so this relates to my last post where i couldn't get Pd to run properly. I reinstalled with a previous version and now things are working... usually. But once again, if i have used a program in my session before Pd, I have a lot of trouble getting things to work. when I change out of the edit mode to run my patches, hit ctr+/ and start working, the following message prints:

audio I/O stuck... closing audio

i don't know what this means, but if this gets resolved, i think the program will finally start to play nice.

already dl'd asio
running win7

the ASIO drivers aren't being properly "released" by the prior program, so they are still in a "busy" state when PD tries to access them. PD doesn't get a response from the ASIO drivers so it closes the connection. ASIO drivers can only connect to one program at a time.

thanks for writing back. I've had this problem when I've had all of my programs closed (or so I think). But the one day I had PureData running, I actually had youtube working simultaneously because I was learning through the tutorials. I have no idea why it stopped working after that.

-what accounts for these discrepancies?
-is there a way to track where the ASIO drivers are having problems?

most important

-how do i make sure (read: once and for all) that the drivers are going to the programs that they need to start doing stuff?

For each program that is using the ASIO drivers, an ASIO control panel will pop up in the system tray (you might need to adjust your system tray preferences). Each panel controls an instance of the ASIO drivers for that program. You can open that panel and set the inputs and outputs you want to use for that instance.

I said in the above post that ASIO can connect to one program at a time....but that isn't the full explanation. Each ASIO instance can connect 1 program to the same hardware inputs and outputs at a time.

So if you had a soundcard that had 4 outputs, you can setup 2 programs to use the ASIO drivers, one instance goes to output1 and output2, and the other instance can go to output3 and output4.

Getting your sound program running through ASIO (that's by default connected to all inputs and outputs) and getting sound from the browser (Firefox? Chrome? IE?)
is tricky. The browser doesn't use ASIO, it's using the default windows sound driver to access the soundcard. Try loading the browser first then load PD with ASIO or vica versa.

I've only been able to get a consistent working setup by having multiple (2 or more) soundcards. Windows controls one (browser sound, programs that don't use ASIO) and ASIO drivers control the other (PD, tracktor, cubase, FLstudio, etc). Route the sound output from both cards into an external mixer, and the mixer controls the main speakers (or monitors)