banshee cannot access last.fm account

[Ralf Hildebrandt]

Binary package hint: banshee

Banshee asks me: "Account details are needed before you can connect to Last.fm"
I'm a subscriber, so no worries there.
I'm entering my username (cannot enter a password anywhere, why?)
Then I'm asked "You need to allow Banshee to access your Last.fm account", but no matter what or how often I'm clicking, it won't work.
See attached screenshots
In my last.fm preferences, banshee won't appear as "connected app".

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: banshee 2.0.0-1ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic 2.6.38.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-8-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: amd64
Date: Wed Apr 13 11:43:32 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release amd64 (20101007)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: banshee
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to natty on 2011-04-12 (0 days ago)

[Bertrand Lorentz (bertrand-lorentz)]

Banshee doesn't ask for your Last.fm password because that's the way the Last.fm authentication process works.
This is more secure, as you don't have to trust your Last.fm password to third-party applications and those applications don't have to store it.

When you see the "You need to allow Banshee to access your Last.fm account", Banshee should have opened a page on the Last.fm web site in your browser. It is in this web page that you have to authorize Banshee to access your Last.fm account. You might also have to log in to the Last.fm website.

The web page opened by Banshee might not be visible, if for example you already have a browser window open but not visible, it will just open a new tab in that window. Please check whether it is the case.

[Ralf Hildebrandt (ralf-hildebrandt)]

* Bertrand Lorentz <email address hidden>:
> Banshee doesn't ask for your Last.fm password because that's the way the Last.fm authentication process works.
> This is more secure, as you don't have to trust your Last.fm password to third-party applications and those applications don't have to store it.

Good

> When you see the "You need to allow Banshee to access your Last.fm
> account", Banshee should have opened a page on the Last.fm web site in
> your browser.

It doesn't. Nothing happens.

> It is in this web page that you have to authorize Banshee to access
> your Last.fm account. You might also have to log in to the Last.fm
> website.

I did that, bt banshee doesn't open a browser window (or tab)

> The web page opened by Banshee might not be visible, if for example you
> already have a browser window open but not visible, it will just open a
> new tab in that window. Please check whether it is the case.

Nope, nothing.

--
Ralf Hildebrandt
  Geschäftsbereich IT | Abteilung Netzwerk
  Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin
  Campus Benjamin Franklin
  Hindenburgdamm 30 | D-12203 Berlin
  Tel. [phone] | Fax: [phone]
  <email address hidden> | http://www.charite.de

[Ralf Hildebrandt (ralf-hildebrandt)]

* Bertrand Lorentz <email address hidden>:

> The web page opened by Banshee might not be visible, if for example you
> already have a browser window open but not visible, it will just open a
> new tab in that window. Please check whether it is the case.

I started bashee on a terminal and found this when trying to authorize:

[Warn 16:57:13.885] Error in Lastfm.Account.RequestAuthorization -
System.ApplicationException: Unexpected character '<' at [1:1] (in Hyena')
  at Hyena.Json.Tokenizer.UnexpectedCharacter (Char ch) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Hyena.Json.Tokenizer.InnerScan () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Hyena.Json.Tokenizer.Scan () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Hyena.Json.Deserializer.CheckScan (TokenType expected, Boolean eofok) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Hyena.Json.Deserializer.Deserialize () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Lastfm.LastfmRequest.GetResponseObject () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Lastfm.Account.RequestAuthorization () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
[Info 16:57:19.445] Last.fm authorization result = TokenNotAuthorized

I must access the internet using a proxy. Maybe it's going out
directly and receiving "use the proxy!"-page?

--
Ralf Hildebrandt
  Geschäftsbereich IT | Abteilung Netzwerk
  Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin
  Campus Benjamin Franklin
  Hindenburgdamm 30 | D-12203 Berlin
  Tel. [phone] | Fax: [phone]
  <email address hidden> | http://www.charite.de

[Ralf Hildebrandt (ralf-hildebrandt)]

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=680331 looks suspiciously familiar

[Ralf Hildebrandt (ralf-hildebrandt)]

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=605674 although I cannot be sure if banshee goes out directly...

