my amarok employs gstreamer and arts. neither are able to make amarok play .ogg-files now when I use juk with arts it's no prob. this is annoying as amarok outrocks juk by far :-)

Sounds like what you want (I did the search on my debian box, but according to packages.ubuntu.com, ubuntu has it too).

hth --Jonas

Oh, and btw: mpd owns all other music players

Hi.

Like, e.g., the Amarok wiki says, you should avoid Arts whenever possible. It is not maintained any more and - hate to say this when opensource is involved - it is pure rubbish.

Vorbis is needed and I would personally choose Xine as an engine.

Uhhh... okay. It isn't a question, so I'm assuming everything is fine and dandy.

Otherwise, read "Smart Questions" by ESR (GIYF), and come back with a question.

well, I've got said package and, with amarok set to using gstreamer, still claims unability of playing .ogg format files. I only used arts to see if it's got the same issues. so thanks for all that advice, but now what. is it possible that gstreamer doesn't know it's got a package somewhere?

You're using ubuntu, which is highly similar to debian. I guess that makes the answer "not bloody likely". Sure, it could be, but there are more interesting things to investigate first.

The same issues as what? Unless you mean you were comparing amaroK and juk, you're likely to be comparing apples and oranges. So, did juk have the same issues?

Anyways, run "file" to see if it's really an ogg file. Try playing it back with totem-gstreamer, totem-xine, playsound and everything else you got. Check permissions. Post the amaroK configuration file (assuming it has one).

hi. ok to make things clear:
amarok with gstreamer won't play ogg
amarok w/ arts won't play ogg
amarok w/ xine does not
juk w/ arts does indeed do play ogg files correctly
juk w/ akode does but
juk w/ gstreamer does not

XMMS (dunno what machine) does

this would suggest that the gstreamer-vorbis package is faulty and that amarok per se isn't able to read .ogg files.

what do you think?

Sounds like both amarok and gstreamer is having some problems. Try playing back with other xine-enabled programs (xine itself, most notably). Please check how XMMS does the output--open the preferences dialog (C-p), the look under "output". Also, which ogg vorbis input plugin do you use? Which version? Are there any output plugins which don't work (still for XMMS)?

Please post the output of apt-cache show Amarok, and "ldd <the amarok executable>". Does Amarok use plugins? Which ones do you have installed? Which ones do you use?

I'm having a hard time figuring this out.

Package: amarok
Priority: optional
Section: kde
Installed-Size: 16880
Maintainer: Adeodato Simó <dato@the-barrel.org>
Architecture: i386
Version: 2:1.3.7-0ubuntu4~breezy1
Depends: amarok-gstreamer | amarok-engine, kdelibs4c2 (>= 4:3.4.3), libc6 (>= 2.3.4-1), libgcc1 (>= 1:4.0.1), libgl1-mesa | libgl1, libice6, libmysqlclient14, libpng12-0 (>= 1.2.8rel), libpq4, libqt3-mt (>= 3:3.3.4), libsm6, libstdc++6 (>= 4.0.1), libtag1c2 (>= 1.3.1), libtunepimp2c2 (>= 0.3.0), libx11-6, libxext6, zlib1g (>= 1:1.2.1)
Recommends: kdemultimedia-kio-plugins
Suggests: konqueror | www-browser, python, ruby, python-qt3, libqt0-ruby1.8
Filename: pool/main/a/amarok/amarok_1.3.7-0ubuntu4~breezy1_i386.deb
Size: 6485458
MD5sum: d471f284051c860b86fb4b3d0f377615
Description: versatile and easy to use audio player for KDE
amaroK tries to be a little different, providing a simple drag and drop
interface that really makes playlist handling easy.
.
Features include:
- rapid playlist creation, with drag and drop from a directory view
- nice playlist browser for your existing playlists (PLS or M3U formats)
- collection-indexing support, for smart browsing and playlist creation
- possibility of accessing media via kioslaves, allowing you to play
via smb:// or fish:// (normal streams are of course supported)
- inline ID3 tag editing, capable of retrieving tags via MusicBrainz
- album cover support: automatically displays album covers from the
filesystem, or downloaded on the fly
- miscellaneous audio effects, including crossfading
- easy bindable global shortcuts, rich DCOP interface
- On-Screen Display (OSD), on track change or at keypress
.
amaroK can output to different sound systems: aRts, GStreamer and XINE
support is included in the amarok-{arts,gstreamer,xine} packages,
respectively. By default, all of them will be installed (amarok-engines
package).
Bugs: mailto:ubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com
Origin: Ubuntu
Task: kubuntu-desktop

