I asked this question on the Gentoo forums, but so far nobody there has any answers, so I’m hoping for some insight here.
Audacity launches fine from either the menu or the command line, and all functions seem to work fine – except playback. I can edit the waveform, apply effects, zoom in, zoom out, and so on. However, the moment I try to play back, Audacity freezes. I have to close the window, it never comes back. When I do close the window I get a message that it is not responding, do I really want to force close it? When I open it back up I get a message requesting that I “recover” the project I had been working on, and that always seems to work fine.
When I start from the command line, these are the error messages I get right at launch:
~ $ audacity
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.rear
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.center_lfe
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.side
ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:957:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) The dmix plugin supports only playback stream
Expression 'stream->playback.pcm' failed in 'src/hostapi/alsa/pa_linux_alsa.c', line: 3875
Expression 'stream->playback.pcm' failed in 'src/hostapi/alsa/pa_linux_alsa.c', line: 3875
Expression 'stream->playback.pcm' failed in 'src/hostapi/alsa/pa_linux_alsa.c', line: 3875
Expression 'stream->playback.pcm' failed in 'src/hostapi/alsa/pa_linux_alsa.c', line: 3875
Once I hit “Play” these lines are added, along with a freeze up of Audacity (and the menu bar vanishes as well):
Expression 'paTimedOut' failed in 'src/os/unix/pa_unix_util.c', line: 387
Expression 'PaUnixThread_New( &stream->thread, &CallbackThreadFunc, stream, 1., stream->rtSched )' failed in 'src/hostapi/alsa/pa_linux_alsa.c', line: 2263
Expression 'pthread_join( self->thread, &pret )' failed in 'src/os/unix/pa_unix_util.c', line: 441
I last used Audacity with no trouble less than a month ago (June 17) and it worked fine then. I’ve done some system updates, but nothign too extensive, and nothing focusing on Audacity.
I’ve tried using all the available “devices” in Preferences->Devices:
default
dmix
spdif
iec958
sysdefault
HDA ATI SM: ALC892 (hw:0,1)
Every single one responds the same way.
All other sound works fine on my system, set up with plain ALSA. I checked with alsaplayer and it plays sound files with no trouble.