GNOME Mplayer crashes on opening second music folder

[markling]

GNOME Mplayer appears to be unable to open a second music folder without running out of control.

What should happen is this:

Use GMplayer to play music in Folder A.
Stop playback and use the GMplayer menus to open music Folder B.
Listen to music in Folder B.

What actually happens:

GNOME Mplayer opens and plays music Folder A perfectly well.

But stop that music and use the GMplayer menu to open music Folder B. GMPlayer does not open selected Folder B. Neither does it play the music in selected Folder B.

Instead, it plays two tracks from music Folder A simultaneously. These tracks were not selected for play. And since they are playing together the sound is garbled. Moreover, there is only one GMplayer window open, so pressing <pause> or <stop> brings only one of the simultaneously playing tracks to an end. One of the rogue tracks continues playing with no apparent means of being stopped.

Even closing the Mplayer window, so there are no visible instances of Mplayer open, does not stop the rogue track playing.
What's worse is that when the runaway track completes, GMPlayer moves to the next track and starts playing two tracks simultaneously again! Selected Folder B gets no apparent attention. But with so many tracks playing already, this is probably just as well.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: mplayer 2:1.0~rc4~try1.dsfg1-1ubuntu1+medibuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-24.42-generic 2.6.35.8
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-24-generic i686
Architecture: i386
CrashDB: medibuntu
Date: Sun Jan 16 14:20:28 2011
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release i386 (20101007)
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_GB.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: mplayer

[Gauvain Pocentek (gpocentek)]

Hi,

Could you test if this happens with the Ubuntu package too?

Thanks.

[markling (markling)]

Glady, Guavain.

Would you mind being more specific about which package you are suggesting I try?

The package my error report refers to is the one that was delivered with Ubuntu 10.10. I cannot remember if it came as default or whether I downloaded it with the Ubuntu Software Centre. I think it was the latter. I most certainly did not get it any other way than an an automated Ubuntu source. It is interesting that you raise this point because I miss the old vanilla Mplayer I had been using in recent years and regret very much that it does not appear to be optioned in the Ubuntu Software Centre any more.

[markling (markling)]

Gladly, that should say.

[markling (markling)]

Please note: The problem only appears to occur when I'm accessing music stored on an external USB hard disk. I shall confirm this is the case when I get some time to do so.

[Gauvain Pocentek (gpocentek)]

Hi,

You should have at least two versions of the mplayer package available in you package manager. Could you install the version 2:1.0~rc4~try1.dsfg1-1ubuntu1 (from the official Ubuntu repositories)?

Thanks.

[markling (markling)]

Please excuse this late reply, Gauvain.

I am using version 2:1.0~rc4~try1/dsfg1-1ubuntu1+medibuntu1

[markling (markling)]

Update. The player is having similar problems whether its using files on external HD or the local disc. I would guess at this point it has something to do with Opening a Folder.

What follows is an account of my most recent attempt to use Gnome Mplayer. You will see it exhibits similarly problematic behaviour to that described in my original report.

For this account, I used three music folders on my local hard disk: Folder A, Folder B, Folder C.

Folder A contains 6 mp3 files
Folder B contains 8 mp3 files
Folder C contains 14 mp3 files

I have described for each step:
A: My action
G: Gnome MPlayer's response

The account is in three stages for ease of digestion. Problems with the playlist were exhibited in Stage 2. Problems with playback were exhibited in Stage 3. The behaviour GNMP exhibited in Stage 3 was very strange.

STAGE 1
-----------

A: Opened music Folder A
B: Opened Folder A

A: Pressed play
G: Started played first file/track in Folder A
A: Forwarded to last track and forwarded last track to last few seconds
G: Played the last track to its end and stopped

STAGE 2 - PROBLEMS WITH PLAYLIST
---------------------------------------------------

A: Opened Folder B
G: Opened Folder B, started playing Track 1 from Folder A
A: Selected the menu item to view the playlist
G: Displayed the playlist, revealing that GNMP had not cleared the playlist before loading Folder B, and had added the tracks from Folder B to the end of the list of tracks from Folder A.
A: Clicked on the last track in the playlist from Folder A, clicked point on progress bar to last few seconds
G: Played through the last few seconds of last track from Folder A, then moved to first track from Folder B
A: Selected different tracks in the playlist from Folder B
G: Played selected tracks as expected
A: Moved to end of last track of Folder B, selected point near for play to continue near the end
G: Played the last track from Folder B to its end and then stopped.

A: Opened Folder B again
G: Opened Folder B and appended its tracks in the playlist to the end of the list of tracks from Folder B that was already in the playlist. Tracks from Folder B were now in the playlist twice. GNMP then started playing the first track from Folder A again, that folders' tracks still being at the top of the playlist.

Note: it did not appear to be possible to clear the playlist unless by opening the Playlist Pane and then deleting each track from the list individually. The second time I tried to do this, I had to: select track; click (-); select next track; click (-); select next tract... and so on.

STAGE 3 - PROBLEMS WITH PLAYBACK
-----------------------------------------------------

A: Removed all tracks from the playlist
G: Removed all tracks from the playlist
A: Opened Folder C
G: Opened Folder C, appended it to blank playlist and started playing from the first track in folder C
A: Clicked on the last track and let it play to the end
G: Played Folder C's last track to its end and then stopped.

A: Removed all tracks from the playlist
G: Removed all tracks from the playlist
A: Opened Folder A again
G: Opened Folder A, appended its tracks to the blank playlist and started playing two tra...

[markling (markling)]

Do the Launchpad gods realise how long it takes to file a bug report like this?

Do they think us mere mortals have nothing else to do with our time?

This bug report says "incomplete". I think you will find my report is quite comprehensive.

If there is anything else I can do, please say.

[markling (markling)]

This bug still says incomplete.

Does that mean the Launchpad God's believe my report to be incomplete? Or does it mean their treatment of it is incomplete?

[Norman Hendrich (hendrich)]

Confirmed, this massively annyoing problem also happens on my system (Natty, mp3 on external USB disk).

Only, it can launch MANY more instances of mplayer than just two. It almost always (but not always) happens
when opening a second folder after the first folder has finished playing. killall mplayer helps, but of course you
also have to kill and (beware) restart the stupid gnome-mplayer as well.

Regarding bug reports in launchpad: this is usually write-only, but it helps to reduce the blood pressure.
I remember the day when the well-meant reply to my bug-report againt evince (=gnome pdf) was that I
should try alternatives like KDE...