rhythmbox crash when managing podcast ipod after Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

[Joseph Lapp]

After upgrading to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS two days ago rhythmbox can no longer manage podcast files on an ipod. Attempting to remove files causes the program to crash. Adding files to the ipod does not show in rhythmbox immediately, but attempting to re-add causes multiple duplicate instances on the ipod. This bug does not seem to affect music files for whatever reason.

System Log from crash: http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=DSEzBebB

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: rhythmbox 2.96-0ubuntu4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-24.37-generic 3.2.14
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-24-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu7
Architecture: amd64
Date: Tue May 1 11:24:57 2012
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Release amd64 (20111012)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: rhythmbox
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2012-04-29 (2 days ago)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Terry Ellison (r61-terry)]

I tried to use Banshee as a workaround. If I deleted multiple files then Banshee also crashed. If I deleted files singly then it seemed to work, but when I "disconnected" (which triggers a Banshee sync to iPod) I found that my iPod content has vanished according to the iPod GUI, but on reconnection they were still listed in Banshee. Resyncing with Rhythmbox recovered access but again with the N duplicate copy issue.

I don't know if this is two independent bugs. But my main point here is there isn't a workaround to this problem, and repeatedly plugging an iPod into Rhythmbox, means that you have to do a full factory software restore to bring the system back to a usable state.

[Lover of Chairs (chairs-are-great)]

I have the same problem with Rhythmbox, it crashes when I try to sync podcasts using 12.04. I've had mixed success using gPodder as a workaround, but it has its own issues, so I end up doing a full restore on another computer with iTunes (or just using that computer to manage podcasts altogether).

I'd really like to get Rhythmbox working again, it was a nice all-in-one solution.

I have a 16 GB iPod Nano 4th gen, 16 GB, Mac-formatted.

[Lover of Chairs (chairs-are-great)]

And I want to second Terry's comment above - the times when Rhythmbox doesn't crash, it shows the podcasts have synced correctly. But the iPod GUI shows the podcasts as blank.

[Terry Ellison (r61-terry)]

I've adopted a workaround of reformating my iPod to factory settings on my wife's winXP laptop, and only moving new pocasts to the iPod, but this has now stopped working. I can't seem to get any new files down to my iPod.

[flassagne (flassagne)]

I tried to start afresh with gtkpodder (deleting the podcasts files and episodes) , then ran rhythmbox again ... no change.

When unplugged, my Ipod (16G) shows a blank list ... But the images of all the podcasts I tried to sync appear below. Weird. It's a shame images can't speak, isn't it ?

[Walter Garcia-Fontes (walter-garcia)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. We are sorry that we do not always have the capacity to look at all reported bugs in a timely manner. There have been many changes in Ubuntu since that time you reported the bug and your problem may have been fixed with some of the updates. It would help us a lot if you could test it on a currently supported Ubuntu version. When you test it and it is still an issue, kindly upload the updated logs by running apport-collect <bug #> and any other logs that are relevant for this particular issue.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[hankroth (hank-roth)]

This is very frustrating. It did work for awhile and then stopped. Now nothing I do matters. I even reset the Ipod using another computer with Windows but in rhythmbox or any other software I try the results are the same. I wonder if this is an accumulating bug? It is unfortunate that Apple and Windows can't respect the rest of us who prefer Linux. I have found a couple of alternatives, all of which are made is Asia which claim at least to accept drag and drop and recognize Linux but haven't tried them yet. I will do that next. OR, will get myself a cheap laptop mini and use VLC for all my mp3s video and other audio, even accepting the inconvenience of increased size and weight. The smaller Android minis and linux only laptops will work for me and I'll do without the pocket sized players if need be. Any other ideas? (Also reply to <email address hidden>) Thanks.... Hank Roth [I can also forward your comments to my GOOGLE page?]

[Terry Ellison (r61-terry)]

The crash is still there. My solution was to give up on using an iPod on Ubuntu, and since I didn't want to give up on Ubuntu, I bought a cheap Sony MP3 player and wrote a small mtp-sync utility which synchronises my tablet and MP3 player with my gPodder directory hierarchy.

This solved my problem, but this required a knowledge of PHP, C, libmtp and mtp-tools so is not a general user solution. It does seem a shame that between Apple and Ubuntu, we can't get a workable iPod solution for Ubuntu that doesn't crater leaving the iPod internal music directory corrupt.