no sound from amarok 2 in (ubuntu) jaunty

[Robert Persson]

Binary package hint: amarok

After upgrading to (Ubuntu/Gnome) Jaunty I no longer get any sound from Amarok. I can still hear sounds from other applications, such as Skype and Firefox. When I try to play a track I get the message "playing: [track name]", but there is no movement in the progress bar near the top of the Amarok window.

Following a suggestion on a forum, I have tried installing the phonon xine backend, but that hasn't helped.

[komputes (komputes)]

I can confirm this bug. I have tried installing kubuntu restricted extras, but there is still no output from amarok. Amarok plays the song, but there is no audio output. This seems to affect ogg as well as mp3 files so I doubt it has to do with the codecs.

[Robert Persson (ireneshusband)]

I have switched to using KDE, from where the issue has been easy to solve. The problem is that Amarok now only feeds into the Phonon sound server, which then feeds into whatever Amarok 1 used to feed directly into. So you have to open the appropriate KDE control panel to choose PulseAudio, which means installing and then launching KDE, which is quite a lot of work in order to do something fairly basic.

[teambuilding (teambuilding)]

Thanks Robert,
Would you please be specific about how to: 'open the appropriate KDE control panel'

[luca_ing (luca-ingianni)]

From GNOME, you can run "systemsettings" from a terminal window; this gives you access to the Phonon configuration dialog under Computer Administration / Multimedia.

HTH.

BTW, I'm considering filing a bug, since phonon causes a lot of trouble for me.

Best regards,
Luca

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

I just installed amarok package version 2:2.0.2mysql5.1.30-0ubuntu3 on my Jaunty Ubuntu system and I was unable to recreate this bug report. It'd be useful if you were to execute the command 'apport-collect 368230' in a terminal from a system experiencing this bug. Thanks in advance.

[Robert Persson (ireneshusband)]

Brian, I think the problem is simply one of not having ready access to the Phonon control panel in Gnome. I assume that luca_ing's instructions above will do the job, although I have now switched to KDE as my desktop, so I haven't tested them myself. What I _can_ say is that sound in KDE, including Amarok 2, now work fine for me.

Perhaps the bug could be restated as:
No way to control Phonon settings via the GUI in Gnome.

[dimi (ddhuy)]

Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.04
Package: amarok 2:2.0.2mysql5.1.30-0ubuntu3
PackageArchitecture: amd64
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 LANG=en_AU.UTF-8
Uname: Linux 2.6.28-11-generic x86_64
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout lpadmin plugdev sambashare

[Myriam Schweingruber (myriam)]

Reassigning to Phonon, this is not an Amarok bug. Please, check your sound settings and do not use Pulseaudio combined with Xine, use Alsa instead.

[Robert Persson (ireneshusband)]

Not using Pulseaudio is not an option for most users unless dmix is enabled by default, which it isn't. You need mixing, for instance, to be able to let Skype and KDE applications use the same sound card.

That said, I have rolled back to Amarok 1.4 because of other issues, which means that I am once again routing Xine through Pulseaudio, and I have not encountered any problems with this arrangement. Even when I was using Amarok 2 (i.e. Phonon) in KDE4.2, it was still outputting to Pulseaudio, and I had no problems with that either.

[okio (awesomesaucey)]

Architecture: i386
Dependencies: phonon-backend-gstreamer None [modified: /var/lib/dpkg/info/phonon-backend-gstreamer.list]
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.04
Package: phonon 4:4.3.1-0ubuntu3
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
Uname: Linux 2.6.28-11-generic i686
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout lpadmin plugdev sambashare

[Jesse (sbjesse)]

It seems the order Phonon tries with the sound devices is not very wise, on my machine, it tries (in that order):
1) HDA Intel Analog
    which would fail if Pulse is using it;
2) Intel HDMI
    which doesn't even report a failure but is always silent
3) PulseAudio
    The most sane choice. But due to 2, it's not gonna be attempted

I worked around the problem by installing systemsettings, and changed the preferred device in "Multimedia" to PulseAudio.

Eh, how messy

[AdrianJ (ajasax)]

Installing systemsettings then changing the preferred order so that OSS is on top worked for me. Sound coming through clearly in Amarok2 finally.

[Isaac Dupree (idupree)]

(Robert Persson, how did you roll-back to Amarok 1.4? I'd like to do so at least until Jaunty+1; for various other reasons, 2.0 is not quite up to snuff for me)

luca_ing's workaround did work for me to fix Amarok and JuK in GNOME Jaunty. Is it feasible for Ubuntu to set Phonon to default to PulseAudio as most-preferred, because Ubuntu does, after all, try to be a PulseAudio system? (Is that correct?--does Kubuntu also use PulseAudio?)

[Isaac Dupree (idupree)]

er, on the minus side, this "fix" made MPlayer, Fish Fillets (a game with music), etc., completely unresponsive and unable to play music while I'm playing music with JuK... hmm.

[Fabián Rodríguez (magicfab)]

We're not able to reproduce this with an updated Amarok. Can anyone confirm this is still happening from a clean install + updates ? We'll try & check changelogs.

[komputes (komputes)]

Marked is Invalid as we are no longer able to reproduce this bug recently. The following are the dependencies for amarok which have been updated since Jaunty's release:

libgl1-mesa-glx | 7.4-0ubuntu3.1 | http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main Packages
libqt4-dbus | 4.5.0-0ubuntu4.1 | http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main Packages
libqt4-network | 4.5.0-0ubuntu4.1 | http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main Packages
libqt4-opengl | 4.5.0-0ubuntu4.1 | http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main Packages
libqt4-script | 4.5.0-0ubuntu4.1 | http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main Packages
libqt4-sql | 4.5.0-0ubuntu4.1 | http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main Packages
libqt4-svg | 4.5.0-0ubuntu4.1 | http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main Packages
libqt4-test | 4.5.0-0ubuntu4.1 | http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main Packages
libqt4-webkit | 4.5.0-0ubuntu4.1 | http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main Packages
libqt4-xml | 4.5.0-0ubuntu4.1 | http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main Packages
libqtcore4 | 4.5.0-0ubuntu4.1 | http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main Packages
libqtgui4 | 4.5.0-0ubuntu4.1 | http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main Packages

Please re-open this bug (by marking it "New") if you have an issue playing audio files in Amarok, on the gnome desktop - as long as it is not an MP3 codec issue - please test .ogg audio file before reopening.

[Isaac Dupree (idupree)]

for interested ubuntu-users: I finally found out how to get Amarok 1.4 back on Jaunty:
http://nomad.ca/blog/2009/apr/3/amarok-14-jaunty-ubuntu-904/

[Portable-Jim (christian-chess-geek)]

Thanks luca_ing (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/phonon/+bug/368230/comments/4). This got my amarok 2 running again.

System: Ubuntu 9.04 amd64
Amarok: Version 2.0.2

[OptimusHippo (6-launchpad-tinku-net)]

I had a problem getting sound working using Ubuntu (no KDE installed) and the following two actions fixed it.

1. installed phonon-backend-xine
2. removed phonondevicesrc from ~/.kde/share/config

[erani (erani-mail)]

changing the playback engine for phonon from xine to gstreamer resolv my problem