[feisty] Amarok doesn't read tags on read-only SMB shares

[Jim Casaburi]

Binary package hint: amarok

I installed the latest herd (and dist-upgraded to ensure I had the most up to date development build) and while nearly everything works, amarok doesn't seem to be able to recognize any tags in ogg vorbis files. It can play the files just fine, but when I go to edit track information, no tags are defined (it doesn't even know the track length!). On the amarok playlist window, files I drag in just have the file name shown, and the build collection function runs, but ends up not defining any songs in the collection. (almost certainly since the directory I point it to only has ogg vorbis files). Note: mp3s are read fine with all of their respective tags fully recognized.
I am using the xine engine since that seems to be the only engine available in feisty's repos. (and the one installed by default)
On edgy eft, this problem is not present.

The version # of the faulty amarok is 1.45, and the version # of a functional amarok under edgy is 1.44. I cannot seem to find any other reports of this issue in any other web forums, but I have been able to recreate this issue with more than one load of feisty fawn kubuntu.

Please let me know if any further information/testing/etc is needed.

Thank you

[Andrew Ash (ash211)]

Amarok 1.4.5 on Edgy can read my oggs just fine. Maybe this is a packaging thing in amarok or a regression in libtag.

Could you please provide the output of `apt-cache policy libtag1c2a`? I think that's the package that supplies taglib to Amarok and allows it to read ogg files.

[Jim Casaburi (casaburi-earthlink)]

The output of the command is:

<start>
libtag1c2a:
  Installed: 1.4-4
  Candidate: 1.4-4
  Version table:
 *** 1.4-4 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
</end>

Would it help if I tried to compile a package (eg: libtag or amarok) from source to help determine if it is in fact a packaging issue?

Thank you!

[Andrew Ash (ash211)]

That would be great! I suspect it's a libtag thing, so I'd try that first. Let us know if you have any problems with that.

[Jim Casaburi (casaburi-gmail)]

Recompiling taglib 1.4 from source (from the original tar-ball) doesn't fix the issue, though I am not yet able to actually compile it with the patches that are applied the version in the ubuntu feisty repos. (and by compiling, I mean just extract the tarball, ./configure && make all && make install as superuser)

(note: I am doing this on a i386 box)

[Andrew Ash (ash211)]

Well I guess I'd try recompiling Amarok after that. I'm glad progress is being made!

[Jim Casaburi (casaburi-gmail)]

I just kicked off a source compile of amarok - though given that the system I'm trying this on is a p3, it may take a while.

BTW: I'm probably more impressed with what's being done with Ubuntu (or in my case Kubuntu) than anything since OS/2 in the 90s. Even with this bug report, I'm completely blown away with how well everything works in Feisty - and it's still alpha level!

[Jim Casaburi (casaburi-gmail)]

FYI, I rebuilt the libtag the "proper" way, and that also didn't do the trick. I am now attempting to recompile amarok the normal way as well. (sorry about using the raw source compile - old habits from source based distros die hard)

[Jim Casaburi (casaburi-gmail)]

The rebuild of Amarok from source doesn't seem to have fixed the issue with tags not being recognized. Do you have any further ideas for me to try?

[Andrew Ash (ash211)]

No, I don't. I asked on #kubuntu-devel but didn't get any response. I don't think anyone was awake then! Do you think you could install a newer version of libtag and that would help?

And just to make sure we're not running in circles, can you somehow check with another program that these ogg files really do have metadata attached? :)

[Jim Casaburi (casaburi-gmail)]

Is there a newer libtag in existence? From what I can tell, 1.4 is the latest version of taglib and it's used in all of the libtag variants in the various .debs. (unless there's a newer version in SVN)

I suppose what I could try to do is rebuild/compile taglib from source (the old fashioned ./compile && make && etc way) and then attempt to do the same for amarok (not using debuild) and see if it uses taglib as opposed to libtag..etc.. I could even uninstall the libtag files to try to ensure it uses the unpatched source copy of it.