Package: amarok
Priority: optional
Section: kde
Installed-Size: 13888
Maintainer: Adeodato Simó <asp16@alu.ua.es>
Architecture: i386
Version: 2:1.3.1-0ubuntu4
Depends: amarok-gstreamer | amarok-engines | amarok-engine, kdelibs4c2 (>= 4:3.4.2), libaudio2, libc6 (>= 2.3.4-1), libfontconfig1 (>= 2.3.0), libfreetype6 (>= 2.1.5-1), libgcc1 (>= 1:4.0.1), libgl1-mesa | libgl1, libice6, libjpeg62, libmysqlclient14, libpng12-0 (>= 1.2.8rel), libqt3-mt (>= 3:3.3.4), libsm6, libsqlite3-0 (>= 3.2.1), libstdc++6 (>= 4.0.1), libtag1c2 (>= 1.3.1), libtunepimp2c2 (>= 0.3.0), libx11-6, libxcursor1 (>> 1.1.2), libxext6, libxft2 (>> 2.1.1), libxi6, libxinerama1, libxrandr2, libxrender1, libxt6, zlib1g (>= 1:1.2.1)
Recommends: kdemultimedia-kio-plugins
Suggests: konqueror | www-browser, python, ruby, python-qt3, libqt0-ruby1.8, khelpcenter
Filename: pool/main/a/amarok/amarok_1.3.1-0ubuntu4_i386.deb
Size: 5316458
MD5Sum: 76a136e859a50339ac6cec1a20b7e9cf
Description: versatile and easy to use audio player for KDE
amaroK tries to be a little different, providing a simple drag and drop
interface that really makes playlist handling easy.
.
Features include:
- rapid playlist creation, with drag and drop from a directory view
- nice playlist browser for your existing playlists (PLS or M3U formats)
- collection-indexing support, for smart browsing and playlist creation
- possibility of accessing media via kioslaves, allowing you to play
via smb:// or fish:// (normal streams are of course supported)
- inline ID3 tag editing, capable of retrieving tags via MusicBrainz
- album cover support: automatically displays album covers from the
filesystem, or downloaded on the fly
- miscellaneous audio effects, including crossfading
- easy bindable global shortcuts, rich DCOP interface
- On-Screen Display (OSD), on track change or at keypress
.
amaroK can output to different sound systems: aRts, GStreamer and XINE
support is included in the amarok-{arts,gstreamer,xine} packages,
respectively. By default, all of them will be installed (amarok-engines
package).
.
Support for XMMS visualization plugins is also compiled in (you need to
have xmms installed to be able to use it, though).
Bugs: mailto:ubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com
Origin: Ubuntu
Task: kubuntu-desktop

that's what apt-cache show amarok gives me
does this give us a hint? two instances installed
(how do you put this in a textbox to minimize the size used?)
as for the ldd command, this might sound stupid, but I can't find an executable. I suppose it should be called "amarok.ext" (I suppose) where ext is an extension whose name I don't know. but, "locate amarok" didn't get me very far, and so didn't checking out the item in the menu bar.

