[SOLVED] Audacity can't play audio on Fedora 32

Audacity Help Forum GNU/Linux
1

I am on Fedora 32.
Linux Kernel: 5.6.11-300
Installed Audacity from: Gnome Software (so probably a flatpak)

When I hit play on Audacity it fails with:

Error opening sound device
Try changing the audio host, playback device and the project sample rate

I have the following audio devices listed beside the small speaker sign on top right hand side:

  • HDA Intel PCH: HDMI 0 (hw:0.3)


  • HDA Intel PCH: HDMI 1 (hw:0.7)


  • HDA Intel PCH: HDMI 2 (hw:0.8)


  • HDA Intel PCH: HDMI 3 (hw:0.9)


  • HDA Intel PCH: HDMI 4 (hw:0.10)


  • hdmi

The “Audio mode” is to:
ALSA

What do I do ?

I am pretty sure Fedora uses PulseAudio rather than ALSA.
Is that what is causing the problem ?

2

Run the “Audio Device Info” and save the info somewhere convenient, then attach the “deviceinfo.txt” file to your reply.

3

Here is my Audio Device Info. And please note that this problem is with Audacity only. VLC, Firefox and everything else can play audio fine.
audio_device_info.txt (4.34 KB)

4

PulseAudio is a software layer between ALSA and applications, but yes I would have expected Fedora to use PulseAudio.
Surprisingly there is no sign of PulseAudio in the Audio Device Info.

To check if PulseAudio is installed, run this in a Terminal window:

pulseaudio --version
5 



$ pulseaudio --version
pulseaudio 13.99.1-rebootstrapped
6

So now what ?

Is there no solution ?

7

OK, so pulseaudio is installed.

What happens if you run:

pavucontrol
8

$ pavucontrol
bash: pavucontrol: command not found…

Should I install it ?

9

“pavucontrol” is the “PulseAudio Volume Control” and is a standard part of a PulseAudio setup. It may not be strictly “necessary” on all systems (you may have some other volume control available), but it is a useful tool, and probably the best volume control when using PulseAudio. In short, yes I think you should install it.

I don’t use Fedora myself, but you may find this article useful: Releases/FeaturePulseaudio - Fedora Project Wiki

10

Ok.

I just want to know if this a problem with Audacity or Fedora.

Who should I contact for this problem ? Audacity devs or Fedora ?

I went through the link, but it did not prove to be useful. I think this is a problem with Audacity itself since I have no problems with sound on Fedora otherwise.

Just point me in the right direction. I have no idea what is going wrong where.

11

I had pretty much the exact same problem, and I just stumbled upon this solution.
I uninstalled Audacity through Gnome Software, and then installed it with dnf.

sudo dnf install audacity

It works fine for me (for now :wink:).

12

Yes this is exactly what I did and it worked for me.

13

Thanks for posting your solution.
Which version of Audacity does that install?

14

create /etc/modprobe.d/default.conf with this content:

options snd_hda_intel index=1

Then reboot.

Finally working!!

// Fedora 32, Lenovo & amd

$ lspci -knn|grep -iA2 audio
04:00.1 Audio device [0403]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Raven/Raven2/Fenghuang HDMI/DP Audio Controller [1002:15de]
Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:3810]
Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel

04:00.5 Multimedia controller [0480]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Raven/Raven2/FireFlight/Renoir Audio Processor [1022:15e2]
Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:3814]
Kernel modules: snd_pci_acp3x, snd_rn_pci_acp3x
04:00.6 Audio device [0403]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 10h-1fh) HD Audio Controller [1022:15e3]
Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:3813]
Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel