12.04rhythmbox
I've been testing out the new WebUpd8 PPA for Rhythmbox which I used to upgrade from Rhythmbox v2.97 to v2.98.
However, when I added this PPA, when using my favourite plugins replaygain and coverart-browser, Rhythmbox crashes with a segmentation fault.
Worse, when this crash happens, my Unity desktop becomes unstable, with various applications failing to start with similar segmentation faults.
Does anybody know the reason for this – but more importantly how to resolve this?
You'll have to edit the configuration key directly, either using the gsettings command line tool, or using dconf-editor as a GUI. The key is locations under org.gnome.rhythmbox.rhythmdb.
With my version of rhythmbox (2.96) on 12.04, the .pls radio stream plays fine. Choose a stream from the site you are interested in; I chose this 128k mp3 stream from the site you mentioned and added it with Music > New Internet Radio station (as in the screenshot below).
Then on the sidebar (see screenshot below) click library > radio and the new station will probably be listed in the unknown genre slot. So then just double click the new station there.
It is also important to note that when you import a radio stream rhythmbox will sometimes assign a gender to it ('Space Electronica') and sometimes not. So, for example, this stream was to be found in 'Experimental Nujazz' when imported. If you can't find the station in the program's list, look through the genres or 'unknown' and double click a station if it doesn't play automatically.
If the stream doesn't play correctly, I should choose an alternative, as there are usually several available; for example, on this page the asx stream played the best.
In general, experiment with the different stream options available on the radio site you are interested in as rhythmbox has good support for .pls and .asx feeds, etc, when the necessary gstreamer plugins are installed.
If you can't get the .pls file working, you could just open it in a text editor and extract the url and then add that as a radio station in Rhythmbox, using the process I mentioned earlier in my answer.
You could also try installing the excellent rhythmbox-plugin-radio-browser from the ppa of one of our moderators, fossfreedom; do not install the version in the repositories as that version does not work with the current Rhythmbox.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fossfreedom/rhythmbox-plugins
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install rhythmbox-plugin-radio-browser
You have to enable it by going to edit > plugins first.
More on the plugins available is explained here:
Best Answer
Why does it crash...
The plugins mentioned - replaygain and coverart-browser are coded in the language called Python.
This uses the gi introspection libraries.
These bug-reports are relevant:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=685402
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=685303
Precise uses an older version of the important package
pygobject- it appears the Rhythmbox developers have used the latest libraries found in Quantal.I've confirmed that the webupd8 PPA works brilliantly in Quantal - no issues with these plugins.
However, the crash is caused by some-code in Rhythmbox v2.98 that is calling stuff in the older libraries - that call is not handled and causes the crash.
Since parts of Unity and some Gnome apps also similarly use pygobject, the crash appears to leave this package libraries in an undefined state causing the instability.
The RB developers have acknowledged this - but are unlikely to resolve this.
choices...
Thus there is a choice - live without these particular plugins and others similarly affected, or to downgrade your Rhythmbox version.
To downgrade from v2.98:
Then cleanup:
i.e. the
ppa-purgedoes not clean-up fully and leaves some libraries still at their v2.98 versions.Finish off by updating your sources:
This will leave you with the default and stable Rhythmbox 2.96 that comes with Precise.
If you still have a hankering for something slightly newer, I have rebuilt WebUpd8's original Rhythmbox v2.97 before that team upgraded.
This is available in my PPA.