0.9.8 iPod writing not working in Feisty

[Paul Williams]

Binary package hint: rhythmbox

In the latest Feisty Rhythmbox (0.9.8) iPod writing is broken. Reading and playing work fine.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug. What architecture do you use? The i386 build log (http://librarian.launchpad.net/6491329/buildlog_ubuntu-feisty-i386.rhythmbox_0.9.8-0ubuntu1_FULLYBUILT.txt.gz) has that:

"...
configure: ** iPod write support is enabled
...
configure: ** iPod integration enabled
..."

[Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3)]

This is also valid for me. the ipod is seen and I can browse/delete music.
the delete option only removes the entry from the database: the file is not deleted
when I dran a file to the ipod (in rhythmbox) nothig happens. no errors.

starting rhythmbox -d I see this error (attached)

[Paul Williams (pwill)]

Sebastian: Yes, I saw that later. I also built the package on my own on my i386 system. I have all of the latest libgpods from the repository, but they may need to be updated again.

By the way, iPod writing works fine in GtkPod under Feisty.

[Steven Walter (stevenrwalter)]

I'm seeing this same problem as well. Looking at the debug output, the encoder does not seem to even be considering the "lame" element as a possibility. There are two possible reasons for this; either the profile's pipeline does not launch (I've verified that it does on my system with gst-launch) or the code can't find the encoder element in the pipeline. I'm investigating further to see if I can determine which of the two tests is failing.

[Steven Walter (stevenrwalter)]

I've been able to resolve this issue on my system. The problem for me was a gconf one. In /system/gstreamer/0.10/audio/profiles, I had an entry for mp3. However, in /s/g/10/a/global, there is a "profile_list" key, and it did not have mp3 listed. Simply adding mp3 to this list was sufficient to get track transfers onto my iPod to work again.

[Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3)]

well... is lame needed for this to work? my profile_list already
includes the key "mp3"...

[Steven Walter (stevenrwalter)]

Look at the pipeline_description for mp3 in gconf. When you have it,
try running the command:

    $ gst-launch-0.10 fakesrc ! $DESCRIPTION ! fakesink

Does the above command fail with an error, or simply sit until you
Ctrl+C? For me, it starts up fine and runs until I type ctrl+c. For
the record, my pipeline_description is as follows:

    audio/x-raw-int,rate=44100,channels=2 ! lame name=enc mode=0 vbr-quality=6 ! id3v2mux

[Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3)]

Sorry but my question was: do I need lame to work with my ipod with rhythmbox?

[Steven Walter (stevenrwalter)]

Interesting. I would not think so, given that your media files are already MP3. You may try installing lame and seeing if that helps, but it would still be a bug (in my eyes) if that fixes it.

[Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3)]

Anyway, in your machine the ipod support is working or not?

[Steven Walter (stevenrwalter)]

Yes, everything is cool for me, now. I do not keep my music in MP3 format, however. My music is all in Ogg/Vorbis, so I do require lame to transfer files to the iPod.

[Steven Walter (stevenrwalter)]

Upon examining the code, rhythmbox does in fact require that an encoder be available for MP3, even if the track to be transferred is already an MP3.

[Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3)]

It is strange. now I can write songs to the ipod (I have only
liblame0) but when I delete them, they only disappear from the gui,
they are still in the disk.
anyone with this problem?

[Vladimir Stefan (vstefan85-deactivatedaccount)]

I had this problem on fesity beta. I installed the ubuntu-restricted-extras package and this solved my problem; after installing this package Rhythmbox correctly transferred files across to my ipod.

This bug also seems to be a dupe of:

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/rhythmbox/+bug/87514

[Steven Walter (stevenrwalter)]

ubuntu-restricted-extras depends on gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse, which is the package that contains the lame mp3 encoder element. That seems to reinforce that 87514 is a dup of this bug. It also seems to be an upstream rhythmbox bug that an MP3 encoder is required to transfer tracks that are already MP3.

[Steven Walter (stevenrwalter)]

That problem (requiring an MP3 encoder) is fixed in upstream rhythmbox svn: http://svn.gnome.org/viewcvs/rhythmbox?view=rev&revision=4980

[Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3)]

Sorry, but what about deleting songs?

[Steven Walter (stevenrwalter)]

That is an issue not directly related to the original bug. You should probably file a new bug detailing the new problem in detail.

[Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3)]

Ok... a question: is drag and drop supposed to work from nautilus?
In my case it works only if the file that I drop to the ipod is present (or had been present in a past rhythmbox session) in the rhythmbox library

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

This upload fixes the bug:

 rhythmbox (0.9.8-0ubuntu3) feisty; urgency=low
 .
   * debian/patches/91_from_svn_fix_copy_require_encoder.patch:
     - patch from SVN, "Don't transcode if the track is already in one of the
       destination formats." (Ubuntu: #86920)
   * debian/patches/91_from_svn_fix_ipod_copy.patch:
     - patch from SVN, make the copy work on ipod