Rhythmbox keeps trying to install codecs

[Ingo Gerth]

Binary package hint: rhythmbox

The basic behaviour of this bug is, that rhyhtmbox generally asks me "Search for suitable codecs?" although I had previously installed them through rhythmbox. I can even play the songs the codecs are tried to installed for.
Moreover, if I click on "search", after the search is completed, the new window reports "There is no matching application available."
Well, obviously there is not, since I have installed the codecs before.

[Chris Roddy (cmr)]

additionally this error is very annoying for those of us that store things in our music libraries that are in codecs that are unsupportable at the moment. it's the right place to keep those music files, but the codec search is never going to succeed. at the least there ought to be a way to suppress this permanently.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Is this reproducible with another new user created on your system? May you tell us a few easy steps in order to reproduce that behavior? thanks in advance.

[Ingo Gerth (igerth)]

I have studied the behaviour of this bug in the recent days, and found out that this does not seem to be a problem directly resulting from a problem with Rhythmbox.
It occurs, because everytime I start Rhythmbox, it keeps reindexing certain files, which can't be imported at all. They are listed under "Import Errors" and deleted again when I close Ryhthmbox, while indexed again when I restart it. That is why this message box (although I don't try to start such a errenous song at all) is displayed all the time.
Actually I'm not content with that behaviour, because it keeps my externahl hard drive, on which I store my music, busy all the time and thereby stresses it extremely, shortening its lifetime.

[Alex Mauer (hawke)]

Pedro: I ran into this problem by placing a .tar.bz2 file in my Rhythmbox "library" location.

Ingo: If I understand correctly (I am also affected by this bug), it /is/ a problem with Rhythmbox, because it doesn't keep track of which files (or file types) have been seen before, and for which a codec search has been performed. I currently have two files in the library with import errors. One of them is a tar.bz2, and the import error says "The GStreamer plugins to decode "Bzip archive" files cannot be found. The other is a wpl (Windows [Media Player] Play List), and the import error is the same, except about "SMIL document" files. The bz2 file causes the error to pop up every time RB is started; the wpl file does not.

IMO there are two fixes for this:
1a. Keep track across sessions of all files in the library, regardless of whether they're playable. Only offer to search for a codec if/when new files are found.
1b. Keep track of what file types have had a codec search performed. Remember results for each file type, so RB doesn't keep prompting for the same files/file types repeatedly.
2. In either case, allow the user to manually initiate a new codec search via a right-click on the "Import Errors" entry.

[Alex Mauer (hawke)]

Confirmed, I have encountered this bug as well. I have added information on how I was able to duplicate the problem.

[Ingo Gerth (igerth)]

If you see it like that, you are right Alex.
I think it should be fixed, too, and I believe that more people than one could imagine run into this problem, since virtually everybody who has migrated from Windows to Linux will have incompatible file formats stored in his library folders.

[ralphmerridew (ralphmerridew)]

I've found something weird:

On any run of Rhythmbox, the first time I try to play a midi file, it plays fine. The second time (whether I replay the same file or a different one), it brings up the codec search box, and it won't play.

Each time I restart Rb, I can play one midi.

[teledyn (garym-teledyn)]

this behaviour is new since upgrading to Ubuntu 8.04; on each restart it tells me that SOME FILE has an unknown codec, but it does not identify that file nor does it find the missing codec. Very annoying. I have not added any files since before the upgrade, so the prior behaviour must have either been to ignore the errant file, or, is it possible, the previous Ubuntu editions HAD this codec?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

there is a similar request on http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=537113

[Endolith (endolith)]

Any workarounds for this? It's very annoying.

[teledyn (garym-teledyn)]

on the topic of work-arounds, here's the codec I'm asked to install (from .xsession-errors

Rhythmbox-Message: Missing plugin: gstreamer|0.10|rhythmbox-metadata|audio/x-gst-fourcc-QDMC decoder|decoder-audio/x-gst-fourcc-QDMC (ignoring)

I searched the ubuntu aptitude for what seemed the key parts of that message, but I cannot find a match beyond cfourcc, which does not seem likely to fix the error. How does one translate from these messages to knowing the particular gstreamer codec package being requested?

[Ingo Gerth (igerth)]

Yes there is a workaround. Move the songs the codecs are asked for to folder that is not included in your library.

[teledyn (garym-teledyn)]

HA! That's hilarious, Ingo.

