Topic: May be useful: Audio Quick Rec "function is not available now" error & solution

[plutogenie]

Hi everyone,

I was going to post about a problem I encountered with the SX900 Audio "Quick Recording" function, but figured out the cause and solution. I thought I would post the problem and solution in case someone else needs help down the track.

The problem I had was that when I click the Audio "Quick Recording" option (which is available by pressing the Record button, or going to the Menu->Song recording option) it was coming up with a "This function is not available now". I could not find any posts about this error in connection to audio recording.

This error coincided with setting up my new external speakers, which I had connected to the SX900 via the Main Output (separate L and R cables to the speaker), so I thought this had somehow caused the problem. Prior to this, I was successfully using Audio "Quick Recording" to record the "Aux In" input from my laptop (currently no audio interface - SX900 has been doing the job well for now). I was therefore trying to work out why connecting the external speakers would prevent the Audio recording from working, and thus disable the function on the SX900. I had tried all sorts of things like disconnecting the audio cables, restarting the SX900 with the original set up, etc and nothing was working.

Quite by chance I switched my USB stick to another. My Audio recordings were set up to record to USB. Having plugged in a different USB stick, suddenly the Audio recording started working again. I re-tried the other USB stick, and sure enough the error returned. There were no signs that the USB stick was playing up because the SX900 could read the data on it fine, my laptop was accessing it fine etc. It was not full. The normal "USB connected" message popped up. And so on. So it did not occur to me that the USB stick might be the culprit! This was great news, because I had thought that perhaps there was some hardware failure on the SX900 affecting the audio recording or something more equally sinister!

I hope that this may help someone else in future if they encounter the same issue.

Cheers,
Plutogenie

[EileenL]

You do need to use a high-quality fast reading USB stick for audio recording.
  I use Verbatim 32Gb and have no problems.

[plutogenie]

Hi Eileen,

Thank you, that is good information.

The one that turned out to be the problem was an un-branded stick (from work). I was going to say possibly therefore it was low quality, but I've been using it for about 10 years without problems until now, including on the SX900 for quite a few months. It is now quite old and very well used, and I suspect that was the issue in the end. 

My day-to-day stick is a Sandisk 64Gb. I've never had issues with Sandisk. I've not tried Verbatim before but will look into them as well. (Just had a quick look - interestingly they are a bit cheaper than many Sandisk options in Australia, and are only sold in our budget department stores like Kmart. The computer appliance-focused stores here like JB Hi Fi and Harvey Norman don't sell Verbatim USB drives. My apologies, the latter will only be of interest to Australian people.)

Nonetheless, I hope my post will help others diagnose the cause (or eliminate a cause) of the unhelpful error messages on the SX900.  It took me hours to track down the cause. Hopefully it will save others time. Even better if your additional information helps others reduce the chances of this error occurring in the first place! 

Kind regards,
Craig

[Toril S]

Thanks Craig😀

[manuel]

Hello Friends

Please, make sure you use a USB drive that is 3.0 that is the drive that can write and read much faster than the USB 2.0, this one either stops or can not reproduce correctly the wav audio.

You can identify them by the Blue tab=USB 3.0 vs the Black tab=USB 2.0 if you do not have the package.

One more thing, when you get the USB drive, format it in the Keyboard, then you can use it.

My 2 Cents

Manuel