Amarok will not play MP3

[banjo]

I am using Mandriva 2010.2 installed from the One CD. When I open an MP3 file on the web it defaults to using Amarok to play the file. No sound comes out.

 

I have installed the phonon-xine packages, and that system is chosen as the backend in the KDE 4 desktop configuration.

 

Audacity has no problems playing the MP3 files, and Kaffeine also plays them OK. However with Amarok there is no sound.

 

Strange, that.

 

Oh, and every time I run Amarok, the KDE Wallet annoyance pops up. I do not want to use the KDE Wallet, so if somebody could tell me how to rid myself of that annoyance, please.....

 

Thanks,

Banjo

(_)=='=~

 

Edit: I changed the MP3 file association to Kaffeine, and I can now download and play MP3 files from the internet... but I am still curious about why Amarok can't play them.

Edited June 7, 2011 by banjo

[banjo]

Well I have bailed out on Amarok. I have tried both back ends, Xine and gstreamer, and all Amarok will do is pop up a dialog box saying that I do not have the proper codecs to play MP3 files and then it links me to the Fluendo site where I can buy them.

 

That is odd since both Audacity and Kaffeine can play my MP3 files just fine with what I have loaded from the repositories.

 

So Amarok is putting SPAM in the app now? How Windows-esque!

 

So far, since I have installed Mandriva 2010.2 I have had to bail out on the following KDE apps:

 

Kmail - the address book just does not work. It will not even run, posting cryptic error messages about some networking app daemon that is not hooked up right or something. I do not want to network my address book to my "friends". What are they thinking? I am now using Thunderbird, which works fine.... including the address book.

 

Quanta Plus - which is just not there. I installed kdewebdev, and there is no Quanta in it. I have been using it for years because of the upload manager, which makes it easy to upload just the files I have added and/or changed. I am now using Bluefish, and I will write my own upload manager to replace the one in Quanta.

 

Amarok - which does not work without dropping some additional coin at their favorite vendor site. I will just use Kaffeine, which works fine.

 

One wonders where KDE has gone with version 4.

 

I am starting a search to find a complete set of apps that are not integrated into KDE in any way ( or into Gnome either for that matter ) in order to break free of relying on apps that change/disappear/SPAM me/crash/stop working at random times.

 

Banjo

(_)=='=~

[banjo]

Quick update to this thread.

 

I installed VLC from the repositories. It works fine and plays my MP3 files just fine. And there is a skinnable version with skins available out at VideoLAN.

 

VLC Skins

 

It brings back the good old days when Winamp first came out with their skinnable player.

 

Banjo

(_)=='=~

[ianw1974]

Ubuntu had something similar, that when you tried to play something in Totem or similar it would say that there is no codec and offer that you can install from Fluendo or the free codecs. I guess something here with yours is just offering the Fluendo codec and not the alternative. Haven't used Amarok for years, but could find out what codecs it's attempting to use (maybe gstreamer) and install the appropriate ones and see if it works.

[banjo]

The Amarok dialog box did mention the "free" codecs, but with a little red X on them, implying that you do not want to use that crappy freeware.... and there was no link on the dialog to go get those free codecs and use them. The only link was to the Fluendo site. LOL.

 

Nice marketing.

 

I tried gstreamer as the back end with the same results.

 

I installed VLC, which can play my MP3 files and videos. It is a nice player with some interesting skins, but when I try to remove anything from the playlist it locks up in a DO loop and won't come out, eating 100% of my CPU. I have to kill the process to make it stop. I could not discover how to play anything but the whole playlist, which would be a downer if the playlist can only grow. The joys of software. I will investigate further, but it might be another no go.

 

What media player do you use?

 

Banjo

(_)=='=~

[ianw1974]

I use VLC mostly :) sometimes totem.

[banjo]

Thanks for the info.

 

I will see if I can find a workaround for the DO loop issue with VLC. Perhaps I did something stupid.... it was pretty late when I tried it.

 

Banjo

(_)=='=~

[banjo]

I have spent some time fooling around with VLC and found out that the hangup when deleting media from the playlist only happens when I use the skinnable version. When I use the plain old VLC it works fine. So that is my player for now. I will probably still use Kaffeine as well, but I now have a backup.