As for the files themselves, yes, they do in fact have tags - they are on a samba share that I've used to populate my SD cards for my treo and pocket tunes (which reads tags), non-Feisty installs of Amarok (which sees tags), even iTunes with the ogg plugins installed on my macbook. Still, it's ALWAYS a good idea to be sure on that count =)

What surprises me is that it seems like I may be the only one to have found this bug, or the only one that is affected.

Thank you again!

[Andrew Ash (ash211)]

Well, I guess you could try a svn checkout. But you oughtn't need to upgrade libtag just for getting ogg tags working again...

Maybe something went wrong in the SMB share. Amarok's known for having problems with them. Can you copy the file to the local hard drive and try again from there? I don't really have any idea what more to try :(

[Jim Casaburi (casaburi-gmail)]

I will give those a shot when I get back home (where I have access to that box). My remote ssh connection doesn't seem to be working properly right now.

Obviously, when the next herd comes out I can do a fresh load to see if the problem is fixed as well.

[Jim Casaburi (casaburi-gmail)]

Shoot! I would have NEVER thought of copying the files locally to try, but yeah, copying the files to the local drive did in fact make their tags readable by Amarok.

I did some further tests, and it looks like the problem manifests itself on read-only samba shares.... another share pointing to a different root path (but having access to the same directory) but set read-write allows the tags to be read/etc. The one I was trying to use was a simple read-only share - and apparently the tag reader doesn't process those files (?), but amarok still plays the files.

I copied an mp3 or two to the directory the read-only ogg share looks at, and they too aren't recognized by the tag library when I import off of the read-only share - so the issue appears to be with the tag reading library, and of course the issue is with me for setting up the share to begin with.

Thank you very much for your ideas and help on this. If I can help in trying to nail down the issues with taglib with read-only samba shares, I'd be glad to as well.

[Andrew Ash (ash211)]

I wonder what would make taglib read the tags from a read/write share but not a read-only share... Maybe it writes to the files or something in the process of reading the tags? But that doesn't make any sense.

[Jim Casaburi (casaburi-gmail)]

My guess is that it may be attempting to open the files with read-write flags enabled when it really doesn't need to be. (unless I'm really missing something, there shouldn't be a need to open the file read-write when READING the tags)

When I get home I'll see if I can read the taglib source to see if that's the case and how hard it is to patch the behavior if it is the case. (I think the source is C++, which in theory I know how to read...)

[Jim Casaburi (casaburi-gmail)]

As an update - I haven't been able to do much in terms of the taglib source (time constraints), but I did some further testing to try to narrow down the issue - if I set a file on the local file system to be read-only to my user, and even throw it in a read-only to my user folder, it can still read the tags - so the issue may not even be a taglib issue per se. Perhaps it's a bug in the cifs client in kernel 2.6.20? I'll see what I can do with further narrowing down the cause.

[Jim Casaburi (casaburi-gmail)]

Further notes - the problem affects more than vorbis tags apprently - if I copy mp3s that read just fine from a read/write share into a read-only smb share (on the server), their tags are also not visible. Also, I have verified that this behavior is also present on amarok 1.44 on edgy eft if reading from a read-only share (verified on another machine reading from the same share on an amd64 box). That means the problem is not kernel 2.6.20 related and eliminates several other candidates.

Do you have any further ideas? Obviously for my purposes, I can easily fix this by making the share read/write, but an idea on tracking down the specific cause, and possible fix for it.

[Andrew Ash (ash211)]

Sorry, no more ideas from me. I think you've just gotten over my head. I don't know much about kernel stuff. Debugging wise, though, here's what seems to be unrelated to the problem:

Amarok version
Amarok recompilation
Kubuntu version
Libtag recompilation (using newest version)

Kernel related things would seem to be the most likely for me now. I hope you get this figured out, since we get a lot of reports on launchpad about this, but not much action. Keep up the good work!

