[desktop] Music should run automatically mediascanner on start up

[Ara Pulido]

Version:

music-app:
  Installed: 1.2ubuntu2bzr428trusty0
  Candidate: 1.2ubuntu2bzr428trusty0

Steps to reproduce:

1) Install music-app from the PPA
2) Run music-app on the desktop

Expected results:
mediascanner-service is run automatically if not running yet

Actual results:
mediascanner-service needs to be fired up manually

[Victor Thompson (vthompson)]

I don't think music app should make any attempt to start the mediascanner. The old mediascanner codebase will no longer be modified so in the current system this bug probably won't be fixed.

I've added mediascanner2 as an affected project. Could someone verify that the mediascanner2.0 daemon is ran immediately after installation? The old daemon seemed to only run upon a reboot.

[Victor Thompson (vthompson)]

Jim Hodapp is 99% sure that mediascanner2.0 also will not run upon installation. It will start when dbus is started, which in most cases is upon rebooting.

Even if we wanted the Music app to start the daemon when launched, it would need to wait until it determined that the daemon's database was fully populated. This doesn't seem like an ideal way of handling things. I suggest we try to modify mediascanner2.0's upstart job or installation script to automatically start the service when installed.

[Ara Pulido (ara)]

On desktop, music-app is still using mediascanner1, so that also needs to be taken into account

[Victor Thompson (vthompson)]

It's been suggested previously that the old mediascanner 1.0 code will not be updated. However, if the solution is simply to repackage the service with a post install script, IMO it seems reasonable to do the same with the mediascanner 1.0 codebase.

[James Henstridge (jamesh)]

As mentioned in the merge proposal, it isn't clear that a dpkg postinst script will help here: the media scanner is a user session service rather than a system service.

[Victor Thompson (vthompson)]

James, right, I don't think that will work given your reasoning. Can you think of any alternatives for a user session service that wouldn't require a reboot?

[James Henstridge (jamesh)]

Logging out and back in again is enough to start up user session services?

As far as making them start earlier than that, do we have a solution for other user services? Indicators seem to be treated as user session services too: do new indicators start automatically when you install the package, or do they also require logging out and in again?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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