I can't get rhythmbox 0.7.1 or 0.7.2 to work. It will install without any error messages, but when I try to play a song I get two error messages "Device "/dev/dsp" does not exist" and "Could not pause playback".

I have tried using the xine and gstreamer back ends but I get the same error message in both cases. Reverting back to 0.6.10 makes the errors go away, but there are some key bug-fixes in 0.7.2 that I really want to take advantage of.

Does anyone know how to solve this?

what does:
ls -l /dev/dsp*

tell you ?
can you post it and the output of:
lsmod

ls -l /dev/dsp0 returns "crwxrwxrwx 1 jeff root 14, 3 Feb 26 22:05 /dev/dsp0"

lsmod returns
Module Size Used by Tainted: P
nvidia 1964896 12 (autoclean)
keybdev 2052 0 (unused)
mousedev 4212 1
hid 21092 0 (unused)
usbmouse 2040 0 (unused)
input 3200 0 [keybdev mousedev hid usbmouse]
parport_pc 14820 0
parport 23400 0 [parport_pc]
uhci 24508 0 (unused)
usbcore 59436 1 [hid usbmouse uhci]
snd-emu10k1 63012 5
snd-pcm 55880 0 [snd-emu10k1]
snd-timer 13572 0 [snd-pcm]
snd-hwdep 4836 0 [snd-emu10k1]
snd-page-alloc 6324 0 [snd-emu10k1 snd-pcm]
snd-util-mem 1136 0 [snd-emu10k1]
snd-ac97-codec 44508 0 [snd-emu10k1]
snd-rawmidi 12768 0 [snd-emu10k1]
snd-seq-device 3888 0 [snd-emu10k1 snd-rawmidi]
snd 30340 5 [snd-emu10k1 snd-pcm snd-timer snd-hwdep snd-util-mem snd-ac97-codec snd-rawmidi snd-seq-device]
soundcore 3396 4 [snd]
emu10k1-gp 1352 0 (unused)
gameport 1420 0 [emu10k1-gp]
ohci1394 24112 0 (unused)
ieee1394 42372 0 [ohci1394]
8139too 14216 1
mii 2272 0 [8139too]
crc32 2880 0 [8139too]
ide-scsi 9360 0
agpgart 44036 5
apm 9612 2

I also get the same thing running rhythmbox as root.

anybody?

From my bug report:

jeff@foxhole:~$ gst-launch-0.8 gnomevfssrc
location=/mnt/shared/music/Beatles/Revolver/Beatles-Yellow_Submarine.mp3 !
spider ! volume ! audioscale ! audioconvert ! $(gconftool-2 -g
/system/gstreamer/default/audiosink)

RUNNING pipeline ...
ERROR: from element /pipeline0/osssink0: Device "/dev/dsp" does not exist.
Additional debug info:
gstosselement.c(719): gst_osselement_open_audio: /pipeline0/osssink0:
system error: No such device
ERROR: pipeline doesn't want to play.

When I run gstreamer-properties and change the default sink to ALSA, I get the
error message:

There is no element present to handle the stream's mime type application/x-id3.

Try setting the Sink to osssink in gstreamer-properties

Hope that helps...

Mindbender, that means you probably don't have the appropriate decoder for mp3 installed yet. My default install of Unbuntu did not have it. Just install the mad plugin that should fix it although you might just want to install all the plugins if you are a mediaphile.