Can't run old Audacity app image

Hi Folks,

I have fairly recent version of Audacity installed, 3.7.7, but I also need to run a much older version, 3.3.3, only available as an appimage. The reason for this is that I have some saved Audacity files from older version of the software which newer versions will not read. I asked on an Audacity forum for help and it was they who suggested I download and run the older software version, which should read in the old data and output in the newer format.

However.

I’ve downloaded the relevant appimage file, placed it somewhere accessible and set the permissions for execute, but when I double click it nothing happens.

If I call it using ./audacity-linux-3.3.3-x64.AppImage

it seems to start to run giving me :

Setting $HOME to /home/dave/Music/Audacity/audacity-linux-3.3.3-x64.AppImage.home
/lib64/libatk-1.0.so.0
/lib64/libatk-bridge-2.0.so.0
/lib64/libcairo-gobject.so.2
/lib64/libcairo.so.2
/lib64/libgio-2.0.so.0
/lib64/libglib-2.0.so.0
/lib64/libgmodule-2.0.so.0
/lib64/libgobject-2.0.so.0
/lib64/libgthread-2.0.so.0
/usr/lib64/pipewire-0.3/jack/libjack.so.0
findlib: libportaudio.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
/home/dave/Music/Audacity/audacity-linux-3.3.3-x64.AppImage: Using fallback for library ‘libportaudio.so’
/tmp/.mount_audaciIgVMak/bin/audacity: /tmp/.mount_audaciIgVMak/lib/libpcre2-8.so.0: no version information available (required by /lib64/libglib-2.0.so.0)
/tmp/.mount_audaciIgVMak/bin/audacity: /tmp/.mount_audaciIgVMak/lib/libselinux.so.1: no version information available (required by /lib64/libgio-2.0.so.0)
/tmp/.mount_audaciIgVMak/bin/audacity: /tmp/.mount_audaciIgVMak/lib/libmount.so.1: version `MOUNT_2_40’ not found (required by /lib64/libgio-2.0.so.0)

and then stops. I think I have installed all the other relevant software.

Version 3.7.7 does seem to run though.

Can anyone help or advise please?

Many thanks,

Dave

The /lib is .i686 binaries, so you need to install the following i686 binaries:

sudo dnf install libselinux-devel.i686 portaudio-devel.i686 libmount-devel.i686 pcre2-devel.i686 

If that doesn’t fix the issue then trying finding the old flatpak release for audacity.

Or, if you want the AppImage run, hopefully someone else will respond, or paste one of error code lines into your search engine.

I’m not really helpful as im finally using a non-containerized environment AKA native linux.

I would be careful with the i686-devel route here: the AppImage name is x64, and the visible failure is a bundled/system library mismatch around libmount, not just a missing 32-bit package. For a one-time conversion of old projects, the cleanest path is often to run that Audacity version in a small distrobox/toolbox or VM with an older Fedora/Ubuntu userspace, export the projects, then go back to 3.7. If you keep fighting the AppImage, run it from a terminal as you did and avoid installing random library packages blindly, because it can make the error less clear.

@starfiend
I get the same issue to:

gitxpresso@fedora44:~$ ./audacity-linux-3.3.3-x64.AppImage
qt.qpa.plugin: Could not find the Qt platform plugin "wayland" in ""
/lib64/libatk-1.0.so.0
/lib64/libatk-bridge-2.0.so.0
/lib64/libcairo-gobject.so.2
/lib64/libcairo.so.2
/lib64/libgio-2.0.so.0
/lib64/libglib-2.0.so.0
/lib64/libgmodule-2.0.so.0
/lib64/libgobject-2.0.so.0
/lib64/libgthread-2.0.so.0
/usr/lib64/pipewire-0.3/jack/libjack.so.0
findlib: libportaudio.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
/home/gitxpresso/audacity-linux-3.3.3-x64.AppImage: Using fallback for library 'libportaudio.so'
/tmp/.mount_audaciuKbtpo/bin/audacity: /tmp/.mount_audaciuKbtpo/lib/libpcre2-8.so.0: no version information available (required by /lib64/libglib-2.0.so.0)
/tmp/.mount_audaciuKbtpo/bin/audacity: /tmp/.mount_audaciuKbtpo/lib/libselinux.so.1: no version information available (required by /lib64/libgio-2.0.so.0)
/tmp/.mount_audaciuKbtpo/bin/audacity: /tmp/.mount_audaciuKbtpo/lib/libmount.so.1: version `MOUNT_2_40' not found (required by /lib64/libgio-2.0.so.0)
gitxpresso@fedora44:~$ 

I’ll try finding the fix to this issue and provide the solution to this issue.

