Did Appcleaner remove the audacity.cfg file? See https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/resetting-audacity/50613/1
Perhaps this was the problem all along.
You don’t need Appcleaner to do a “clean” install of Audacity - just reset the settings as explained above.
You might try installing 2.4.1 to see what happens. Rename the “Audacity” application to “Audacity 233”, so you can have both versions available to compare. You just can’t run both at once.
– Bill