Playback freezes when playing ogg files

[Eamonn Sullivan]

Binary package hint: rhythmbox

I'm playing a mix of mp3, aac and ogg files, with rhythmbox set to shuffle the songs. Since the last update-manager run (last night), rhythmbox will appear to become "stuck" when it finishes playing an mp3 file and tries to start an ogg file. (The play button is active, but the slider showing progress through the file is stuck at the beginning and the music isn't playing.) Oddly, if I quit Rhythmbox and then navigate to the problematic file, it plays fine. This only seems to happen during the transition from mp3 (or maybe aac too, but I have very few of those) and ogg.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Tue Oct 20 13:18:41 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/rhythmbox
NonfreeKernelModules: wl
Package: rhythmbox 0.12.5-0ubuntu4
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.48-generic
SourcePackage: rhythmbox
Tags: ubuntu-unr
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic i686

[Eamonn Sullivan (eamonn-sullivan)]

This just happened to me again when moving from mp3 to an m4a (aac) file, so it isn't just ogg. The file wouldn't start playing. However, clicking Next (Alt+Right) and then Previous (Alt+Left) worked. The file started playing when I jumped back to it.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report. The issue is an upstream one and it would be nice if somebody having it could send the bug the to the people writting the software (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/GNOME)

[Eamonn Sullivan (eamonn-sullivan)]

Thanks. I found a similar report already entered upstream (albeit not acted on since August):

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=591024

Is there an easy way to upload all of the attachments here upstream?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for looking to the GNOME bug tracker, there is no easy way to copy files between bug trackers no

[David Huggins-Daines (dhuggins)]

Hi ... I'm affected by this too. It definitely happens repeatably when switching from mp3 to ogg. It seems to pause for about 5-6 minutes and then start up again.

I added a sequence of mp3, ogg, speex, and aac to my play queue and captured rhythmbox's debug output. Here are the relevant parts from when I start playing (the gory details of loading my music library have been redacted). You can see the difference between when the track switches and when it actually starts playing by looking at the tick_cb messages - they show the same stream position for a long time, then finally switch. I've edited the file so this is more obvious.

As expected it also pauses when switching to speex and aac. It seems like the pause gets longer each time.

The question is ... is this a rhythmbox or a gstreamer bug? I believe I noticed similar behaviour in totem recently too.

[David Huggins-Daines (dhuggins)]

Yes. Totem does this too. You can easily reproduce this, just drag an ogg and an mp3 file into the playlist pane and hit play. Totem will pause in "Playing" state once it switches to the mp3.

[Eamonn Sullivan (eamonn-sullivan)]

This only started happening to me in the last couple of days. Maybe there was a recent change to gstreamer that can be rolled back, at least until the issue is fixed upstream?

[David Huggins-Daines (dhuggins)]

likewise I think it started yesterday for me. it looks like the most recently updated gstreamer package is gst-plugins-good0.10, from Monday:

gst-plugins-good0.10 (0.10.16-1ubuntu3) karmic; urgency=low

  * backported debian change:
  * debian/patches/000{1,2}-equalizer*.patch:
    + Patches from upstream GIT to fix equalizer in stereo mode and
      to use better filters for the first and last band.
  * debian/patches/00[1-20]-pulse*.patch:
    + Patches from upstream GIT to improve PulseAudio plugin and fix
      some major issues, like decreasing the volume after every track
      in some cases.
  * debian/patches/70_latency_update_returns_null.patch:
    - the change is in the new version

 -- Sebastien Bacher <email address hidden> Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:31:24 +0200

This seems like it might be the place to look, particularly the pulseaudio stuff?

[David Huggins-Daines (dhuggins)]

Yup, as expected, downgrading gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio to 0.10.16-1ubuntu2 fixes the problem for me. That package is still available at http://mirrors.acm.jhu.edu/ubuntu/pool/main/g/gst-plugins-good0.10/gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio_0.10.16-1ubuntu2_amd64.deb for the time being

[Eamonn Sullivan (eamonn-sullivan)]

This seems to be the most related upstream bug:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=597203

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

is your issue bug #456016?

[Eamonn Sullivan (eamonn-sullivan)]

Could be. You say in that ticket that it's already uploaded to Karmic. Does that mean I'll get it soon via a normal update or do you need me to try the PPA?

[David Huggins-Daines (dhuggins)]

Hi! The gstreamer packages from the PPA seem to fix this issue for me. Thanks!

[Eamonn Sullivan (eamonn-sullivan)]

I've installed the PPA and, yes, it does appear to solve the issue. Thanks! Can we close this now?