Transcriber can open audio, but plays static

[Theron Muller]

Until very recently, transcriber has been working fine for me, but today while transcriber launches normally and is able to open trs and audio files normally, all files play as static. Sound on my system is otherwise working fine; this appears to be a software specific problem. Here is my system install information:
transcriber:amd64/trusty 1.5.1.1-10

Downloading the newest version of transcriber from Sourceforge leads to the error "Unable to open mixer /dev/mixer" on launch and "Could not gain access to /dev/sound/dsp for writing." when trying to open individual files. . The binary version downloaded from SourceForge is:
Transcriber-1.5.2-Linux

Further system information:
Description: Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS
Release: 14.04

[Theron Muller (theron)]

I have another laptop computer with the exact same configuration which is opening and playing mp3 files fine through transcriber, so this appears to be a configuration problem with this particular PC. A workaround is that transcriber does open and play wav files, so I will convert to those for now. Suggestions on which packages need to be (re)installed to get mp3 file functionality working again would be welcome.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Peter Bulmer (peterb-catalyst)]

ditto this bug report:
mp3 plays static in transcriber,
mp3s playing ok in rest of system,
convert to wav & works in transcriber.

[Peter Bulmer (peterb-catalyst)]

Sorry, some actually potentially useful info:
14.04 64 bit
Intel® Core™ i5-3337U CPU @ 1.80GHz × 4
Linux competer 3.13.0-36-generic #63-Ubuntu SMP Wed Sep 3 21:30:07 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[Giulio Paci (giuliopaci-e)]

It would be also useful to understand if the bug is in transcriber, libsnack or pulseaudio/alsa.
If it is a libsnack (or pulseaudio/alsa) issue it should affect wavesurfer as well.

Can you check it?
Are you using pulseaudio or alsa?