Audacity Installed But Will Not Start After Updating to 3.1.3

Audacity Help Forum GNU/Linux
1

Linux beginner here. I’m running Pop!_OS 21.10. I had Audacity installed via the Pop!_Shop and had been using ver 3.x.x for months. The latest update via flatpak in the Shop is version 3.1.3. After updating to 3.1.3, Audacity does not appear to run. It would create a small blank black box in the screen as if it was starting but would not actually open.

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling, nothing. Eventually I used the Synaptic Package Manager to install version 2.4.2~dfsg0-5. (I had to record a podcast episode tonight.) The older version ran normally. I’d like to get back to the 3.x.x version.

I have looked for other people describing similar issues but didn’t find anything. Any suggestions on how to troubleshoot this? Appreciation for the assistance (and apologies in advance for my limited expertise with Linux.)

2

OK, continued digging around and downloaded the AppImage from this page. I made the file runnable and was able to start version 3.1.3.

My assumption then is that it must be an issue with the version in the flatpak in the Pop!_Shop. Does that sound right?

3

Most likely. The versions packaged in distro-specific repositories generally work, but as you’ve seen tend to be older.

As I understand it the only version provided by Audacity itself is the appimage. (And of course the source code, but you might then have to build the dependencies yourself!)

4

We’ve seen multiple reports of problems with both the Flatpak and Snapd versions. Those are built by third parties, so there is nothing that we can do about them. The AppImage is built by the Audacity developers.

5

Thanks all! I’m going to keep using the AppImage file. That seems to be working without issue!

Side note unrelated to Audacity. Anyone know how i find who built the flatpak version to report the issue? The Pop!_Shop page has a “Report a Problem” link but that takes me to the bug tracker for Audacity as opposed to the flatpak creator.