After upgrading to 9.10 k3b had no sound output and failed to produce audio CDs

[barbirolli]

Binary package hint: k3b

I had been using k3b (successfully, and quite frequently) under 8.04 for some time but upgraded to 9.10 last week without using the intermediate distributions. Presumably the k3b version was also advanced at the same time. Both under 8.04 and currently, the programme came from Synaptic Package Manager. This report relates only to audio CD production from pre-existing flac files as I have not tried producing other discs or audio CDs from other sources as yet.

1 Now, there is no sound output. Warnings do not play. There is a 'flag' error message when trying to play them in Settings saying something relating to Phonon does not work, but this soon disappears and I do not recall now what it says. More significant, once files are loaded for burning, it is impossible to play them as before. There is an option on right-clicking each file to play it, but this is greyed out. Checking Settings-Programs to see if any elements were missing, the only one which k3b could find was emovix, that clearly being nothing to do with this problem, which in itself would rule out my using the programme.

2 When attempting to "add silence" to particular tracks, there are also serious problems (a: -clearly a bug-) the silence duration window (by default 2 seconds) does not work. Use of the up and down arrow adjusts the silence by minutes, not seconds. Even if you highlight just the seconds part of the display (by default the whole display is highlighted), the arrows only change the seconds by 1, then subsequent clicks alter the minutes. Trying to edit the figures in the display also does not work. Entering a 30 second silence manually actually gives you three seconds silence. If you wipe out the default display entirely and enter "700", you actually get (for some incomprehensible reason) a 9 second silence added, so by trial and error by using these arbitrary figures you could develop a code to get the silence you want, but this is not a viable practical method. There is exactly the same problem with the counter when trying to edit a track's post gap. (b -possibly not a bug, but a rather stupid programming decision-) once silences have been added (and given the previous difficulty, they are usually the wrong ones) it is now impossible to eliminate or adjust them. Previously, silences appeared separate from the original material in the track, but joined to them rather like two merged tracks, and the silence part could be edited. Now there is no trace of any silence which may have been added as it is simply subsumed into the track.

3 The parts of the Current Projects window devoted to Artist and Title (usually blank as the file I am using do not often have this information when loaded) are too large and are unadjustable, making it initially difficult to identify which intended track is where, since most of the file title is off the edge of the window. There is no bar to move the display across. For some reason, this improves during the assembly of files for a CD as the space allotted to the file title seems to increase with time, though there seems no logic to when or why this happens (it certainly is nothing to do with the length of the file title, though you might expect it to). Again this may be a design fault, but it is extraordinarily annoying.

4 You no longer seem able to re-order tracks. This was not formerly easy, either, but now attempting to do so simply puts a duplicate of the track you select where you want it, leaving the original in place having to be removed manually. This wouldn't be a big problem if the silences could be separated (see above), but any tracks so moved take their silences with them and they are often inappropriate in their new positions, even if they were correct in their old ones.

Unfortunately I am not finished.

5 Previously, flac files were added to a project and having got the order and silences, etc., right, it was a straightforward burn to produce a viable audio CD. Unfortunately, no longer is this so. What you get is an apparently successful burn, and an unreadable disc. While k3b reports success, the computer initially still thinks the burned disc is blank, but if you reload it the player (any of them) reports that the disc contains no audio files, although recognizing the disc as an audio one. It is not recognized as a data disc, either and it is not possible to browse the disc to see what files are on it. I suspect that this may not be a problem unique to k3b.

6 It was at this stage that I noticed that the options to do a dummy burn in k3b and to verify the data recorded seem to have disappeared. If this is supposed to be an improvement I hope there aren't going to be many more design developments.

The sum effect of the above is that I now have to use Audacity manually to add appropriate silences to each track in turn and convert the flac files to CD-type wav files. I then use Brasero ( a much inferior programme) to do the burning.

.

[MichaelCooper (opnewswatch)]

My sound works for awhile then I have to reboot. It just quits working in Ubuntu 9.10

[Rohan Garg (rohangarg)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The issue that you reported is one that should be reproducible with the live environment of the Desktop CD of the development release - Maverick Meerkat. It would help us greatly if you could test with it so we can work on getting it fixed in the next release of Ubuntu. You can find out more about the development release at http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/ . Thanks again and we appreciate your help.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for k3b (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]