Re: [Rhythmbox-devel] Trouble with Rhythmbox Music Player

[Sean McNamara <smcnam gmail com>]

Hi,

On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 1:34 PM, Mitra, Ilina <ilina mitra intel com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
>
>
> My name is Ilina Mitra and I am trying to use Rhythmbox Music Player and
> have been having some problems. I was hoping you could help me debug them.
>
>
>
> The first problem I have is with importing music files. If I try to import a
> .m4a file, I get an import error message saying “GStreamer error: failed to
> change state”.  If I try to import a .mp3 file, I get an import error
> message saying “Internal data flow error”. If I try to import a .wav file,
> the import error message I get is “The GStreamer plugins to decode
> ‘audio/ms-gsm type’ files cannot be found”.
>
>
>
> I was able to import one music file, a .wav file, but when I try to play it,
> I get the error message “Playback Error Failed to create output image buffer
> of 320x240 pixels”.
>
>
>
> I really need to be able to play audio files in this Music Player, so
> anything you can do to help me get it working would be greatly appreciated.
> I look forward to hearing from you.
>

A few general troubleshooting tips that might help:

1. Try to play the same file with gst-launch-0.10 -v, and isolate the
decoding from the output so you can eliminate one problem at a time.
For example, to play the file /home/user/foo.wav:

gst-launch-0.10 -v filesrc location=/home/user/foo.wav ! decodebin2 ! fakesink

The output should be (at least) interesting, if not downright
revealing. If this *works*, then the problem is in the output element
(pulsesink, alsasink or so). If this *doesn't work*, then the problem
is in the decoder.

2. At least in the case of the .m4a file, it's possible that the mpeg4
demuxer or the AAC decoder plugins installed on your system may have a
bug, or not support the particular profile that the .m4a is encoded
in. This is very common with older versions of gst-plugins-ugly and
certain newer profiles. Without more details on your gstreamer plugins
versions or the particulars of the file you're testing, it's hard to
be more specific.

3. The mp3 error is more strange. There's not too much to get wrong
about an mp3, so either you don't have an mp3 decoder plugin at all,
or there's a bug somewhere else (maybe the output plugin). Trying the
gst-launch pipeline above would help in that case.

4. The wav error basically says that you're trying to play a
GSM-encoded wav file, but your gstreamer installation doesn't have a
decoder for it. gst-plugins-bad has a decoder for this: gsmdec, as
part of the GstGSMDec plugin. Its sink pad template has a caps for
audio/ms-gsm.


Without further details about:

(a) Your distribution name and version
(b) Any custom libraries you have installed
(c) Whether or not you have compiled a custom version of Rhythmbox or Gstreamer
(d) Your platform/architecture

it's difficult to help further. The error messages you got were (for
the most part) general messages that indicate a problem that could lie
anywhere in the gstreamer pipeline. Peeling back the onion by trying
the different components of the pipeline in isolation is one way to go
about debugging it; you can use gst-launch for that.

If you think the problem might lie in the output plugin, you can try a
src that's known to work: audiotestsrc. Like this:

gst-launch-0.10 -v audiotestsrc  ! volume volume=0.10 ! audioconvert !
audioresample ! autoaudiosink

If you get a similar "Internal data flow error" or similar here, then
the problem is in your audio sink; you don't have sound configured
correctly on your system.

NOTE: Extremely old Linux distributions (shipped in 2008 or earlier)
often have gstreamer that's broken out of the box, especially if they
are trying to start arts, esound or pulseaudio daemons. Modern distros
usually provide an out-of-the-box working experience with gstreamer
and pulseaudio. From the errors you're getting, my gut feeling is
either that you don't have all the plugins installed (-good, -bad,
-ugly || fluendo) or you are using a very old distro with a broken
setup.

HTH,

Sean

>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Ilina
>
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