XMMS uses libvorbis.so (ogg vorbis player 1.2.10 input) and
libOSS.so (oss driver 1.2.10 output), working fine altogether
also, ALSA 1.2.10 works fine, but
eSound (1.2.10) does not

(at this point another question arises: what's the difference between an engine like xine, gstreamer and an output plugin like oss or alsa AND where does arts belong?)

as for the amarok plugins, I have the amarok-xine, -gstreamer and -arts engines. as described, I used them to check if any could play ogg files (and I definetely am sure that I am talking about neat .ogg files)

anyways, thanks a lot for all the effort. highly appreciated
anything else i can do or check?

run 'dpkg -L amarok' to see which files are installed by amarok. The executable might hide in one of the -engines packages. apt-cache lists two, not because you have two versions installed, but because it "knows" two different versions (i.e. two different versions are available from the sources in your /etc/apt/sources.list).

Try installing the other version (apt-get install amarok=2:1.3.1-0ubuntu4, or the other version string). Does that fix things? Does playing it back with totem-gstreamer work? Does it play back it vlc? Does it play back with playsound (apt-file search playsound => libsdl-sound1.2)?

Oss and alsa are sound drivers--they talk directly to your sound hardware (possibly through some kernel interface). esd and artsd are sound servers--they talk to the sound drivers (they also allow tricks such as running on a different machine than the program running the music player--somewhat similar to X forwarding). gstreamer and xine are (possibly a bit simplified) blobs of code that handle input and output: they decode the data in the media files (such as ogg/vorbis), and send that to either a sound server or a sound driver.

Hmm... have you previously been able to play back ogg/vorbis (just to be sure, we're talking about ogg/vorbis--sound--and not ogg/theora--video--right?) with amaroK?

I'm thinking it might be a bug, but I'm nowhere near sure enough.

