[grc] Audacity on Catalina - workaround to record

[Frieda Werden]

Audacity under macOS 10.15 Catalina
<https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?t=107162#p378694>

Post
<https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?p=378694&sid=1e834d154e5efca74e8117c599db22e6#p378694>
 by waxcylinder
<https://forum.audacityteam.org/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=83&sid=1e834d154e5efca74e8117c599db22e6>
 » Fri Oct 11, 2019 2:40 pm
In early October Apple released its latest operating system 10.15.x known
as Catalina.

Audacity is not officially supported yet to run under Catalina. It appears
to launch and run fine but it fails to record from the microphone (or
external USB device) yielding only a flat-line silent recording. This is a
permissions issue regarding access to the microphone (recording input) and
something which we need to explore further.

Fortunately there is a workaround ...

if you have updated to Catalina and still need to use Audacity for
recording as well as all its other functionality:

1) Go to Applications > Utilities

2) Launch Terminal.app

3) in the Terminal dialog type the following command following command:
open /Applications/Audacity.app/Contents/MacOS/Audacity

This will open Audacity and then Terminal will actually ask for the correct
permissions.

this assume that Audacity is stored in your Applications folder. If it is
somewhere else, you will need to change the path in the above command:
open /*location of audacity*/Audacity.app/Contents/MacOS/Audacity

When you first try to record, you will be asked to grant access to the
microphone - *similar happened in 1.14 Mojave - but microphone access
permissions granted in Mojave do not pass through to Catalina*. Once you
have granted this access in Catalina you should not be asked for it again
when relaunching Audacity with this workaround method.

If you leave Audacity active (black dot) in the bottom dock you can just
relaunch from the Audacity logo.

If you totally quit Audacity you will need to relaunch from the Terminal
app again every time.



I have tested this workaround on my MacBook Pro after upgrading to 1.15
Catalina last night - where it now records properly by launching from
Terminal.






*Finally: credit for providing this useful workaround must go to Forum user
noraa - very much appreciated, thanks Noraa.-- Frieda Werden, Series
ProducerWINGS: Women's International News Gathering Service www.wings.org
<http://www.wings.org>*