Audacity hangs while starting

[Daniel]

My system is an up-to-date Xubuntu 20.04.2 LTS

When I try to start audacity, it just never shows the UI. The process hangs forever without using CPU or other system resources. The line from `top` looks like this:

    PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
  52059 me 20 0 221800 51444 43524 S 0.0 0.3 0:00.08 audacity

When running from console, I see the following messages:

(Audacity:52059): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 02:34:55.618: cannot register existing type 'GdkDisplayManager'
(Audacity:52059): GLib-CRITICAL **: 02:34:55.618: g_once_init_leave: assertion 'result != 0' failed
(Audacity:52059): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 02:34:55.618: g_object_new_with_properties: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_OBJECT (object_type)' failed
(Audacity:52059): Gnome-WARNING **: 02:34:55.641: Accessibility: failed to find module 'libgail-gnome' which is needed to make this application accessible
(Audacity:52059): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 02:34:55.643: cannot register existing type 'GtkWidget'
(Audacity:52059): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 02:34:55.643: g_type_add_interface_static: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_INSTANTIATABLE (instance_type)' failed
(Audacity:52059): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 02:34:55.643: cannot register existing type 'GtkBuildable'
(Audacity:52059): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 02:34:55.643: g_type_interface_add_prerequisite: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_INTERFACE (interface_type)' failed
(Audacity:52059): GLib-CRITICAL **: 02:34:55.643: g_once_init_leave: assertion 'result != 0' failed
(Audacity:52059): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 02:34:55.643: g_type_add_interface_static: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_INSTANTIATABLE (instance_type)' failed
(Audacity:52059): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 02:34:55.643: g_type_register_static: assertion 'parent_type > 0' failed

I already removed all audacity files (config etc) from my home directory, and I checked there is nothing about audacity in /etc/.

I also checked using strace what's going on behind the scenes, but I didn't find anything that looked like the usual causes (file not found, directory missing, access denied)

Last time when I used audacity it worked fine. I think that was ~April 2020, likely before upgrading ubuntu to 20.04.

My setup:

$ dpkg -l | grep audacity
ii audacity 2.3.3-1build1 amd64 fast, cross-platform audio editor
ii audacity-data 2.3.3-1build1 all fast, cross-platform audio editor (data)

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS
Release: 20.04
Codename: focal

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
Package: audacity 2.3.3-1build1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.4.0-65.73-generic 5.4.78
Uname: Linux 5.4.0-65-generic x86_64
AlsaCards:
 0 [HDMI ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel HDMI
                       HDA Intel HDMI at 0xf7d14000 irq 34
  1 [PCH ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel PCH
                       HDA Intel PCH at 0xf7d10000 irq 35
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu27.16
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
CurrentDesktop: XFCE
Date: Wed Feb 17 02:35:26 2021
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/audacity
SourcePackage: audacity
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to focal on 2020-05-17 (275 days ago)