Audacity not starting up on Pop!_OS 22.04

I’ve tried downloading and starting the AppImage on from the official website. As well as separately, the flatpak, and then debian packages. And even prior versions of 3.. In every single case the Audacity logo appears but the app never actually opens. After waiting several minutes, an error message appears:

“Audacity is not responding…”
“You may choose to wait… or force the application to quit entirely”.

Don’t know why this is happening as Audacity has been working on this machine previously. Did something about upgrading to 22.04 break Audacity?

Try launching it from a terminal window and reporting any error messages you see.

For example I have mine in ~/bin and can launch it with

~/bin/audacity-linux-3.1.3-x86_64.AppImage

You may see a bunch of “CRITICAL” and “assert … failed” messages … not all of them are as serious as they sound. But I suspect that some required library is not include in the appimage but not installed by default on 22.04.

I have the same problem, with the .deb and the flatpak from the Pop!OS store. Removed (for as far as I know) all config files, etc.

flatpak run org.audacityteam.Audacity
(process:2): Gdk-CRITICAL **: 21:00:27.788: gdk_screen_get_root_window: assertion ‘GDK_IS_SCREEN (screen)’ failed
(process:2): Gdk-CRITICAL **: 21:00:27.788: gdk_window_get_display: assertion ‘GDK_IS_WINDOW (window)’ failed
(process:2): Gdk-CRITICAL **: 21:00:27.788: gdk_cursor_new_from_pixbuf: assertion ‘GDK_IS_DISPLAY (display)’ failed

deb:
(audacity:43584): Gtk-WARNING **: 21:02:47.020: A floating object was finalized. This means that someone
called g_object_unref() on an object that had only a floating
reference; the initial floating reference is not owned by anyone
and must be removed with g_object_ref_sink().
Attempting to connect to Audacity failed…retrying
ALSA lib pcm.c:2664:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.rear
ALSA lib pcm.c:2664:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.center_lfe
ALSA lib pcm.c:2664:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.side
ALSA lib pcm_route.c:877:(find_matching_chmap) Found no matching channel map
ALSA lib pcm_route.c:877:(find_matching_chmap) Found no matching channel map
ALSA lib pcm_route.c:877:(find_matching_chmap) Found no matching channel map
ALSA lib pcm_route.c:877:(find_matching_chmap) Found no matching channel map
ALSA lib pcm_oss.c:397:(_snd_pcm_oss_open) Cannot open device /dev/dsp
ALSA lib pcm_oss.c:397:(_snd_pcm_oss_open) Cannot open device /dev/dsp
ALSA lib confmisc.c:160:(snd_config_get_card) Invalid field card
ALSA lib pcm_usb_stream.c:482:(_snd_pcm_usb_stream_open) Invalid card ‘card’
ALSA lib confmisc.c:160:(snd_config_get_card) Invalid field card
ALSA lib pcm_usb_stream.c:482:(_snd_pcm_usb_stream_open) Invalid card ‘card’
Killed

I have a similar issue with Audacity failing to open properly, and these are the error messages I received running both Flatpak and AppImage versions on Pop!_OS 22.04:

Flatpak version

AppImage version

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When I run Audacity 3.1.3 AppImage (and it runs OK), I see the exact same terminal output as:




Please note that we are not able to provide support for third party builds (including Flatpak and Snap builds)

Thank you for checking this for us, Steve! Can you please also confirm that you run the 3.1.3 AppImage with the latest version of pipewire 0.3.52? I guess this is the main culprit, which came with one of the latest upgrade packages from Pop!_OS. In this case, I guess, we’ll need to downgrade the pipewire package until your team comes up with a working solution.

All the best!

No no no! I won’t rely on pipewire until it reaches version 1. Until then, I see it as an interesting experimental development with a lot of future potential. For now I’m very happy to stick with tried and tested ALSA, PulseAudio and Jack.

I get those same console errors, however the program never actually opens. All I ever see is this, after some delay:

Yeah, I’m with you and prefer stability over novelty more with every passing year. But the choice to upgrade pipewire was not mine but the system developer’s. Now, as an end-user I have to make a choice too to make Audacity up and running again: (1) change the distro/operating system; or (2) replace Audacity with another application, which is happy to run alongside the latest versions of pipewire and Linux kernel; or (3) downgrade pipewire, as I mentioned earlier, until the Audacity team makes it compatible with pipewire. (Any other option I’m missing here?). For now, and until we get a working solution(s) from any of the parties involved (Audacity, pipewire, System76), I better stick with option 3.

What would be your advice? Is it possible to change the audio server to ALSA, PulseAudio or Jack before launching Audacity? Frankly, I don’t think option 1 is a reasonable solution for a single application, no matter how much we all love Audacity. Nor do I expect the developer to lend its hand to help a handful of reporting Audacity users on Pop!_OS…

Thank you!

PS: I wish I knew what prevents Audacity from launching in the system environment also equipped with ALSA, PulseAudio and Jack…

If you’ve not done so already, check the Pop!_OS forum. As Pop!_OS says that it is an OS for “creative professionals”, I’d guess that it has quite a few Audacity users - Do they all have the same problem? Do they have a solution or workaround?

I’m getting the same issue with the 2.4.2 version of Audacity which is currently available through the Debian>Ubuntu>Pop_OS repos.
Curiously, it seems to work if I use sudo audacity, which indicates it might be a permissions problems somewhere.

System76 is aware of the issue, I’m not sure where it is on their engineers’ queue, though.