Audio playback lags behind playhead

Audacity 3 Help Forum GNU/Linux
1

Is there a way to sync playback with the playhead? Or is the disconnect between what I see and what I hear inherent to the software?

To describe the issue: The playhead is always well ahead of what is being “played”. This makes it extremely difficult to edit the waveform.
This occurs in 2.4.2 installed from the Linux Mint repositories.

I would use the appimage (3.2.4) but playback is so choppy as to be completely unusable for anything audio related.

The problems occur with mere playback, not trying to record at the same time. Literally just importing an audio file and playing it back.

Is there anything I can do? I would like either smooth playback from the appimage 3.2.4 version OR for the playhead to relate to the waveform.

Dell XPS-15 9550
I7
16g ram
Linux Mint 21

2

Solved (by me!) -after experiencing the same out-of-sync problem in DaVinci Resolve.

Solution:
I killed pulseaudio.
Open terminal and type the following
pkill pulseaudio

It is important to either close the audio editing app prior to killing pulseaudio or restart it if open when pulseaudio is killed.

Playhead and audio playback is now in sync.

Killing pulseaudio also solved the choppy playback issue I was experiencing with the appimage version of Audacity.

3

Looks like we both landed here at about the same time to report the same issue.

I have been having this problem since I installed audacity (also from Mint’s repository, but tried the flatpack and appimage as well).

I just restored my system to before the installation of audacity and the problem seems to have gone away.

I’d be interested to know that now that you re-started pulsaudio (which I did as well), the problem comes back for you.