Now, do tell: just how does one discover WHICH files those might be? :)

[Ingo Gerth (igerth)]

Haha, to some extent you are right ;-).
BUT: For me this worked, because I could easily locate the files through the panel on the left. The files were listed under the "Errors" tab.

[ralphmerridew (ralphmerridew)]

How about the "Rhythmbox can play midis once" behavior? What's with that?

[Jgonick (jgonick)]

You can always uncheck EDIT/PREFERENCES/MUSIC(tab) / "watch my library for new files" for a quick workaround. It stops the "searching of codecs". Of course if you add new music you will need to recheck it once , but then turn it back off. At least it stops the searching for codecs every time...

[slibuntu (stuohy1)]

Having a similar problem, pretty annoying. It really should just ignore files it knows it cannot play, or find a codec for, like if you do the search once and there is nothing, ignore from then onwards.

[Kẏra (thekyriarchy)]

Why is this low priority? This will annoy the hell out of any user. Is it that uncommon to have an unsuported file in your music library? Everytime i start rhythbox i am bombarded with around 10 of these windows. >,<

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the issue is an annoyance but not destroying any data or a security issue and not so many users seems to have such files in their library

[Kẏra (thekyriarchy)]

isn't this a problem with something thinking that certain non-media files are media files?

[Milan Bouchet-Valat (nalimilan)]

I guess so. See upstream report - there's more work needed than a little fix, as you would have to detect non-media files, remember what files were asked for, and search for codecs in the background...

[Evgeny Kuznetsov (nekr0z)]

I'm really surprised this bug has low priority. Having a *.txt file somewhere in the library I have to tell Rhythmbox not to try finding a codec for text/html every time I start it — is that sane? I mean, every time I start Rhythmbox I'm presented with annoying evidence that this piece of software is so poorly designed it can't tell media files from text!

For me, this behaviour was introduced after upgrade to Jaunty Alpha, in Intrepid Rhythmbox is clever enough not to try playing text files, archives or spreadsheets. I don't even try to imagine the number of annoyed users once Jaunty is released...

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

gstreamer and rhythmbox know how to filter txt files and don't ask for codecs for those, if you have a such issue that's a new and different bug and you should file a new bug with an example

[Evgeny Kuznetsov (nekr0z)]

Thank you for your answer, Sebastien. By now I have noticed that only one *.txt file of all that happen to be in my library folder causes Rhythmbox to search for a codec. I have reported a separate bug #343707 on this.

[raintheory (raintheory)]

I can confirm this bug... Quite annoying. I've switched off "Watch my Library for new files" and we'll see what happens. It's a workaround until this gets straightened out at least.

[Sean Talbot (sean-talbot)]

Confirming here too.

[Bernard_Ivo (bernard-abv)]

Hi, I have the same problem for a few days already. In my case I do have some text files - .txt, .nfo, .doc, but it looks the problem may be caused by .NTF file
GStreamer error: failed to change state
and I got this annoying codec search.
Actually I can't see what codec is searching for.

For the text files in Import Errors section I get: The MIME type of the file could not be identified - which is fine with me since it does not bother me with requests to do something which I shouldn't .

[Id2ndR (id2ndr)]

Seems that it doesn't occurred anymore since rhythmbox 0.12.0-0ubuntu4 on jaunty. Can anyone else confirm this ?

[erusan (erusan)]

ld2ndR, I am still having this problem (re-indexing files with errors on every startup) with the package version you listed.

Would be nice not only to have Rhythmbox remember which files have no suitable codecs, but to have an option to disable the codec search completely.

[Erdal Ronahi (erdalronahi)]

I also have this problem on Jaunty, with all the latest updated of 2009-04-15.

[ross (ross-rossmoore)]

I can also confirm this problem in Jaunty Release Candidate.
I can also confirm it is very annoying, as a dual-booter - although (on an unrelated topic) I love the improved Januty boot speed.

[Sean Welton (spwelton)]

I can also confirm on a fully up-to-date Jaunty installation. It keeps asking me to search for a Windows Media Audio codec, then fails to find one.

It does, however, play WMA files without issue... Leading me to believe it is not properly detecting a codec that actually is there.

Sean

[aberadam (raspencer)]

Same problem to you guys. Files coming up in error side panel are .nfo, .url, txt. Rbox is continually searching even after cancel as well, as if new music is in there.

