Have encountered an odd problem.

When I try to play an Audio CD, using either Rhythmbox or Soundjuicer, after about 15 seconds the computer will crash hard and only way of recovering is with the power switch.

Has anybody seen this behaviour before? Is there something wrong with a library that handles the playback of audio CD?

Not sure if this is a permissions problem though, as data and DVD playback from the same drive works 100%

Have you tried anything besides those two programs? While it's possible a library is causing the mess, you stated that the computer hard crashes and the only way to recover is the power button...what exactly is it doing? Is it going black screen on you? Is it locking up?

I have concluded that the problem relates to the ability for the computer to playback an audio CD.

For instance, Sound Juicer can list the tracks from the CD and their track names, but when I attempt to play or extract the Audio CD, Sound Juicer will lock up and after 15 seconds the entire Linux O/S will lock up to the point where the mouse will not even move and the keyboard is totally unresponsive. The only way out is the power button at that point.

If I try to listen to an Audio CD with Xine, Rhythm Box or any other CD audio player, LInux will lock up hard after about 15 seconds.

I think that there is a problem with Gstreamer or a Codec or something but not sure where to start.