Ubuntu 23.04: No audio after starting Audacity

When starting Audacity on a fresh install of Ubuntu 23.04, there is a short clicking sound, and then the audio is gone. Neither Audacity nor other applications (e.g., Audacious) are able to make my headphones output sound. However, sound output via speakers still works.

When opening the sound settings of the OS, I can select between headphones and speakers. Changing the sound device to speakers let's the device output sound. After changing back to headphones, the headphones still remain silent. The sound test for the headphones is silent as well, but the sound intensity bar graphically shows sound being played.

I installed Audacity from the Ubuntu repositories, it's version is 3.2.4.

After I started Audacity, running sudo alsactl restore fixes the problem temporarily, but re-starting Audacity will break it again.

Thanks to stackoverflow's "Related" section, I was able to find this thread with a few answers. Since my version of Audacity is higher, it shouldn't be a version problem. This answer's suggestion helped to solve the issue temporarily as well. Changing the input source to sysdefault:Internal Mic:0 makes my headphones output sound and even after restarting Audacity, it still works as expected. However, after coming back from sleep, and starting Audacity, the audio is broken again. So, it's apparently not a permanent solution either.

This problem is also present in the flatpak version. The snap version apparently works fine, but it's UI is not suitable for 4K screens.

Since the issue is present with the Audacity versions 3.2.4 (flatpak and deb) but not with 3.1.3 (snap), it could indeed be a bug with the newer version of Audacity that's causing the issue. Despite the newer version supposedly not having this issue, bugs can and do happen. One option is to report the bug to the Audacity development team.

In the meantime, you can try this workaround:

1. Create a new ALSA configuration file. Open Terminal and type:

   sudo nano /etc/asound.conf
   

2. Paste the following into the file:

   defaults.pcm.!card HDMI
   defaults.ctl.!card HDMI
   defaults.pcm.!device 0
   defaults.ctl.!device 0
   

   This configuration will force ALSA to use your headphones by default.

3. Save the file and exit (Ctrl+O to write out, and Ctrl+X to exit in nano).

4. Restart your system.

Please remember to replace "HDMI" with the appropriate sound card name if it's different in your case.

If this doesn't work, you can try reverting to the older version (3.1.3) of Audacity if the snap version's UI on your 4K screen is acceptable. Alternatively, you could wait for a patch from the Audacity team.

Remember to update your system frequently, as the issue may get resolved in a future update.

The problem could also be related to PulseAudio. If none of the above helps, you might want to consider reinstalling PulseAudio or looking for updates and known issues related to PulseAudio in Ubuntu 23.04.