Audacity complains about jackd and not starting

[QVignaud]

Hello everyone,

I've a (quite big) problem with my Audacity installation (2.0.6), it doesn't start up at all on my Linux Mint Debian machine.
First of all, it complains about "jackd", that is installed, but I don't want to use it with Audacity, PulseAudio will be fine in my case.

Code: Select all

(Audacity:3851): Gtk-WARNING **: gtk_disable_setlocale() must be called before gtk_init()
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_route.c:947:(find_matching_chmap) Found no matching channel map
Cannot connect to server socket err = Aucun fichier ou dossier de ce type
Cannot connect to server request channel
jack server is not running or cannot be started
Erreur de segmentation

Then, if I start jackd, in order to be cool with Audacity, it still don't want to work:

Code: Select all

(Audacity:4363): Gtk-WARNING **: gtk_disable_setlocale() must be called before gtk_init()
ALSA lib pcm_dsnoop.c:618:(snd_pcm_dsnoop_open) unable to open slave
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_dmix.c:1022:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave
Erreur de segmentation

Note: "Erreur de segmentation" means "Segmentation fault".

I've reinstalled and reconfigured audacity, jackd and even ALSA, all is well working, but not just Audacity.

I think one of the solution could be to force Audacity to not use jackd at all, but how to do that without GUI?

Thanks!

[steve]

Audacity installation (2.0.6)

That is quite an old version. How did you obtain / install it?
Which version of Mint Debian do you have?

I think that "Jack" is a red herring. The line in the log that says "jack server is not running or cannot be started" is not an error, it is just telling you that Jack isn't running. That's OK because Audacity does not need Jack, (though Audacity can use Jack if it is available and running correctly).

The real error is: "Erreur de segmentation"
We need to know version numbers.

[QVignaud]

This is the version available in the repositories, installed thru apt-get/synaptic.
I use Linux Mint Debian 2 Betsy, and the exact version number is 2.0.6-2.

I'm just talking about jack because the problem started when I selected "jackd" as audio service to use and restarted. Since it doesn't work anymore, even after reinstall/remove/purge.

I agree that the segfault is the final problem, but I think I can simply avoid it by not using jack with Audacity, which will be fine for me.

[steve]

OK, it looks like Betsy is using Audacity 2.0.6 from Debian Jessie, which is built against wxGtk 3.0. That's the wrong version of wx, (it should be wxGtk 2.8, but that's not available in Jessie), so some problems are to be expected. This will be resolved when Mint Debian updates to Audacity 2.1.2 (which is in Debian Stretch).

I'm just talking about jack because the problem started when I selected "jackd" as audio service to use and restarted.

To use Jack with Audacity, Jack needs to be started before launching Audacity. Jack takes exclusive control of the audio devices that it connects to, which prevents other applications from accessing those devices. If Jack is started while Audacity is running, Audacity does not realise that the device that it was previously connected to (via Pulse or ALSA) is no longer available, and that can cause Audacity to freeze or crash. Yes that's a bug, but on most systems it can be avoided by closing Audacity before starting Jack, then re-launch Audacity and select Jack as the "host" in the device toolbar.

If you find that your current version of Audacity is too unstable to use, then it is possible to install a more recent version. If the problems are not too bad, then I'd suggest that you just wait for Mint to update.