Error while opening sound device - honest, I've really tried

[Figuring in out]

Yes, another "Error while opening sound device" posting. I have read through many postings about this error and none of the solutions suggested have fixed the problem. I sure appreciate any help you can give!

Here are the facts:

• When I try to play a project in Audacity, I get the famous message: Error while opening sound device. Please check the output device settings and the project sample rate.
• I'm not trying to record. I'm just trying to mix together several different MP3s and WAVs.
• This happens regardless of what recording and playback devices I set in preferences.
• It used to work. I used to be able to play sound in Audacity. It worked using the default settings. I didn't use Audacity for several months and then when I tried to use it it didn't work. I can't think of anything suspicious I did during that time, but I didn't keep a log, so I can't say for sure.
• A very suspicious fact: When I click "Help -> Audio Device Info..." I get the "Audio Device Info" window with no info in it. That is, there's the window, an empty rectangle with nothing in it, and an "OK" button. When I used to do tech support, I learned to be very suspicious of when a user said "nothing"... it usually meant "something but somehow I think it's irrelevant". I've attached a screenshot to show what I mean by "nothing":

  

  A picture of the "Audio Device Info" with no info in it

  audacity.jpg (112.44 KiB) Viewed 2089 times

• Other than in Audacity, sound on my system works fine. I can play music on every other multimedia program I use, including Amarok, GNUsound, and Kaffeine.
• I tried removing (well, renaming) ~/.audacity-data and ~/.audacity1.3~joe. The result was that Audacity started up as if for the first time, but it still gave the same error message when I try to play it.
• I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling Audacity to no avail.
• I am using Audacity 1.3.4-b. I am using Ubuntu Ubuntu 8.04.4. I do not know how to tell you what sound card or other hardware I am using. I would be happy to produce more info with a little help on how to find it.
• I am a novice at Linux. I only install and uninstall packages using Adept Manager. My system is up to date according to Adept.

Thanks for the help!

[steve]

My system is up to date according to Adept.

but not really up to date - the current version of Ubuntu is 10.04 LTS

I'm not trying to record. I'm just trying to mix together several different MP3s and WAVs.

Whether you are recording or not, Audacity needs to be able to access both a recording device and a playback device.

It used to work. I used to be able to play sound in Audacity. It worked using the default settings.

You can try resetting Audacity to it's "fresh-out-of-the-box" default values. (reinstalling does not do that).
To reset Audacity, find the file "audacity.cfg" and delete it. (it's normally in /home/<user>/.audacity (the dot signifies that it is a hidden folder, so if you are using Nautilus, press Ctrl+H to show hidden files and folders.

Reboot your computer and don't open any other applications - particularly not your web browser (some plug-ins can mess with the sound system).
When you restart Audacity it will create a new audacity.cfg file with the same default settings as when it was first installed.

[bgravato]

To reset Audacity, find the file "audacity.cfg" and delete it. (it's normally in /home/<user>/.audacity

It's actually ~/.audacity-data (or /home/your-username/.audacity-data)

[steve]

It's actually ~/.audacity-data (or /home/your-username/.audacity-data)

Oops - typo
Thanks bg.

[Figuring in out]

Deleting audacity.cfg did not fix the problem. I did as you described, including not having any other programs running, and the problem and error message are still there.

Is there some kind of global (i.e. one for the whole machine, not just one for this user) setting file or directory that is preserved even if Audacity is uninstalled? Perhaps there's some setting there that got hosed.

[steve]

Is there some kind of global (i.e. one for the whole machine, not just one for this user) setting file or directory that is preserved even if Audacity is uninstalled?

No, the settings are all in the (per user) audacity.cfg file. If you have reinstalled and nuked the audacity.cfg file, then Audacity is the same as day 1. Which means that we need to look elsewhere for the problem. I'm hoping that bgravato will step in any time now with some ideas about checking out the sound system.

BTW, is there any particular reason why you are still using Ubuntu 8.04?

[bgravato]

I have no bright ideas... yet

I'm running Debian and I'm having my own issues with audacity and jack...

I was curious what my audacity would show on Help -> Audio Device Info so I clicked it and what did I see? A crash

With the same message on console I had on the problem I've been reporting in this thread.

My guess here is that it's probably related to the sound system you're running... Are you running jack? pulseaudio? esd? something else?

What devices do you have available for selecting on Preferences -> Devices?

What devices have you selected in other programs you mentioned?

I'm guessing you don't have any .asoundrc on your home dir. So that will exclude one variable out... Still many in play

And last, but not least, what sound card (or cards) do you have (usb or other external ones included)?

I'm also guessing that the reason why it stopped working is probably related to some upgrade you did meanwhile... I probably don't remember or you're not aware of it, but it probably happened... Sometimes when you upgrade or install a new app that have dependencies on sound libs, for example, it might upgrade some packages (sound related) even if you think that program has nothing to do with it

Like Steve suggested you might think about upgrading to the latest ubuntu release, although that, like any dist-upgrade, might broke other things... So if that's a production system... "do at your own risk"