[Keith Drummond (kd353)]

Banshee (running on Ubuntu 11.04) has not connected to my Last.fm account since April 1st. I have done all the steps outlined above with regards to checking that I am connected to Last.fm etc and there seems to be no problem there.

[Peter (peter-xenos)]

Also not working behind a proxy here.

[Peter (peter-xenos)]

I am able to authorize banshee via my browser, but I see this in my console:

 Last.fm authorization result = None

(no pertinent exceptions though).

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Polaris (arnold-maestre)]

Still true in 12.04 alpha 2

[Victor Okinda (victorokinda)]

I have had this problem for a while running banshee behind a proxy. Problem is banshee reads its internet connection settings from gconf. Manually editing my gconf settings solved this.

$ gconftool -s /system/http_proxy/use_http_proxy -t bool true
$ gconftool -s /system/http_proxy/host -t string 127.0.0.1
$ gconftool -s /system/http_proxy/port -t int 80
$ gconftool -s /system/http_proxy/use_same_proxy -t bool true

$ gconf -s /system/proxy/mode -t string manual

courtesy of http://wazem.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-to-change-gnome-proxy-settings-on.html

[vivek (sasuke-vivek)]

Even I have the same problem where I have entered the user name of my Last.fm account and then if I click on 'Finish logging in', it doesn't respond. If I click on 'try Again', then also it doesn't respond as a matter of fact it toggles between the two options.

I am using Banshee 2.6.1 on Ubuntu 13.04.

The ~/.config/banshee-1/log file had the following messages which might come in handy:

[Warn 13:59:57.889] Error in Lastfm.Account.RequestAuthorization - System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object (in `Lastfm')
  at Lastfm.Account.RequestAuthorization () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
[8372:8403:0320/140002:ERROR:nss_util.cc(750)] After loading Root Certs, loaded==false: NSS error code: -8018
Created new window in existing browser session.
[Warn 14:04:10.644] Audioscrobbler NowPlaying failed: Unknown
[Warn 14:04:11.805] Caught an exception - System.Net.Sockets.SocketException: Connection refused (in `System')
  at System.Net.Sockets.Socket.Connect (System.Net.EndPoint remoteEP) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at System.Net.WebConnection.Connect (System.Net.HttpWebRequest request) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
System.Net.WebException: Error: ConnectFailure (Connection refused) (in `System')
  at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.EndGetResponse (IAsyncResult asyncResult) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetResponse () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Banshee.Metadata.MetadataServiceJob.GetHttpStream (System.Uri uri, System.String[] ignoreMimeTypes) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Banshee.Metadata.MetadataServiceJob.GetHttpStream (System.Uri uri) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Banshee.Metadata.Rhapsody.RhapsodyQueryJob.Run () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Banshee.Metadata.MetadataServiceJob.Run () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
[Info 14:05:35.205] Last.fm authorization result = TokenNotAuthorized
[Warn 14:05:36.397] Error in Lastfm.Account.RequestAuthorization - System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object (in `Lastfm')
  at Lastfm.Account.RequestAuthorization () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

[Casper (cadra400)]

i upgraded from MATE 15.10 to MATE 16.04 LTS yesterday, reinstalled all my software, etc, and this morning noticed scrobbling had stopped. attempts to log back into last.fm through banshee resulted in the same symptoms described above: i press "try again", and banshee freezes for 10 seconds or so (playing continues normally, but the window doesn't update). no browser window/tab is opened.

i tried fiddling with proxy settings, but that didn't change anything. i'm not actually behind a proxy anyway.

my previous upgrade (a mere few months ago; from MATE 14.04 to 15.10) went flawlessly -- scrobbling simply continued as before without me having to do a thing.

[Филип Маљковић (dungodung)]

I got the same problem as Casper. I upgraded to Xenial and I noticed today that scrobbling stopped. However, I'm using Cinnamon, not MATE.

[michael (r-mail-8)]

This seems to be a rather general issue with Banshee - I have the issue as Casper, but noticed the very same also on Fedora 23 with Gnome. I am behind no proxy and http_proxy is set to null.
Victors comment did not help, neither did the other steps I have found.