Ubuntu 9.04 and Rhythmbox problems?

[oxf]

This all started a few days ago when I used Rhythmbox to rip a CD. It showed up in Rhythmbox as "unrecognised" album and unrecognised tracks. Simply Rhythmbox was not recognising the ID3 tags (this led me on a quest to edit ID3 tags which I hadn't done before but I'll leave that for now)

However, I discovered today that Rhythmbox was listing all my CD's as "unreconised" This was strange I thought and besides I've ripped CD's and it's recognised them before? Well thinking about it a while I cant remember if I've done any ripping recently before I installed Jaunty 9.04, previously I was using 8.04. I searched around a bit and seems like there was discussion of a Rhythmbox bug/ fixes for 8.04. I dont know if there's an issue with rhythmbox and 9.04 or not and if there is I'd expect it to be fixed as it comes with Ubuntu anyway. So I dont know about that..

Anyway in desperation I tried installing Listen. Synaptic informed me that 18 packages would be installed. I then tried playing CD in Listen and sure enough it recognised it and listed album, tracks etc. I then tried Rhythbox again and this time it was recognised the CD. Strange... something about Rhythmbox maybe?

I then decided to remove Listen. Synaptic informed me that just one package would be removed. I thought maybe some of the other libs that were downloaded with Listen were needed by Rhythmbox as well? Anyway after removing Listen I tried Rhythmbox again. And yes the CD is still recognised!

I dont know what quite to think though. I read that Rhybox is not going to be continued anymore as its too buggy so maybe it's time to look for another music player. I liked Rhythm box because I could control the Variable Bit Rate parameters easily. Neither Listen or Banshee seem to allow me to do that. I have not tried Amarok or gmusic.

What are your perspectives on what was going on with my above problems? and what alternative to Rhythmbox should I consider (I'd like full control of the VBR options)

Thanks
Mike

[reed9]

I tend to lean towards the old Unix adage, "Do one thing and do it well." As such I prefer to keep my burning and ripping apps separate from music playing apps.

For ripping CDs, I like Asunder. For playing, I like MPD + ncmpcpp or sonata, or gmusicbrowser.

Rhythmbox and Listen both use gstreamer as a backend, so it's seems odd that one is having problems and the other isn't. One of the things I like about gmusicbrowser is that you can choose different backends, gstreamer, mpg321, or mplayer. I use mplayer myself.

[oxf]

I tend to lean towards the old Unix adage, "Do one thing and do it well." As such I prefer to keep my burning and ripping apps separate from music playing apps.

For ripping CDs, I like Asunder. For playing, I like MPD + ncmpcpp or sonata, or gmusicbrowser.

Rhythmbox and Listen both use gstreamer as a backend, so it's seems odd that one is having problems and the other isn't. One of the things I like about gmusicbrowser is that you can choose different backends, gstreamer, mpg321, or mplayer. I use mplayer myself.

I have no idea what is going on now!!

On Sunday it seemed that it wasn't just listen that would triger it to detect the CD. I also found that startin Sound Juicer -CD Extractor would do it as well which got me wondering if it was something to do with that? But.... now I find that whatever I start SoundJuicer/Listen/Rthyhmbox nothing will detect the meta data. It's all listed as Unknown CD etc.

I dont use windows much anymore but booted into XP for just to check. Media Player lists it as unknown too!! Now I know the ID3 tags are on the CD because it has listed them previously, i.e, as recently as Saturday. So I'm wondering if itcould even be a hardware issue? It plays fine though so I dont know.

If anyone has any ideas at all please...I'm stumped!

Mike

[reed9]

If the same problem is occurring in both Windows and Linux, it probably is hardware. Do you have anything else you can test those CDs on?

[oxf]

If the same problem is occurring in both Windows and Linux, it probably is hardware. Do you have anything else you can test those CDs on?

Well I'm pretty sure its not hardware. All issues till now have been on the laptop. I tried the CD's on the Desktop with the same result, ie. "unrecognised CD" in both Ubuntu and Windows. I think the Windows part doesn't actually mean much since I hardly use XP any more and have a minimal install so I probably missing some codecs or something.

back to the laptop.. I believe two things. 1. its linked to Ubuntu 9.04 in some way, and 2. maybe missing some lib or something. Tonight it recognised the CD fully again after I clicked on the "audio disk" icon on the desktop and then went back to Rthyhmbox. Then I ripped a couple of CD's with all info/tracks identified.

Maybe I'll try a clean install at some point if I dont figure it out but am waiting untill Karmic gets the bugs ironed out..

[elija]

Could it be a dodgy CD - do other CDs have the same problem?

[oxf]

Could it be a dodgy CD - do other CDs have the same problem?

It happens with any CD I have! However, it seems I can usually (but not always)"jolt" it into detecting the IP3 info by starting/closing either Sound Juicer or clicking on the CD drive icon on the desktop. Once thats done it lists the CD/tracks as normal!

However,.... Nothing will trigger the metadata this evening whereas last night I ripped several tracks. Maybe because today, the 19th is an odd number?

And I swear I never had this happen before I installed 9.04 although everything else works like a charm