Something to do with ext4? I have no idea, not a technical user.

[aberadam (raspencer)]

Oh, I get other non-music file types coming up as well, html, rtf, m3u.

Can't install the packages it asks for.

[Ibai Oihanguren Sala (ibai-oihanguren)]

I have the same problem, with .sit files, and tries to install codecs every time.

[Jerson (jerson)]

I had the same problem with one .url file. I deleted it. That fixed the problem.
Ubuntu 9.04 64 bit.

[netcyrax (netcyrax)]

Confirmed here too. Ubuntu 9.10 32-bit edition.. Deleting the unsupported files, not a solution!

[Evgeny Kuznetsov (nekr0z)]

netcyrax, in this case unsupported files are actually broken ones, so deleting them effectively is a solution. One of the troubles is, what Rhythmbox reports is so obscure that it's hard to tell what's wrong.

[Leonardo Paternotte (chaser-nl)]

it should just skip file types it can not play.
i.e. *.nfo *.jpg *.m3u *.pls *.txt

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

> it should just skip file types it can not play.

it does that but using the file type detection and not the naming only and there is some buggy cases which are listed incorrectly and trigger the bug

[erlguta (gonzalomarcote)]

I don't understand nothing.
I have one PC with Jaunty desktop x86 installed with this bug, and one Netbook with netbook-remix-i386 Jaunty edition installed who haves not this problem.
Ironically the Music folder is the same!!...with the same files...because it is shared in both machines by NFS protocol.

[sanktnelson (launchpad-maibaums)]

really annoying. I set rhythmbox to use my standard mp3 directory for its database, since I don't want the files taking up space twice. It asks me several times if it should download codecs while it scans the directory for new files. I can't turn it off and I can't identify the offending files, at least one of the two should be possible. until then: rhythmbox -> useless.

[vak (khamenya)]

any updates?

[audunpoi (audun-didgeridoo)]

Since it's mentioned that not many users have this problem I'm jumping off the fence. This is really annoying. Ubuntu Jaunty and Rhythmbox 0.12.0

[sanktnelson (launchpad-maibaums)]

Here's a radical idea: since nobody seems to be doing anything about this, and since I've never had a use for that codec installation thing in _any_ program, I just got rid of it completely:

sudo rm /usr/bin/gstreamer-codec-install

There. Problem solved.

:)

[Wander Nauta (info-wandernauta-deactivatedaccount)]

Does that hack sustain upgrades?
If not, can you try something with xargs for me?

[Milan Bouchet-Valat (nalimilan)]

There work going on upstream. They plan to fix this in some release soon, which should hopefully be in Karmic. See for example (already old):
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/rhythmbox-devel/2009-March/msg00081.html
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/rhythmbox-devel/2009-May/msg00037.html

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the bug has been fixed upstream now

[Martin Mai (mrkanister-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

This is now fixed in karmic. Thanks for reporting.

[eris23 (jdkatz23)]

bug still in rhythmbox 0.12.3-1ubuntu1 (the current version) in karmic

asks for ID3 tag demuxer (once), Windows Media Audio decoder (several times), Windows Media Audio 9 decoder; then apport shows rhythmbox crash -- but rhythmbox keeps running without overt problems

[Martin Mai (mrkanister-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

eris23, could you attach some of these files you are having issues with to the upstream bug at http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=537113 so that they have some test files? Attached to this bug report would also be ok. Thanks in advance.

[Martin Mai (mrkanister-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

Karmic now ships with rhythmbox 0.12.5. Can you check if this is still an issue? Thanks in advance.

[eris23 (jdkatz23)]

rhythmbox Version: 0.12.5-0ubuntu1
still tries to install:
ID3 tag demuxer
Windows Media Audio decoder (multiple times)
Windows Media Audio 9 decoder

gst-inspect |grep wma shows:
typefindfunctions: video/x-ms-asf: wmv, wma, wm, asf
ffmpeg: ffenc_wmav1: FFmpeg Windows Media Audio 1 encoder
ffmpeg: ffenc_wmav2: FFmpeg Windows Media Audio 2 encoder
ffmpeg: ffdec_wmav1: FFmpeg Windows Media Audio 1 decoder
ffmpeg: ffdec_wmav2: FFmpeg Windows Media Audio 2 decoder

gst-inspect |grep id3 shows:
typefindfunctions: application/x-id3v1: tta, flac, ogg, mpga, mp1, mp2, mp3
typefindfunctions: application/x-id3v2: tta, flac, ogg, mpga, mp1, mp2, mp3
taglib: id3v2mux: TagLib-based ID3v2 Muxer
id3demux: id3demux: ID3 tag demuxer
id3tag: id3mux: ID3 v1 and v2 Muxer

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the issue described there is fixed if people still have issues in karmic they should open new bugs rather

[Tjawi (tjawi)]

Rhythm keep asking me to install Windows Media Audio decoder also.