Installing portaudio-devel.x86_64 fixed one of errors:

gitxpresso@fedora44:~$ sudo dnf install -y portaudio-devel
Updating and loading repositories:

Repositories loaded.
Package                                                  Arch          Version                                                  Repository                         Size
Installing:
 portaudio-devel                                         x86_64        0:19.7.0-3.fc44                                          fedora                          2.6 MiB

Transaction Summary:
 Installing:         1 package

Total size of inbound packages is 292 KiB. Need to download 292 KiB.
After this operation, 3 MiB extra will be used (install 3 MiB, remove 0 B).
[1/1] portaudio-devel-0:19.7.0-3.fc44.x86_64                                                                                   100% |  59.5 KiB/s | 292.2 KiB |  00m05s
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1/1] Total                                                                                                                    100% |  43.4 KiB/s | 292.2 KiB |  00m07s
Running transaction
[1/3] Verify package files                                                                                                     100% |   3.0   B/s |   1.0   B |  00m00s
[2/3] Prepare transaction                                                                                                      100% |   0.0   B/s |   1.0   B |  00m08s
[3/3] Installing portaudio-devel-0:19.7.0-3.fc44.x86_64                                                                        100% | 312.2 KiB/s |   2.7 MiB |  00m09s
Complete!
gitxpresso@fedora44:~$ ./audacity-linux-3.3.3-x64.AppImage
qt.qpa.plugin: Could not find the Qt platform plugin "wayland" in ""
/lib64/libatk-1.0.so.0
/lib64/libatk-bridge-2.0.so.0
/lib64/libcairo-gobject.so.2
/lib64/libcairo.so.2
/lib64/libgio-2.0.so.0
/lib64/libglib-2.0.so.0
/lib64/libgmodule-2.0.so.0
/lib64/libgobject-2.0.so.0
/lib64/libgthread-2.0.so.0
/usr/lib64/pipewire-0.3/jack/libjack.so.0
/lib64/libportaudio.so
/tmp/.mount_audaciap3VC7/bin/audacity: /tmp/.mount_audaciap3VC7/lib/libpcre2-8.so.0: no version information available (required by /lib64/libglib-2.0.so.0)
/tmp/.mount_audaciap3VC7/bin/audacity: /tmp/.mount_audaciap3VC7/lib/libselinux.so.1: no version information available (required by /lib64/libgio-2.0.so.0)
/tmp/.mount_audaciap3VC7/bin/audacity: /tmp/.mount_audaciap3VC7/lib/libmount.so.1: version `MOUNT_2_40' not found (required by /lib64/libgio-2.0.so.0)
gitxpresso@fedora44:~$ 

@starfiend
I was able to extract the AppImage and fix some things.
Download the AppImage:
https://github.com/GitXpresso/Audacity-2.3.0_Appimage/releases/download/2.3.0/Audacity-linux-3.3.3-x64.AppImage

Then just run it like you normally would.

Don’t mind the repo not matching the Appimage version

Thank you thank you. It looks like that’s worked.

I did install the i686 binaries and the port-audio-devel, should I revert them back to the x64 versions?

Or would it be best if I did all my conversions from the old format first?

Many many thanks,

Dave

P.s what did you actually do? Not that I’m likely to understand, lol.

In the Extracted AppImage directory AppRun the executable that runs when you do this

./appimage_ex.AppImage

Didn’t have access to the binaries, so i created a symbolic link of audacity executable to AppRun

If you have found a solution, click “Solution” with a “check-mark box icon”