Audacity 3.6.2 AppImage fails to launch unless previous configuration already exists.

[SteveDaulton]

Bug description

When attempting to launch Audacity with "clean" configuration, it hangs on the splash screen.

Steps to reproduce

1. From the directory containing the AppImage, run ./audacity-linux-3.6.2-x64.AppImage --appimage-portable-home
2. Try to launch Audacity.

Expected behavior

Audacity launches.

Actual behavior

Audacity hangs on the splash screen.

Audacity Version

current master / alpha / nightly build

Operating system

Linux

Additional context

It is possible to get past the splash screen so that Audacity launches successfully by killing audacity --host xxxxx and waiting.

Regression against Audacity 3.6.0

[petersampsonaudacity]

@SteveDaulton what about 3.6.3 now that 3.6.2 is superseded?

[dozzzzer]

Cannot reproduce in Audacity 3.6.3 Appimage / Ubuntu 22.04

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/999aee5d-8d56-4acc-b911-b9eb862995dd

[SteveDaulton]

@SteveDaulton what about 3.6.3 now that 3.6.2 is superseded?

I'm still seeing the same bug with audacity-linux-3.6.3-x64.AppImage.

In the terminal I see:

$ ./audacity-linux-3.6.3-x64.AppImage
Setting $HOME to /home/<user-name>/Desktop/Audacity 3/audacity-linux-3.6.3-x64.AppImage.home
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libatk-1.0.so.0
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libatk-bridge-2.0.so.0
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcairo-gobject.so.2
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcairo.so.2
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgio-2.0.so.0
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgmodule-2.0.so.0
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgobject-2.0.so.0
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgthread-2.0.so.0
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libjack.so.0
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpixman-1.so.0
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libportaudio.so
/tmp/.mount_audaciyO2EgA/bin/audacity: /tmp/.mount_audaciyO2EgA/lib/libselinux.so.1: no version information available (required by /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgio-2.0.so.0)

the splash screen appears, and hangs.

After I manually kill audacity --host xxxxx, Audacity launches.

After Audacity has launched once (the portable $HOME is now populated), Audacity will launch.

[SteveDaulton]

Cannot reproduce in Audacity 3.6.3 Appimage / Ubuntu 22.04

When I wrote: "When attempting to launch Audacity with "clean" configuration", I was referring to a "new install, never been used" state, meaning that there is no pre-existing configuration. Please try the steps that I posted to reproduce the problem, or delete the entire .../.config/audacity folder.

[dozzzzer]

@SteveDaulton I deleted the audacity.cfg file, as shown in the video. Usually when we say "clean config", we mean exactly this. Will try it out later by purging the entire folder.

[dozzzzer]

@SteveDaulton I was not able to reproduce the problem even after removing the entire folder. However, I've just encountered something similar on Windows. https://github.com/audacity/audacity/issues/7309 – Can it be the same thing?

[SteveDaulton]

something similar on Windows. #7309 – Can it be the same thing?

It "may" be related, but your description sounds a bit different. I am seeing the freeze (on Linux) before the plugin scanning dialog appears.

[SteveDaulton]

I can reproduce the problem (on Linux) by simply deleting pluginregistry.cfg.

I do also have a couple of "incompatible plugins" installed on my computer, which may be significant. Try installing any plug-in that should be identified by Audacity as "incompatible", delete the pluginregistry.cfg, and then try launching the AppImage.

[kryksyh]

Unfortunately I can't reproduce on 3.6.2, 3.6.4 or 3.7.0. I've tried to use a clean portable-home dir for storing settings and installing incompatible plugins. @SteveDaulton could you share a list of plugins installed on your machine?

[SteveDaulton]

These are the unsupported plug-ins identified by Audacity:

http://calf.sourceforge.net/plugins/Vinyl https://sonobus.net/lv2/sonobus urn:ardour:a-fluidsynth