I did this (below), and it works.
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

reference:
http://www.ubun2.com/question/205/how_play_wmv_wma_format_video_files_linux

[eris23 (jdkatz23)]

I have ubuntu-restricted-extras installed, but still have the problem.

[Tjawi (tjawi)]

Opps, I am sorry. After several trial, I realized that the Rhythm still asks for Windows Media Audio (when I scan a new folder (of songs).

The method I posted above did not help, at least not in my case. :(

[maxstirner (philipp-d)]

Got this in Karmic as well, rhythmboy 0.12.5.. is there really no workaround to just stop it triggering the codec install thingie?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

You should open anew bug about karmic issues

[Milan Bouchet-Valat (nalimilan)]

I've already reported that upstream on the same bug, and the problem is that with some corrupt MP3 files, GStreamer searches for an ID3 tag demuxer. This is apparently fixed using decodebin2, but Rhythmbox has not switched to it yet. We can continue to track this on bug 343707, and let this one alone.

[sanktnelson (launchpad-maibaums)]

Why is it so hard to just give the option of completely disabling the
stupid codec search? Or at least display the offending files? Either one
would be fine, at least in the latter case I could fix the offending file.

[Bernt (bernt-hullen)]

My workaround for this bug
(a little bit like the suggestion from sanktnelson)

sudo mv /usr/bin/gstreamer-codec-install /usr/bin/gstreamer-codec-install_dosnt_work

[Alexey Osipov (lion-simba)]

Still happens on Karmic.

Thanks for the solution, Bernt.

[Kahn10 (conalbuckley)]

Thanks Bernt, that was driving me batty, your workaround works as well as I need it to.

[rubo77 (rubo77)]

i have the same problem.
and since i have about 25.000 songs in my library, i don#t want to move hundredt of wma files elsewhere.

the workaround
sudo mv /usr/bin/gstreamer-codec-install /usr/bin/gstreamer-codec-install_
works for now, but i hope there will be a solution soon:
1. a hook, not to search for codecs
or
2. display the file, that creates the error.

[rubo77 (rubo77)]

since the file is a link:
/usr/bin/gstreamer-codec-install -> /etc/alternatives/gstreamer-codec-install
and
/etc/alternatives/gstreamer-codec-install -> /usr/bin/gnome-codec-install

so i did
mv /usr/bin/gnome-codec-install /usr/bin/gnome-codec-install_

[knarf (launchpad-ubuntu-f)]

Instead of fiddling with filenames you can just purge the gnome-codec-install package:

sudo dpkg -P gnome-codec-install

or

sudo apt-get autoremove --purge gnome-codec-install

[Diego Xirinachs (fishbone.beat)]

Bug still present in Karmic with Rhythmbox 0.12.7,

thanks knarf, your workaround worked like a charm.

[Ingo Gerth (igerth)]

Well it also occurs to me in Lucid.

[lizardmenke (lizardmenke)]

In Lucid Rhythmbox keeps asking me to install an extra codec as well (wma) But it never finds it....
Allthough it plays .wma fine.

[eris23 (jdkatz23)]

Bug still present in Maverick with Rhythmbox 0.12.8-1ubuntu3

[rubo77 (rubo77)]

Bug still present in Lucid.

but thanks knarf!
this worked for me:

sudo apt-get autoremove --purge gnome-codec-install

no complains, although rhythmbox still plays wma files.
i guess if you want to play a file with a new codec now, you have to reinstall the packet first:
sudo apt-get install gnome-codec-install

[David Glanzman (davidglanzman)]

I had this bug, here is the workaround I used

1. Go to the import errors tab, select all, right click, select "remove from library"

2. go to Edit > Preferences > Music and deselect "watch my library for new files"

This means you have to manually add new files, but it's much less annoying than the origional bug.