Audacity can't find

Audacity Help Forum GNU/Linux
1

Hi all,

I am getting a

Could not find any audio devices.
You will not be able to play or record audio.

Error: Unanticipated host error

error from Audacity, which I am not able to fix for about an hour or so.


Hardware:
Device: Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9
Memory: 31.1 GiB
Processor: 11th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-1185G7 @ 3.00GHz × 8

Software:
OS: Arch Linux; Build ID: rolling (64-bit)
Gnome version: 41.3
Windowing System: Wayland

Audacity:
Audacity 3.1.3 (snap)
Program build date: Feb 24 2022
Commit Id: ff6d67 of Wed Dec 22 16:35:36 2021 +0100
Build type: CMake Release build (debug level 1), 64 bits
Compiler: GCC 9.3.0 (Audacity)


I’ve installed and configured ALSA - https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Advanced_Linux_Sound_Architecture - support. Sound works great, just not with Audacity. I am running out of ideas and the device log still shows:

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

Could someone point me into a direction what I could check?
Thank you for your support.
Rec

2

  1. I don’t run Linux, but I wanted to ask if you have tried the appImage version here: https://www.audacityteam.org/download/linux/

  2. On Windows Audacity scans all devices when it first starts up. A problem with a single device can cause Audacity to not see any devices. Windows suspect devices are typically unusual devices such as HDMI audio or droidcam, etc.

3

  1. I do run Linux, but I don’t run Arch :wink:

  2. Normally you need to have your devices plugged in before starting Audacity (or you need to run Transport > Rescan Audio Devices). But for troubleshooting, it would be worth unplugging everything that you can but still having the system usable - including HDMI and USB, and turning off Bluetooth. If you can get to a point where it starts but only shows on-board audio devices, then you can add the others one by one and see which one is causing the issue that jademan suggested.

Otherwise if you have aplay and arecord,

aplay --list-devices

and

arecord --list-devices

may show if there is anything unexpected.