in fact via htop i'd noticed a high cpu usage by xorg, strace2-audacity.txt refers to a second attempt after having launched xorg via startx, cpu usage by xorg was still high anyway)

(well, i do not see a way to send the two attachment therefore i put them on filebin.ca:
http://filebin.ca/agqjc/strace-audacity.txt
http://filebin.ca/oqhupx/strace2-audacity.txt

-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (900, 'testing'), (600, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing-proposed-updates')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-5-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=it_IT.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=it_IT.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages audacity depends on:
ii  audacity-data          1.3.12-6          A fast, cross-platform audio edito
ii  libasound2             1.0.23-2          shared library for ALSA applicatio
ii  libc6                  2.11.2-6+squeeze1 Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
ii  libexpat1              2.0.1-7           XML parsing C library - runtime li
ii  libflac++6             1.2.1-2+b1        Free Lossless Audio Codec - C++ ru
ii  libflac8               1.2.1-2+b1        Free Lossless Audio Codec - runtim
ii  libgcc1                1:4.4.5-4         GCC support library
ii  libglib2.0-0           2.24.2-1          The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgtk2.0-0            2.20.1-2          The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libid3tag0             0.15.1b-10        ID3 tag reading library from the M
ii  libjack-jackd2-0 [libj 1.9.5~dfsg-19     JACK Audio Connection Kit (librari
ii  libmad0                0.15.1b-5         MPEG audio decoder library
ii  libogg0                1.2.0~dfsg-1      Ogg bitstream library
ii  libsamplerate0         0.1.7-3           Audio sample rate conversion libra
ii  libsndfile1            1.0.21-3          Library for reading/writing audio 
ii  libsoundtouch1c2       1.3.1-2           sound stretching library
ii  libstdc++6             4.4.5-4           The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
ii  libtwolame0            0.3.12-1          MPEG Audio Layer 2 encoding librar
ii  libvamp-hostsdk3       2.1-1             helper library for Vamp hosts writ
ii  libvorbis0a            1.3.1-1           The Vorbis General Audio Compressi
ii  libvorbisenc2          1.3.1-1           The Vorbis General Audio Compressi
ii  libvorbisfile3         1.3.1-1           The Vorbis General Audio Compressi
ii  libwxbase2.8-0         2.8.10.1-3+b1     wxBase library (runtime) - non-GUI
ii  libwxgtk2.8-0          2.8.10.1-3+b1     wxWidgets Cross-platform C++ GUI t

Versions of packages audacity recommends:
ii  libavcodec52       5:0.6~svn20100726-0.1 library to encode decode multimedi
ii  libavformat52      5:0.6~svn20100726-0.1 ffmpeg file format library

Versions of packages audacity suggests:
ii  amb-plugins [ladspa-plug 0.6.1-2         ambisonics LADPSA plugins
ii  blepvco [ladspa-plugin]  0.1.0-2         LADSPA, minBLEP-based, hard-sync-c
ii  blop [ladspa-plugin]     0.2.8-5         Bandlimited wavetable-based oscill
ii  caps [ladspa-plugin]     0.4.2-1         C* Audio Plugin Suite
ii  cmt [ladspa-plugin]      1.16-1          a collection of LADSPA plugins
ii  csladspa [ladspa-plugin] 1:5.12.1~dfsg-5 LADSPA plugin for Csound
ii  invada-studio-plugins-la 0.3.1-1         Invada Studio Plugins - a set of L
ii  ladspa-sdk [ladspa-plugi 1.13-1          sample tools for linux-audio-dev p
ii  libmp3lame0              3.98.4-0.0      LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder
ii  mcp-plugins [ladspa-plug 0.3.0-4         LADSPA plugins designed for Alsa M
ii  omins [ladspa-plugin]    0.2.0-6         a collection of LADSPA plugins aim
ii  rev-plugins [ladspa-plug 0.3.1-1         greverb-like ladspa plugin
ii  swh-plugins [ladspa-plug 0.4.15+1-4      Steve Harris's LADSPA plugins
ii  tap-plugins [ladspa-plug 0.7.0-2         Tom's Audio Processing LADSPA plug
ii  vco-plugins [ladspa-plug 0.3.0-1         LADSPA plugin sporting anti-aliase

-- no debconf information