Audacity Crash on Startup Mint 17.3/Ubu 14.04

[wittend]

Pardon me if this question is solved somewhere. I cannot find FAQ entries or search terms that seem to give relevant results.

I am running Mint 17.3/Ubuntu 14.04 and I cannot get Audacity to run. On startup - either graphically or from the command line, a splash screen appears for a moment (but no image - just blank) then closes.

If I run from the command line I get:

$>audacity

(process:20978): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: Attempt to add property GnomeProgram::sm-connect after class was initialised

(process:20978): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: Attempt to add property GnomeProgram::show-crash-dialog after class was initialised

(process:20978): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: Attempt to add property GnomeProgram::display after class was initialised

(process:20978): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: Attempt to add property GnomeProgram::default-icon after class was initialised
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
bt_audio_service_open: connect() failed: Connection refused (111)
bt_audio_service_open: connect() failed: Connection refused (111)
bt_audio_service_open: connect() failed: Connection refused (111)
bt_audio_service_open: connect() failed: Connection refused (111)
ALSA lib pcm_equal.c:196:(_snd_pcm_equal_open) No slave configuration for equal pcma
ALSA lib pcm_equal.c:196:(_snd_pcm_equal_open) No slave configuration for equal pcm
audacity: symbol lookup error: audacity: undefined symbol: Pa_GetStreamHostApiType

I have uninstalled/reinstalled Audacity (completely, including configs) several times. I have installed the default (2.05-1ubuntu3.2), 2.10, and 2.12. All exhibit the same behavior.

I have checked for lurking PPA's and residual configs/cached stuff, etc. that might be conflicting.

I have uninstalled/reinstalled FFMpeg and Alsa components, and stared long and hard at Pulseaudio's setup.

The only clue that I have left is that back in December I did some work with Chromium components and seem to have built FFMpeg from source to make Chromium happy. But I moved all that work to a VM when I saw how disruptive it might prove to be. I do not find any indication that it was ever installed or that there is any residual install related to FFMpeg.

Any suggestions?

[Gale Andrews]

None of those Audacity versions are real, so I hope they are all typos for 2.0.5, 2.1.0 and 2.1.2.

The most recommendable version is this 2.1.2 PPA: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntuhandbook1/ ... u/audacity.

Have you tried looking in ~/.audacity-data/audacity.cfg to see where the Audacity [TempDir] is, then in that temporary folder, delete the file "audacity-lock-<your username>". Then delete audacity.cfg and then try launching Audacity.

Gale

[wittend]

Thanks for the quick reply!

Yes, those version #'s were typos.

Doing as you suggest - deleting /var/tmp/audacity-lock-<my login name> and ~/.audacity-data/audacity.cfg produced no discernible change in behavior or error messages.

The recreated audacity.cfg (I'm using the default 2.0.5 right now) contains only:

NewPrefsInitialized=1
Version=2.0.5
PrefsVersion=1.1.1r1
[Version]
Major=2
Minor=0
Micro=5
[Directories]
TempDir=/var/tmp/audacity-wittend

Dave

[Gale Andrews]

The recreated audacity.cfg (I'm using the default 2.0.5 right now) contains only:

NewPrefsInitialized=1
Version=2.0.5
PrefsVersion=1.1.1r1
[Version]
Major=2
Minor=0
Micro=5
[Directories]
TempDir=/var/tmp/audacity-wittend

It could be an incompatible audio device issue. Audacity creates entries for audio devices when it first writes audacity.cfg.

If you are using external audio devices or some kind of virtual audio driver, try removing them.

Also see http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/fa ... tml#launch.


Gale

[wittend]

Thanks,

I had read that FAQ entry and I do not see how it applies to my case. Audio has been a low priority on this machine in the past, so I have never added deliberately drivers.

I'm not clear what the FAQ means by 'external audio devices'. I have only a pair of Sennheiser headphones plugged directly into the headphone output of the ASUS motherboard. I have wanted to use some small bluetooth speakers, but that hasn't worked either. I can use the headphones perfectly well, though I'm getting tired of listening to the occasional YouTube video that way. But I suspect that is not what you mean. Perhaps you are referring to a USB or Firewire attached audio board. I do not own any.

I am not using any kind of virtual audio driver that I am aware of. I'm familiar with Virtual Audio Cable on Windows machines, but I do not see how that would be useful under Linux. I do occasionally use VirtualBox VM environments to segregate software building projects. It might be possible that VirtualBox inserts a shim that interferes in some way, but I have never been aware of that in the past.

I did have Alsa and Jack2 installed, but ripped them out when I began to experience difficulty.

I don't know what else to do. I may have to rebuild the entire machine from scratch.

Dave

[Gale Andrews]

USB headphones are an external audio device. Headphones with a green TRS plug are not, because they are using the built-in sound device.

As the FAQ said, plugins are also a possible cause. If Audacity launched before, consider what you changed since the time it did launch.

If you "rip ALSA out" that could explain why Audacity won't launch and devices won't work.
What you are using instead - OSS? Perhaps the Ubuntu or Linux Mint forums can help you with how to set up audio on your machine.

If you do wish to test with Audacity, I still recommend the 2.1.2 PPA. The other versions you mentioned are history.


Gale

[wittend]

Ok,

Fair enough.

But all the responses I get are exactly the ones I had with 2.1.2, before bluetooth, and I have never installed any plugins. Removing ALSA was the last measure I took before rolling back to the default 2.0.5 provided by my distribution. No, I do not use OSS or any of the OSS 'extensions' to ALSA, etc.

Dave