Crashes when playing tracks with labels

Audacity 3 Help Forum GNU/Linux
1

I’m running Audacity 2.1.0 built from tarball, running on Debian 8 (jessie), and using JACK. Configuration command line was “./configure --with-ffmpeg=local” because trying to compile with the distro-provided ffmpeg fails with lots of errors (please fix that).

When I added a label to a section of audio and hit play, Audacity produced an error dialog and/or crash altogether a couple seconds later. The crash happened like this: a blank dialog box popped up and the main Audacity window stopped responding to clicks. If you grab the main window and wiggle it around, the dialog box might fill itself in (see first attachment). Sometimes the window wiggle will cause Audacity to crash altogether. If Audacity keeps going and you press the “continue” button, it’ll hang up again the same way with a greater chance of crashing altogether.

When the crash happens, this is printed to the xterm used to invoke Audacity:

$ audacity 

(Audacity:26103): Gtk-WARNING **: gtk_disable_setlocale() must be called before gtk_init()
ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:1022:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave
ALSA lib pcm.c:2239:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.rear
ALSA lib pcm.c:2239:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.center_lfe
ALSA lib pcm.c:2239:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.side
ALSA lib pcm_route.c:947:(find_matching_chmap) Found no matching channel map
ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:1022:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave
Cannot lock down 82274202 byte memory area (Cannot allocate memory)
11:03:52 PM: Debug: DirManager: Created new instance.
Expression 'stream->playback.pcm' failed in 'src/hostapi/alsa/pa_linux_alsa.c', line: 4611
Expression 'stream->playback.pcm' failed in 'src/hostapi/alsa/pa_linux_alsa.c', line: 4611
Expression 'stream->playback.pcm' failed in 'src/hostapi/alsa/pa_linux_alsa.c', line: 4611
Expression 'stream->playback.pcm' failed in 'src/hostapi/alsa/pa_linux_alsa.c', line: 4611

(Audacity:26103): Gtk-CRITICAL **: IA__gtk_range_set_range: assertion 'min < max' failed

(Audacity:26103): Gtk-CRITICAL **: IA__gtk_range_set_range: assertion 'min < max' failed

(Audacity:26103): Gdk-CRITICAL **: IA__gdk_window_get_origin: assertion 'GDK_IS_WINDOW (window)' failed

(Audacity:26103): Gdk-CRITICAL **: IA__gdk_window_get_origin: assertion 'GDK_IS_WINDOW (window)' failed
11:04:09 PM: Debug: AudioIO::GetBestRate() for playback
11:04:09 PM: Debug: GetBestRate() suggested rate 44100 Hz
11:04:09 PM: Debug: GetBestRate() Returning next higher rate - 48000 Hz
../src/gtk/clipbrd.cpp(71): assert "!ms_clipboard" failed in wxClipboardSync(): reentrancy in clipboard code
Trace/breakpoint trap

When I start up Audacity again, I get a dialog telling me that some projects didn’t save correctly – understandable given that there was a crash. The dialog is drawn too short, causing the buttons to get smashed up (see the second attachment).
Screenshot-3.png
Screenshot-Audacity.png

2

Unfortunately, FFmpeg changes so frequently in ways that break compatibility that it is very difficult for the Audacity developers to make Audacity compatible with more than a small range of FFmpeg versions.

For exporting with FFmpeg you can use the “external program” option and that will work with any version of FFmpeg.

Due to these ongoing problems I believe that the long term plan is to switch from FFmpeg to GStreamer, but that is a major job that will take time.

3

I’m not able to reproduce that problem.

Which version of WxWidgets have you used?

4

3.0.2 as installed from APT.

5

That may well be the problem. WxWidgets 3.x is not yet supported and there are many bugs when building with version 3.
The required version is 2.8 Missing features - Audacity Support

6

So, I’ve installed wxWidgets 2.8.12 from source. Now I cannot get the Audacity build to 1) recognize that I have 2.8.12 installed and 2) the packages it wants causes a very strange interaction in APT that results in APT wanting to remove packages that Skype needs. I’m running on an amd64 system and Skype has always been i386.

Here’s what I’ve been trying with configure:

./configure --with-ffmpeg=local --with-wx-version 2.8

What’s the proper grammar here?

7

See Missing features - Audacity Support.

But these steps should actually work Missing features - Audacity Support as far as I know.

Have you used a remove command for the build you had command line - What is the correct way to completely remove an application? - Ask Ubuntu?

Please show us the messages about Skype if there are still problems.

Gale

8

I gave up on Skype and took my machine back to Debian Wheezy. The basic problem with Skype is that it got into a contradictory situation of Skype being incompatible with Skype, so it would uninstall after installing. I absolutely need Skype for business reasons and it is a very messy player, so I want the overall OS to be as stable as I can get it.