[Jeff Mitchell (jefferai)]

1) You recompiled Amarok from SVN source but not taglib. TagLib 1.4 is quite old by now, and a huge number of bugfixes have been checked into SVN since then. The problem doesn't sound to me like it's an Amarok issue, because we just pull in the tags TagLib gives us. I'd recommend recompiling TagLib from current SVN and seeing how that affects things.
2) Are you using CIFS or SMB? In the past I had a lot of problems with CIFS, although I hear it's much better now. But trying it on both would be good.

--Jeff

[LucSTP (lucstp66)]

Hello, Don't know if anyone will read this, but here it is.
I have installed V.1.4.3 and got the same problem and don't know what to do.

Ex. sudo mount -t smbfs //SERVERNAME/SHARE/ -o username=XXXX,password=XXXXX
 also try with sudo mount -t cifs...
same thing.

Any idea ?
Thank's for any help

[Jeff Mitchell (jefferai)]

On Monday 11 February 2008, LucSTP wrote:
> Hello, Don't know if anyone will read this, but here it is.
> I have installed V.1.4.3 and got the same problem and don't know what to
> do.
>
> Ex. sudo mount -t smbfs //SERVERNAME/SHARE/ -o username=XXXX,password=XXXXX
> also try with sudo mount -t cifs...
> same thing.
>
> Any idea ?
> Thank's for any help

Probably a taglib issue, not Amarok. Although upgrading to a current Amarok
release couldn't hurt. 1.4.3 is quite old.

--Jeff

[LucSTP (lucstp66)]

My Linux is on the version 6.06 Dapper, and new version of Amarok seems not avalable.
I have downloaded an ISO CD but it's the same version... :(

Where can I find it a new release supported for my OS ?
or a Depot to add to my Synaptic ??

Thank you.

Luc

----------------------------------------
> From: <email address hidden>
> To: <email address hidden>
> Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 03:39:28 +0000
> Subject: Re: [Bug 91229] Re: [feisty] Amarok doesn't read tags on read-only SMB shares
>
> On Monday 11 February 2008, LucSTP wrote:
>> Hello, Don't know if anyone will read this, but here it is.
>> I have installed V.1.4.3 and got the same problem and don't know what to
>> do.
>>
>> Ex. sudo mount -t smbfs //SERVERNAME/SHARE/ -o username=XXXX,password=XXXXX
>> also try with sudo mount -t cifs...
>> same thing.
>>
>> Any idea ?
>> Thank's for any help
>
> Probably a taglib issue, not Amarok. Although upgrading to a current Amarok
> release couldn't hurt. 1.4.3 is quite old.
>
> --Jeff
>
> --
> [feisty] Amarok doesn't read tags on read-only SMB shares
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/91229
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in TagLib: New
> Status in Source Package "amarok" in Ubuntu: Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: amarok
>
> I installed the latest herd (and dist-upgraded to ensure I had the most up to date development build) and while nearly everything works, amarok doesn't seem to be able to recognize any tags in ogg vorbis files. It can play the files just fine, but when I go to edit track information, no tags are defined (it doesn't even know the track length!). On the amarok playlist window, files I drag in just have the file name shown, and the build collection function runs, but ends up not defining any songs in the collection. (almost certainly since the directory I point it to only has ogg vorbis files). Note: mp3s are read fine with all of their respective tags fully recognized.
> I am using the xine engine since that seems to be the only engine available in feisty's repos. (and the one installed by default)
> On edgy eft, this problem is not present.
>
> The version # of the faulty amarok is 1.45, and the version # of a functional amarok under edgy is 1.44. I cannot seem to find any other reports of this issue in any other web forums, but I have been able to recreate this issue with more than one load of feisty fawn kubuntu.
>
> Please let me know if any further information/testing/etc is needed.
>
> Thank you

[Gioacchino Mazzurco (gmazzurco89)]

I am using ubuntu 9.04 I have the same bug with new version of amarok but with flac...

[Harald Sitter (apachelogger)]

Hi there!

 Thanks for reporting this bug! Your bug seems to be a problem with the KDE program itself, and not with our KDE packages. While we appreciate your issue, it would be better if it was tracked at https://bugs.kde.org, so that the KDE developers can deal with this speedily and have direct communication with you as the reporter for more effective debugging.

 Thanks!