Not recognizing any playback or recording options

I am running audacity 2.0.1 with linux mint 11.
I can edit and import/export audio fine, but the drop down fields for audio interface, output, mic, and an unlabelled one are blank.
In the devices preferences it says that it is using PortAudio V19-devel.
Software play-through is off.
I am using a Soundblaster Live! soundcard.
Any help is greatly appreciated as I am an amateur recording engineer.

Also: The error message when I try to record anything is: Error while opening sound device. Please check the input device settings and the project sample rate.
I have tried all available sample rates, but to no avail.

See this FAQ: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/faq_errors.html#sound_device

WC

Thank you, but I have already tried everything in the faq with no success.

Which was never intended by Creative to work on Linux.

I would ask on the Linux Mint forums about specific driver support for your particular Sound Blaster model .

Also see Matrix:Vendor-Creative Labs - AlsaProject .



Gale

I will do that. Thanks.

I have now tried two other sound cards and a usb audio interface. None of them work with 2.0.1 and all of them worked fine with 1.3.13-beta. I don’t think that it is a problem with the sound card or drivers.

Maybe it is a problem with the 2.0.1 package by Linux Mint, if you are using that.

Please try compiling the 2.0.2rc3 release tarball instead:
http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=67286 .


Gale

Do you have recording inputs showing up in ALSA mixer?

(to open ALSA mixer, open a terminal window and type alsamixer)

I am now running 2.0.2-min and everything is working fine. Thank you so much for all the help.

Audacity v. 2.0.2
OS: Ubuntu 12.04 Precise 32-bit

Trying either to record or play files gets message:
“Error while opening sound device. Please check the input device settings and the project sample rate.”
(I see 122344555 solved a similar problem by moving to 2.0.2, but I’m running that version.)

Sample rate is 44100, which has always worked. But Input Device lists are empty in both toolbar and Pref’s. Prefs:Devices says “Using: PortAudio V19-devel.”

Software play-through is off.
Recording source is analog audio fed into mainboard line-in jack.

Audacity v. 1.3.12-beta (Unicode) running under Lucid on the same machine works fine. Under Precise, Sound Recorder & Rythmbox (along w/ lots of other a/v apps & the system test in Sound Settings) work fine. alsamixer reports an active capture channel. It’s only Audacity (2.0.2) that’s having this problem (& Audacity will import, edit, & export files just fine). What am I missing?

Thanks,
Ed

Dear Ed,
Two things to check,

  1. I am assuming you are building from source, since synaptic hasn’t updated yet. If you aren’t try that.
  2. When you build from source, are you using the fullsrc or the minsrc? I am not clear on the difference, but one worked, and one didn’t. (I believe it was the min that worked)

Do you mean the full source didn’t compile? The full source includes many more optional libraries (in the lib-src directory).


Gale

That is why you get “error opening”.

If that is a packaged version it is usually better to completely uninstall it before compiling your own version. Or are you running the PPA package of 2.0.2 ( https://launchpad.net/~audacity-team/+archive/daily ) ? If you are compiling 2.0.2, you could try the PPA package instead.

Also check no other daemon or sound server is using the sound device. Audacity cannot use the sound device if so.


Gale

122344555 wrote:

I am assuming you are building from source,
since synaptic hasn’t updated yet.

Thank you for getting me t look more carefully @ versions! I had compiled 2.0.2 but it had that bug, so I reinstalled the binary w/ Synaptic – which, as you note, is v. 2.0.0 — but it went into a directory that got searched after the one containing 2.0.2 – so 2.0.2 kept getting launched. I just removed the binary for 2.0.2; 2.0.0 seems to work fine (I’ve only tested it w/ one short clip so far)

Thanks again to all,
Ed

I don’t believe there is any general bug that 2.0.2 does not see any audio devices. There is some other reason that 2.0.2 for you (but 2.0.1 for 122344555) does not see any devices.

Did you try quitting Audacity and resetting audacity.cfg ( Audacity Manual ) ? I would try that if the problem recurs, or Transport > Rescan Audio Devices.



Gale

I’m having the same problem with 2.0.2 on Ubuntu 10.10. I just downloaded the source last night, and compiled it about an hour ago. I’m seeing exactly the same symptoms as the erippy.

Oh, another thing: I can see audio coming in if I bring up the sound panel (System > Preferences > Sound), and I didn’t have this problem on 1.3.12.

Well, 10.10 is no longer supported by Canonical.

Does Help > Audio Device Info in Audacity show any information, or crash?

What does arecord -l and aplay -l show you?

What actual audio devices are you using?

Does the PPA build of Audacity have the same issue ( https://launchpad.net/~audacity-team/+archive/daily ) ?



Gale

Yeah, I know, I just need to get around to updating it. . .

Here’s the info it shows:

==============================
Default capture device number: -1
Default playback device number: -1
No devices found



Here’s arecord -l:

**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: IXP [ATI IXP], device 0: ATI IXP AC97 [ATI IXP AC97]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: CinemaTM [Microsoft® LifeCam Cinema(TM)], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Here’s aplay -l:

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: IXP [ATI IXP], device 0: ATI IXP AC97 [ATI IXP AC97]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: IXP [ATI IXP], device 1: ATI IXP IEC958 [ATI IXP IEC958 (AC97)]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

I assume this also answers your question about what devices I’m using?

I’m kinda confused about this. I added the PPA to my system, then tried to install it, but it said Audacity was already the latest version. Did I do something wrong?