Mandrake 8.2 -> 9.0 - now mp3s won't play
 

Greetings --

Just updated a box at my office from Mandrake 8.2 to 9.0 (I was having problems with CUPS and a few other headaches). The upgrade went smoothly and fixed all of the problems I had been having, but introduced a new one: mp3 files no longer play, be it with xmms or the kde app (kaboodle; I use WindowMaker but pulled this up to see if it's an xmms-specific problem - which it isn't - kaboodle didn't play them, either). Under 8.2, I had no problems with xmms, playing mp3s, etc.

Xmms will bring up the playlist, allow me to read and alter id3 tags, etc., but won't play the files. Clicking on the play button just stops the title from scrolling for a second.

It doesn't seem to be a hardware issue, as I can play audio CDs. I still need to try it with a .wav file.

I have all of the necessary libraries installed.

I know that xmms 1.2.7 under Mdk 9.0 is capable of playing mp3s; someone I know did the same upgrade and they play fine on his machine.

Any ideas for debugging this would be appreciated...thanks.

-- Bob --

First thing to try is open a console and issue the command xmms. See if it throws up any error messages when you try to play a file.

I already tried that...thanks. It does give me an error message:

/usr/lib/libSDL-1.2.so.0: undefined symbol: snd_pcm_resume

but I've been told that this library does not deal with sound playback, rather the visual display only...but I suppose this could be wrong. Is this the case?

-- Bob --

SDL is a multimedia library that does sound, video and joystick control. I would go into the Control Centre, and see if it is possible to upgrade your libSDL then.

Thanks. Upgraded to the latest version of libSDL in the Cooker. No better.

Interestingly, mpg123 goes through the motions of playing the file - but there's no sound.

I had no problems with this under 8.2. Wondering why it got hosed up with the upgrade to 9.0.

Listening to music in my office keeps me sane. I really need to get this fixed..... :-P

Thanks...Bob

In redhat 9 they disabled mp3 for some reason goto Xmms.org and get the the software etc again and it works

This isn't Red Hat 9 though.

That symbol looks like an ALSA one. I suspect Mandrake moved to ALSA 0.9, and your SDL is compiled for 0.5, try reinstalling from scratch? Alternatively, uninstall SDL and reinstall from the Mandrake CDs.

If you install ALSA yourself, might be worth removing it.

OK, went through and removed all of the xmms-related rpms and the alsa libraries (had an older 0.9 and a 0.5), and the SDL libs, then re-installed the latest alsa libs and the SDL libs from the Mdk 9.0 discs (libalsa2-0.9.0...., etc.), then reinstalled xmms and libxmms1. I no longer get that error message - but it still won't play the files.

There probably is still a conflict somewhere with an old package but I don't see any way to trace it. Does xmms have a debugging or trace option which might clue me in? Didn't see one in the man page.

Thanks for the help so far - much appreciated.

-- Bob --

Went through the entire dependency list and I have all accounted for. Mpg123 will go through the motions of playing an mp3 file but I get no sound. I can likewise play a .wav file with QuickTime (using Crossover Plugin in Mozilla) - but also no sound. Audio CDs do play, so the connection between the sound card and the external amp is fine.

The correct modules for the sound card (AWE64 Gold) are loaded.

This is driving me nuts.