up to my neck with Audacity problems for some reason lately. Have current issue in discussion on Mac section. Trying to use my Ubuntu Studio version. For past couple months have noticed the app is freezing up all the time. Doesnt seem to be any indication as to cause. Am attaching screenshot of the message that comes up. Message only comes up trying to close the window from taskbar. In the app itself clicking on anything once it’s frozen does nothing. Always have to close the window from the error message and hope Audacity recovers the project next time it’s launched. Any help? Ubuntu STudio 16.04
If the freeze occurs during playback or attempting to stop or start playback, the problem is probably pulseaudio (the “default” device choice in Audacity) if you had been trying to use that. See http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Linux_Issues#pulse.
From your screenshot, I notice you have a very recent alpha build of Audacity and have no choice boxes in Device Toolbar. That “probably” means Audacity can’t find any audio devices, in which case the freeze is obviously explained. See http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Mixer_Toolbar_Issues#No_devices_available.
Please stop playing audio in any other applications, restart Audacity and show us the output of Help > Audio Device Info… top right of Audacity.
Did you build 2.1.3-alpha yourself or where did you get it from? Generally, please do not use alpha builds of Audacity unless you actively want to test Audacity. As far as I know, there is a perfectly reasonable 2.1.2 release of Audacity that you can install from the Ubuntu repositories. Use that for production work.
Gale
weird. yes this was built from source. I have previously posted about the reasons why I had to install the alpha build…I’ll put links to some of the previous threads.
https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/question-about-audacity-on-debian-8/42460/1
above was affecting mostly my debian based distro but this one is Ubuntu studio and has similar problems. I have also noted that the past week or 2 weeks I had gotten an update for audacity on a daily basis. either running apt-get update/upgrade or initiated by Ubuntu software updates app. I keep seeing what appears to be the same build offered as upgrade or update when this happens.
My devices are connected. It was previously showing the device box in the menu bars. That only disappeared after one of the aforementioned “updates”. It does sound very similar to the PulseAudio issues you mentioned. I’ll take a look at that issue. I really notice it when I let is sit idle with a project loaded for more than 5 min or so. Go to start playing or whatever and find out its frozen. Does freeze very often after it stops playing a file, usually the very next button I’ll hit will freeze everything up.
deviceinfo.txt (3.91 KB)
I understood that related to “AVLinux” where you built 2.1.2 release, and also that you could not build Audacity on Ubuntu Studio 16.04 but “got it to install using deb files”.
It would be fine to build 2.1.2 from source on Ubuntu Studio 16.04. 2.1.3-alpha is being heavily bug fixed at the moment and there are not-fully-finished features. It is not a good time to use 2.1.3-alpha unless you explicitly want to test Audacity for us, even though you would probably still have the same playback issues on 2.1.2 release.
Gale
Presumably that is the “Audacity Team Daily Build”, which despite the name is a build that Ubuntu provide.
If I was in your shoes, I would remove that PPA, and build 2.1.2 release from source code, if you still cannot install it from the Ubuntu repositories. Ask on the Ubuntu forums why you can’t install the repository build of 2.1.2. That is their problem, not ours.
PPA updates should not affect your own self-built Audacity, assuming you do not install it after building it.
I recommend purging that Audacity Team PPA, if that is what you are receiving. Build 2.1.2 from source, or if you want to try installing 2.1.2 from the Ubuntu repositories, set your software sources back to only Canonical supported.
You will probably be better to choose the hw (0.x) playback device if you want to use your built-in sound device. Then you will bypass pulse. Or choose Fast Track as the playback device, and don’t make Fast Track the default device in PulseAudio Volume control.
If you choose the hw (0.x) playback device in Audacity, you can’t then play audio in applications other than Audacity.
Gale
So this here that wants to throw me an “update” is from Ubuntu and not you guys?
I had added it months ago but just in the last couple of weeks has it been giving me these daily “updates”.
Funny they never mention that it is not from Audacity and seems they try to make it look like it comes straight from you guys. A bit sneaky.
Anyone know what is the difference or what these are doing/updating?
there was a disclaimer at the bottom of the software update windows i’m posting here in this message that conveniently states “This update comes from a source that does not support changelogs”. How nice of them! Who has time to read all that mumbo jumbo anyway 
If you look close they are calling this 2.1.2+
If you are talking about the Audacity Team Daily Builds PPA, “they” are nothing to do with us. Those builds will I believe say 2.1.3-alpha in Help > About Audacity… .
Once again, I recommend you steer clear of those.
Gale
We do not provide pre-compiled binaries for Linux, only source code.
As I said, your best choice is to purge that PPA, go back to Canonical-only sources and then you can (hopefully) install Ubuntu’s 2.1.2 packaged version of Audacity.
If you must use 2.1.3-alpha, you will have to accept issues like that Device Toolbar with no dropdown menu. The best way to use 2.1.3-alpha is to clone it from our git sources and build it yourself. You could do the same as Building Audacity 2.1.2 on Ubuntu 15.10 except that you would get our git sources and not the 2.1.2 release tarball.
Gale
ok thanks. i’d like to rebuild from source and I’ll try it using those instructions. i’m a bit hesitant because every time I’ve tried I am ending up in the cycle as posted in my thread about the issues on my Debian. Basically when i purge Audacity using apt-get it removes some of audacity dependencies, those in my debian thread in particular and then have a terrible time just getting the dependencies to reinstall so i can do the build. Is it still best procedure to do the build in /usr/local/src? are these using WxWidgets 3? as have had issues with prev attempts to build with versions of WxWidgets. anyone know if i’ll need to manually build WxWidgets or is the version shipped with Ubuntu 16.04 sufficient?
yes the app itself will say 2.1.3 alpha but synaptic and ubuntu list it as 2.1.2+gitxxxxxxx etc, so i wasnt aware i was actually getting 2.1.3 alpha until app launched the first time. see the screenshots above for how we are seeing Audacity version.
If you install “build-essential” as per https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/building-audacity-2-1-2-on-ubuntu-15-10/40680/1 it might help.
It would be much better IMO to git clone Audacity (or build the 2.1.2 tarball) in your home folder.
Personally I self-build wxWidgets 3.0.2 from http://wxwidgets.org/downloads/ in my home directory, install that build of widgets (which installs to /usr/local) then a self-built Audacity should find your self-built wxWidgets. But you should be able to use system wxWidgets on 16.04.
The naming scheme for the “Audacity Team” daily builds on Launchpad is outside our control, but essentially they are packaged versions of the latest Audacity source code, so always unstable alpha builds except at release time.
Gale