Rhythmbox cannot download some podcasts (port 8000)

[over 5000]

Binary package hint: rhythmbox

All podcast episodes from http://ueberklang.net/feed/ueberklang_podcast.xml fail.
Other feeds work fine.

I guess this is due to the Überklang-Podcast using Port 8000:
All mp3 urls are like "http://listening.at:8000/ueberklang/ueber060708.mp3", with only the last part (numbers, for the release date) changing.

I can download all episodes from this feed using Miro, so it's a Rhythmbox issue.

[JM Williams (jmdwilliams)]

I think that the problem is actually that listening.at refuses to respond
helpfully to an HTTP HEAD request on port 8000: it instead returns a 400 Bad
Request error.

RFC 2616, Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1, states:

    The metainformation contained in the HTTP headers in response to a HEAD
    request SHOULD be identical to the information sent in response to a GET
    request.
                                http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2616#section-9.4

Rhythmbox’s debug output includes:

    rb-podcast-manager.c:699: get_file_info request failed

Presumably, it is making an HTTP HEAD request to find information on the file
that is to be downloaded.

You can verify how http://listening.at:8000 responds to an HTTP HEAD request
by, for example, running:

    curl --head http://listening.at:8000/ueberklang/ueber220608.mp3

In case you do not have curl, I’ll mention that wget’s spider option seems to
work by making HEAD requests; in any case, in this instance it responds in the
same way:

    wget --spider --server-response http://listening.at:8000/ueberklang/ueber220608.mp3

It looks to me that this is not a bug in Rhythmbox, but rather a bug, or at
least undesirable behaviour, in listening.at, so I am marking this bug as
Invalid. Of course, you may wish to contact Überklang to inform them of this
problem.

[JM Williams (jmdwilliams)]

It seems that Überklang is running Icecast2, so you could install
apt:icecast2, try to reproduce the bug in that, and file a bug here in
Launchpad or upstream if you manage to do so. There are mailing list posts
from November 2006 regarding Icecast’s lack of support for HTTP HEAD, so I
don’t know how forthcoming a fix would be.

(I didn’t think to visit http://listening.at:8000 in a Web browser before
posting my previous comment, but doing so was irresistible once it was
clickable in the Launchpad Web page!)

[over 5000 (over5000-deactivatedaccount)]

So I wrote a mail to tech at ueberklang.net, even though I don't have much hope that anything changes that way.

So I actually installed Icecast2 and I could easily reproduce the bug. I filed Bug 248386 in launchpad, and I hope someone forwards it to their upstream bug tracker.

Icecast seems to be a fine program, though. I began to like it, but then I found out I couldn't stream through my renters' router (don't have access to it to change any configuration), so gone is all the fun.

[JM Williams (jmdwilliams)]

For completeness, here is a log to show that Rhythmbox does indeed make a HEAD
request:

    HEAD /ueberklang/ueber220608.mp3 HTTP/1.1
    Host: listening.at:8000
    User-Agent: gnome-vfs/2.22.0 neon/0.25.4
    Keep-Alive:
    Connection: TE, Keep-Alive
    TE: trailers

    HTTP/1.0 400 Bad Request
    Content-Type: text/html

    <b>unknown request</b>

[Adam Smith (adam-disc0tech)]

I've confirmed this two ways

1) I used a python program to mock a web server, I've checked it responds to HEAD requests on non-standard ports
2) When I right click on a podcast feed and select properties, I can see that it is not showing the port number on the URL, even though I know it does in the podcast XML.

[Adam Smith (adam-disc0tech)]

Looking at the debug log from both rhythmbox and my test code, I can confirm this. Note that if I change the server and podcast XML to port 80 this test works fine.

When I add the podcast URL, rbox debug output clearly references 8080

(10:06:42) [0x2655ca0] [rb_uri_could_be_podcast] rb-file-helpers.c:596: 'http://localhost:8080/test_podcast_feed.xml' should be Podcast file, HACK
(10:06:42) [0x2655ca0] [rb_podcast_parse_load_feed] rb-podcast-parse.c:168: not checking mime type for http://localhost:8080/test_podcast_feed.xml (should be Podcast file)
(10:06:42) [0x2655ca0] [rb_podcast_parse_load_feed] rb-podcast-parse.c:241: Parsing http://localhost:8080/test_podcast_feed.xml as a Podcast succeeded

My test server confirms it receives a request for the XML

10:06:42.715 DEBUG test_rbox:190 - Podcast XML file requested
10:06:42.720 DEBUG test_rbox:223 - Host: localhost:8080

When I select the TRACK to be played rbox debug clearly is NO LONGER searching for port 80:

(10:10:04) [0xd296a0] [rb_entry_view_row_activated_cb] rb-entry-view.c:2139: row activated
(10:10:04) [0xd296a0] [rb_entry_view_row_activated_cb] rb-entry-view.c:2143: emitting entry activated
(10:10:04) [0xd296a0] [episode_entry_activated_cb] rb-podcast-add-dialog.c:633: search result podcast entry http://localhost/001.mp3 activated
(10:10:04) [0xd296a0] [load_uri_finish] rb-shell.c:2896: found an entry to play
(10:10:04) [0xd296a0] [rb_shell_player_stop] rb-shell-player.c:2124: stopping
(10:10:04) [0xd296a0] [rb_shell_player_set_playing_source_internal] rb-shell-player.c:2060: setting playing source to (nil)
(10:10:04) [0xd296a0] [rb_shell_player_sync_with_source] rb-shell-player.c:1887: playing source: (nil), active entry: (nil)
(10:10:04) [0xd296a0] [rb_shell_set_window_title] rb-shell.c:2397: clearing title
(10:10:04) [0xd296a0] [rb_shell_player_sync_buttons] rb-shell-player.c:1979: syncing with source 0x1028630
(10:10:04) [0xd296a0] [rb_shell_playing_source_changed_cb] rb-shell.c:2240: playing source changed
(10:10:04) [0xd296a0] [rb_shell_player_sync_with_source] rb-shell-player.c:1887: playing source: (nil), active entry: (nil)
(10:10:04) [0xd296a0] [rb_shell_set_window_title] rb-shell.c:2397: clearing title
(10:10:04) [0xd296a0] [rb_shell_player_sync_buttons] rb-shell-player.c:1979: syncing with source 0x1028630
(10:10:04) [0xd296a0] [rb_shell_player_set_playing_source_internal] rb-shell-player.c:2060: setting playing source to 0x1028630
(10:10:04) [0xd296a0] [rb_shell_player_sync_with_source] rb-shell-player.c:1887: playing source: 0x1028630, active entry: (nil)
(10:10:04) [0xd296a0] [rb_shell_set_window_title] rb-shell.c:2397: clearing title
(10:10:04) [0xd296a0] [rb_shell_player_sync_buttons] rb-shell-player.c:1979: syncing with source 0x1028630
(10:10:04) [0xd296a0] [rb_shell_playing_source_changed_cb] rb-shell.c:2240: playing source changed
(10:10:04) [0xd296a0] [rebuild_menu] rb-display-page-menu.c:211: building menu, 0 => 0 items
(10:10:04) [0xd296a0] [rb_player_gst_try_audio_sink] rb-player-gst-helper.c:101: audio sink autoaudiosink changed to READY state successfully
(10:10:04) [0xd296a0] [construct_pipeline] rb-player-gst.c:738: pipeline construction complete
(10...