 

Banjo

(_)=='=~

[daniewicz]

Hmmm.

 

I use Mandriva 2010.2 and Amarok plays mp3s without issue. I still think you may have repository issues.

 

With regard to KDE Wallet, this can be disabled:

Configure Your Desktop

Advanced

KDE Wallet

deselect Enable the KDE Wallet Subsystem

[banjo]

Thanks for the direction on getting rid of the wallet.

 

I don't know about the repositories. I did a plain vanilla installation onto a new disk using the Mandriva 2010.2 One CD. After the installation I had it do all of the updates. Then I installed my apps from the repositories. I am hooked up to the following repositories:

 

Main

Main Updates

Contrib

Contrib Updates

Non-free

Non-free Updates

PLF Free

PLF Non-free

 

I do not know which mirrors it is looking at. I presume that it left me pointing to the proper 2010.2 repositories. I says it is hooked to $MIRRORLIST

 

Is there more to it than that?

 

When I play the MP3 file, the Amarok sliding bar indicates that it is reading the file, but no sound comes out.

 

When I play the same files with VLC, Audacity, and Kaffeine, I get sound.

 

Banjo

(_)=='=~

[daniewicz]

Delete your current repositories and using Easy URPMI select "Switch to manual mirror selection (not recommended)". Pick a mirror and try it.

 

Maybe this will help?

[dexter11]

When I play the MP3 file, the Amarok sliding bar indicates that it is reading the file, but no sound comes out.

Are you sure it's a codec issue? If there's no codec then the player is not reading the file hence the sliding bar shouldn't move.

Did you check if the sound is right e.g. Amarok is not muted? Or that it's using the sound system your other apps are using? You can check those by simply playing a file format other than mp3.

[banjo]

I did check that it is not muted. I toggled the mute on and off with no effect.

 

I did not think to check another sound source. I will do that.

 

I am not sure how to tell what sound system Amarok is using. From a hardware standpoint, there is only one sound system on the computer, a system that is embedded on the Mother board.

 

I might have had my USB sound dongle hooked up when I installed the OS, I don't remember. I had to replace the MOBO when I had Mandy 2008.1 on the computer, and 2008 could not see the on-board sound system. So I had purchased a simple Rosewill USB card and I was using that. The Mandy 2010.2 sees my on-board sound system fine, so I have put the USB card in the drawer. I don't remember if it was hooked up when I installed the OS or not.

 

All of the other media applications are using the on-board sound.

 

Thanks for the tip.

Banjo

(_)=='=~

 

Edit: I attempted to play a .wav file with Amarok and got no sound. So something else is wrong besides the codecs. VLC plays the same .wav file OK. I cannot find any setup parameters to indicate what backend Amarok is using. The desktop configure tool has a setting for all the sound apps, and I have already tried that with no change.

 

Another update: Just for grins I plugged in my Roswill USB card to see if that would work. The light came on. The device was seen by USB:

 

%cat /proc/bus/usb/devices

T:  Bus=04 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=00 Cnt=01 Dev#=  4 Spd=12  MxCh= 0
D:  Ver= 1.10 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS= 8 #Cfgs=  1
P:  Vendor=0d8c ProdID=0103 Rev= 0.10
S:  Manufacturer=C-Media INC.
S:  Product=USB Sound Device        
C:* #Ifs= 2 Cfg#= 1 Atr=80 MxPwr=500mA
I:* If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 0 Cls=01(audio) Sub=01 Prot=00 Driver=snd-sb-audio
I:* If#= 1 Alt= 0 #EPs= 0 Cls=01(audio) Sub=02 Prot=00 Driver=snd-sb-audio
I:  If#= 1 Alt= 1 #EPs= 1 Cls=01(audio) Sub=02 Prot=00 Driver=snd-sb-audio
E:  Ad=06(O) Atr=09(Isoc) MxPS= 192 Ivl=1ms

 

I plugged my headphones into the USB card. No sound. No sound from VLC on that device either. VLC still plays through the on-board sound.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Edited June 12, 2011 by banjo