ok found it. it's /usr/lib/amarok/amarokapp
and its ldd lists this:
linux-gate.so.1 => (0xffffe000)
libkutils.so.1 => /usr/lib/libkutils.so.1 (0xb7ed0000)
libkio.so.4 => /usr/lib/libkio.so.4 (0xb7bc1000)
libkdeui.so.4 => /usr/lib/libkdeui.so.4 (0xb7909000)
libkdecore.so.4 => /usr/lib/libkdecore.so.4 (0xb76f2000)
libkhtml.so.4 => /usr/lib/libkhtml.so.4 (0xb73c9000)
libknewstuff.so.1 => /usr/lib/libknewstuff.so.1 (0xb7392000)
libtag.so.1 => /usr/lib/libtag.so.1 (0xb733f000)
libGL.so.1 => /usr/lib/libGL.so.1 (0xb72d9000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libpthread.so.0 (0xb72c7000)
libtunepimp.so.2 => /usr/lib/libtunepimp.so.2 (0xb7253000)
libmysqlclient.so.14 => /usr/lib/libmysqlclient.so.14 (0xb7137000)
libz.so.1 => /usr/lib/libz.so.1 (0xb7122000)
libcrypt.so.1 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libcrypt.so.1 (0xb70f5000)
libnsl.so.1 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libnsl.so.1 (0xb70e0000)
libpq.so.4 => /usr/lib/libpq.so.4 (0xb70c4000)
libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6 (0xb6fde000)
libm.so.6 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libm.so.6 (0xb6fbc000)
libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0xb6fb0000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6 (0xb6e82000)
libDCOP.so.4 => /usr/lib/libDCOP.so.4 (0xb6e51000)
libkdefx.so.4 => /usr/lib/libkdefx.so.4 (0xb6e26000)
libqt-mt.so.3 => /usr/lib/libqt-mt.so.3 (0xb6682000)
libkdesu.so.4 => /usr/lib/libkdesu.so.4 (0xb666c000)
libkwalletclient.so.1 => /usr/lib/libkwalletclient.so.1 (0xb665b000)
libfam.so.0 => /usr/lib/libfam.so.0 (0xb6654000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libdl.so.2 (0xb6651000)
libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXext.so.6 (0xb6644000)
libresolv.so.2 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libresolv.so.2 (0xb6631000)
libutil.so.1 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libutil.so.1 (0xb662d000)
libart_lgpl_2.so.2 => /usr/lib/libart_lgpl_2.so.2 (0xb6618000)
libidn.so.11 => /usr/lib/libidn.so.11 (0xb65e9000)
libjpeg.so.62 => /usr/lib/libjpeg.so.62 (0xb65ca000)
libkjs.so.1 => /usr/lib/libkjs.so.1 (0xb6562000)
libpcreposix.so.3 => /usr/lib/libpcreposix.so.3 (0xb655f000)
libpcre.so.3 => /usr/lib/libpcre.so.3 (0xb6535000)
libkparts.so.2 => /usr/lib/libkparts.so.2 (0xb64f5000)
libkdeprint.so.4 => /usr/lib/libkdeprint.so.4 (0xb642c000)
libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/libX11.so.6 (0xb636c000)
libXxf86vm.so.1 => /usr/lib/libXxf86vm.so.1 (0xb6367000)
libdrm.so.1 => /usr/lib/libdrm.so.1 (0xb6360000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xb7f3f000)
##interesting parts
libogg.so.0 => /usr/lib/libogg.so.0 (0xb635a000)
libvorbis.so.0 => /usr/lib/libvorbis.so.0 (0xb6333000)
libvorbisfile.so.3 => /usr/lib/libvorbisfile.so.3 (0xb632b000)
##/
libFLAC.so.7 => /usr/lib/libFLAC.so.7 (0xb62ee000)
libmusicbrainz.so.4 => /usr/lib/libmusicbrainz.so.4 (0xb62bc000)
libssl.so.0.9.7 => /usr/lib/i686/cmov/libssl.so.0.9.7 (0xb628b000)
libcrypto.so.0.9.7 => /usr/lib/i686/cmov/libcrypto.so.0.9.7 (0xb618e000)
libkrb5.so.3 => /usr/lib/libkrb5.so.3 (0xb612e000)
libpng12.so.0 => /usr/lib/libpng12.so.0 (0xb610a000)
libSM.so.6 => /usr/lib/libSM.so.6 (0xb6103000)
libICE.so.6 => /usr/lib/libICE.so.6 (0xb60e9000)
libXrender.so.1 => /usr/lib/libXrender.so.1 (0xb60e1000)
libfontconfig.so.1 => /usr/lib/libfontconfig.so.1 (0xb60b3000)
libaudio.so.2 => /usr/lib/libaudio.so.2 (0xb609f000)
libXt.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXt.so.6 (0xb6051000)
libXi.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXi.so.6 (0xb6048000)
libXrandr.so.2 => /usr/lib/libXrandr.so.2 (0xb6045000)
libXcursor.so.1 => /usr/lib/libXcursor.so.1 (0xb603c000)
libXinerama.so.1 => /usr/lib/libXinerama.so.1 (0xb6039000)
libXft.so.2 => /usr/lib/libXft.so.2 (0xb6027000)
libfreetype.so.6 => /usr/lib/libfreetype.so.6 (0xb5fbd000)
libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXau.so.6 (0xb5fb9000)
libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXdmcp.so.6 (0xb5fb5000)
libexpat.so.1 => /usr/lib/libexpat.so.1 (0xb5f96000)
libk5crypto.so.3 => /usr/lib/libk5crypto.so.3 (0xb5f74000)
libcom_err.so.2 => /lib/libcom_err.so.2 (0xb5f70000)
libXfixes.so.3 => /usr/lib/libXfixes.so.3 (0xb5f6c000)


that doesn't tell me anything.

apt-get install amarok=2:1.3.7blah-breezy: amarok is already the newest version

but

apt-get install (the other version 2:1.3.1):
amarok: Depends: amarok-gstreamer but it is not going to be installed or
amarok-engines but it is not going to be installed or
amarok-engine
E: Broken packages

but

$ sudo apt-get check amarok
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done

vlc does play and apt-file is unknown to system:
$ sudo apt-file search playsound
sudo: apt-file: command not found

and yes, we're talking about ogg vorbis sound files. with amarok. I have never been able to playback.

"apt-get install (the other version) amarok-gstreamer". Or just delete the current version, *then* install the new one (will that work? maybe).

There's no harm in you not having apt-file, I just thought you had it and used it. playsound is found in the libsdl-sound1.2 package.

I'm running out of ideas..