Audacity has a problem with headphones. It is well known and I have tried all the tips to get it to work. I got it playing on one of my two Ubuntu Mate installations, but not the other. Neither can be heard through the headphone which is much better when editing sound files. I think it might have something to do with Pipewire being default now not Alsa.
I know audacious will only play on the Pipewire setting and not on Alsa. Audacity has no setting for Pipewire and Audacious plays on my laptop speakers and headphones.
Audacity works on an old Dell laptop I have with Sparky Linux on both the laptop's speakers and headphones, but Sparky Linux has not went to Pipewire yet, Alsa is still the default on that OS. I would like to get it working on my main laptop, a System 76 Darter Pro running Ubuntu Mate 24.04.
Any Ideas? I have tried other sound editors and none are as good as Audacity. Ocenaudio is probably the next best, but I still find it lacking.
I've always found Audacity to be a little 'iffy' with selecting audio sources. Possibly because when the app is told to use a specific device, it might be trying to take "exclusive" control over it.
What do you have the options set in "Audio Setup" (next to the volume/mic icons)?
On my Arch Linux system, I dare not every change it from "pipewire", which works by following whatever is set in Sound Preferences.
Audio Setup
Host → ALSA
Playback Device → pipewire
Recording Device → pipewire
Then, switching between headphones & speakers works from the desktop's sound preferences. Then again, maybe it's luck since I'm using all digital outputs (USB Audio Speakers S/PDIF & DisplayPort for 3.5mm headphones via monitor line out)
The technology terms do seem confusing. My Audacity only shows ALSA as a host, but that might just the library (never really understood it). PulseAudio isn't installed, but any app that claimed to use it might be using a compatibility layer to redirect it to Pipewire.
I have never had a problem with Audacity before and have been using it since my Windows days when you had to manually install lame for mp3's. Source only gives Alsa as an option. Rescan audio devices does nothing.
As you can see Alsa is the only choice. It does install ffmpeg if I use the appimage version but still doesn't work.
I tried adding Alsa and then nothing would play, not Audacious not Clementine and not Rhythmbox. I then uninstalled Alsa to get my sound working again. The problem is Audacity is not seen by the sound system. I tried USB headphones to to no avail as the sound system cannot find Audacity.
it might be trying to take "exclusive" control over it.
I found in an Audacity forum comments saying that the developers seem to be pushing people away from the open source version to a proprietary commercial version. That could be it.
What are "Playback Device" and "Recording Device" set to? Pipewire? Pulse? Do you select the device directly?
I used Audacity (and optional LAME install) back in the Windows days too. PulseAudio use to crackle sound on my older PC. Pipewire's been no issue.
Audacity's use of "ALSA" is confusing, since ALSA is supposedly the "low level" sound system, and PulseAudio/Pipewire are "high level" for applications to use. If I recall, when ALSA is the main sound system, then usually only one program ("exclusively") can play audio.
PulseAudio/Pipewire enables multiple programs to play at once, and I guess that one process is what "exclusively" interfaces with ALSA normally. That's why I'd like to check what is currently selected in Audacity.
Also, I have pinned my audacity package to 3.7.3 because I didn't like the new interface/behaviour. Are you using 24.04 LTS's 3.4.2 or 3.7.3 (backports)? You could force the other version with Synaptic in case the older one works better. Unless you are using an AppImage?
Just leaving it here: This command could be useful to watch the status of pipewire interface (like top).
pw-top
On here, it shows my 2 devices, with audacity showing playback to one at a time, and the same when switching the output using via the desktop's panel. That should be the same for you, if everything is being routed into pipewire correctly.
Thanks lah7, I got it working due to you. I just hadn't dug deep enough after I saw only Alsa or I just missed it when I looked. Pipewire is there further down in the settings. When I set playback device and recording device to pipewire everything worked. It both played and played over my wireless headphones.
I also agree with you about the interface, it seems to get worse with each new release. What used to take one click to accomplish now takes three or four clicks as many functions are now hidden in sub menus. Still there is nothing else like Audacity for recording and editing with sound files.
Audio Setup
