Fedora Core 4 and Amarok 1.3.6

This machine has been totally trouble free for quite a while, but since a day or two ago, every time I run Amarok, things on the desktop screw up badly.

Amarok keeps on playing and works fine, but when I start other programs, at first they start normally, but don't respond to clicks properly. Once that happens, other programs that are started just display their window and nothing in it. And I can't shut them down.

And then it gets worse. Eventually I can't use either panel or anything in them, and have to logoff by hitting CTRL-ALT-Backspace.

Once it messes up, shutting down Amarok has no effect. Its window is not affected by the problem, it seems. I can shut it down fine.

What did I do to cause this? I don't know, but I did a couple updates the other day that are probably the problem. I have no idea what they were. There are times when you wish you had WinXP system restore, huh?

So for now I'm living without music.

It may be Arts sucking the life out of your cpu. Try switching pluggins and if it still keeps happening disable the Arts sound system all together. Just kill artsd process next time this happens though.

Does this advice apply if I'm using Gstreamer/osssink? But that is a thought - change engines and see what happens...

I switched to gconfaudiosink and the problem is gone. Excellent! I have music again!

Arts is no longer supported kde will probably be dropping it soon. If you are having problems with arts (artsd) then my suggestion is disable it. Now to save myself argument about not hearing system sounds go to Sounds & Multimedia/System Notifications in control center there is a tab player settings click that. And use an external player I use mplayer but you could use xmms etc... Now to disable arts (artsd) Go to Sounds & Multimedia/Sound System and uncheck Enable Sound System then hit apply and next time you start up arts will not start.