K3b shows an inexact information if MP3 plugin not installed

[Pau Garcia Quiles]

Binary package hint: k3b

When K3b is executed and the MP3 plug-in is not installed, it shows this error text in the "System Configuration Problems" window:

"Mp3 Audio Decoder plugin not found.

K3b could not load or find the Mp3 decoder plugin. This means that you will not be able to create Audio CDs from Mp3 files. Many Linux distributions do not include Mp3 support for legal reasons.
Solution: To enable Mp3 support, please install the MAD Mp3 decoding library as well as the K3b MAD Mp3 decoder plugin (the latter may already be installed but not functional due to the missing libmad). Some distributions allow installation of Mp3 support via an online update tool (i. e. SuSE's YOU)."

This problem is fixed by installing two packages which are in the default sources.list in Feisty, libk3b2-mp3 and libmad0. I can think of several improvements to the situation:
1. Install libk3b2-mp3 and libmad0 by default. The error window would not ever be shown.
or
2. Change the text in the error window to something which is more Ubuntu/KUbuntu-specific. For instance:

"Mp3 Audio Decoder plugin not found.

K3b could not load or find the Mp3 decoder plugin. This means that you will not be able to create Audio CDs from Mp3 files. Many Linux distributions do not include Mp3 support for legal reasons.
Solution: To enable Mp3 support, please install the MAD Mp3 decoding library as well as the K3b MAD Mp3 decoder plugin. To install these files, please run the Adept Package Manager and install the libk3b2-mp3 and libmad0 packages."

[Guillaume ZITTA (zitta-guillaume)]

do you use medibuntu's package?

[Guillaume ZITTA (zitta-guillaume)]

I've made the correction in the source
medibuntu's package have the same problem. Is it needed to fill them a bug?

[Stanislav Demchenko (sdemchenko)]

It looks in Kubuntu Feisty package lame must be installed as well.

[ilia (ilia)]

Faced the same "bug" today. Why average user needs googling in order to find, which packages he should install for correct mp3 support under k3b? IMO, this is a serious usability issue. I understand, that installing MP3 support by default is not acceptable due to some patents issues. However, the message mentioned above should include a names of packages, which need to be installed by user in order to get MP3 support. Even a button may be added to launch adept to proceed the installation automatically. If Gnome users have the "automatic installation of multimedia support", so Kubuntu users deserve.

P.S. In Feisty libk3b2-mp3 depends on libmad0, so it's sufficient to run the installation of libk3b2-mp3 only.

[David Coffield (mail-idwebhosting)]

Thanks very much for your simple clear answer to this. I am new to Linux and Ubuntu but want to make the complete switch away from Windows. Been struggling with this one for days tearing my hair out and almost at the point of reverting back to dreaded ms. Now it's working it's brilliant. Agree error message shown within k3b could be a lot more helpful. Thanks again.

[Sarah Kowalik (hobbsee-deactivatedaccount)]

Fixed by installing kubuntu-restricted-extras. We cant install this stuff by default.

[Pau Garcia Quiles (pgquiles)]

Changing status to "Confirmed" again. Even if installing kubuntu-restricted-extras fixes the problem, the message K3b shows should be more informative. Please add the patch Guillaume Zitta provided to the diff.gz for K3b in Ubuntu-based distributions.

[Sarah Kowalik (hobbsee-deactivatedaccount)]

This is actually a dupe of the newly reported bug #121877

[Pau Garcia Quiles (pgquiles)]

Uh? Sarah I would say bug #121877 is a dupe of this bug as this bug is older than #121877. This is the original one. Please mark bug #121877 as a dupe of this one and fix the K3b package. In fact, don't bother to mark this bug as the original, the other as a dupe: just fix the package.

[Mario Đanić (mario-danic)]

Bug #121877 is assigned to me, and will be fixed.

[Sarah Kowalik (hobbsee-deactivatedaccount)]

Apologies for stepping on any toes - i chose to report a new, clearer bug, which everything else was a duplicate of, instead of modifying this one's description.

You still get your karma, and it will all not show up in the results soon anyway, as it will be fixed. I'm sure pygi will be happy to credit you in the changelog too, if the patch created is used (as in, if it's not fixed another way).