Hello,
I'm using Amarok 2.5, OpenSuse 12.1, KDE 4.x, on an i5-based laptop with 4GB ram. Amarok takes roughly 2 minutes to start and be playable.
Running

amarok --debug --nofork

from terminal yields several hundred lines of:

TagLib: MPEG::Properties::read() -- Could not find a valid last MPEG frame in the stream.
TagLib: MPEG::Properties::read() -- Could not find a valid last MPEG frame in the stream.
TagLib: MPEG::Header::parse() -- Invalid sample rate.
TagLib: MPEG::Properties::read() -- Page headers were invalid.
TagLib: MPEG::Header::parse() -- Invalid sample rate.
TagLib: MPEG::Properties::read() -- Page headers were invalid.
TagLib: MPEG::Header::parse() -- Invalid sample rate.
TagLib: MPEG::Header::parse() -- Invalid sample rate.
TagLib: MPEG::Header::parse() -- Invalid sample rate.
TagLib: MPEG::Header::parse() -- Invalid sample rate.
TagLib: MPEG::Properties::read() -- Could not find a valid last MPEG frame in the stream.
TagLib: MPEG::Properties::read() -- Could not find a valid last MPEG frame in the stream.
TagLib: MPEG::Header::parse() -- Invalid sample rate.
TagLib: MPEG::Header::parse() -- Invalid sample rate.
TagLib: MPEG::Header::parse() -- Invalid sample rate.
TagLib: MPEG::Header::parse() -- Invalid sample rate.
TagLib: MPEG::Header::parse() -- Invalid sample rate.
TagLib: MPEG::Header::parse() -- Invalid sample rate.
TagLib: MPEG::Header::parse() -- Invalid sample rate.

and several hundred lines of:

amarok: [CUEFILE]: "/../windows/D/Music/someartist/somealbum/somesong- 1759.cue" - Shoot blindly and missed, searching for other cue files.
amarok: [CUEFILE]: - Didn't find any matching cue file.

Searching around for the above errors only seemed to yield unresolved bug reports from versions of amarok past.

When Amarok does start and the playlist is loaded, almost all songs can play normally, except m4a's (of which I don't have many) which prompt me to install MP4 AAC with numerous gstreamer dependencies, which won't install properly when I accept the prompt. However, I don't have enough m4a's for this last item to really be an issue, perhaps less than 5.

The real issue I'm concerned about is the slow startup time, which seems to spent parsing what amarok sees as invalid mpegs and looking for missing cue files.
Please advise.
Thank you.

P.S.
Regarding the cue files, a search of my collection reveals only 10 such files, and opening this kind of file opens the CD burner K3B. I'm not interested in burning CDs, however, so is there any way I can absolve Amarok of the responsibility of looking for CDs to burn?

I managed to cut down the load time by moving all non-music files (log, txt, nfo, cue,m3u) out of the music directory. Formatting the partition from ntfs to ext4 allowed me to see the offending file types during Amarok startup. Now the music collection is scanning quickly, but the playlist still throws "invalid sample rate" errors.
I also had to move some wma format songs. This version of Amarok won't play them. It's odd because Amarok 1.4 will play them.

Rebuilt playlist from clean collection. Seems to start up fast now. May I suggest allowing Amarok to be a bit more graceful in how it handles non-music files?

Huaidan wrote:I managed to cut down the load time by moving all non-music files (log, txt, nfo, cue,m3u) out of the music directory. Formatting the partition from ntfs to ext4 allowed me to see the offending file types during Amarok startup. Now the music collection is scanning quickly, but the playlist still throws "invalid sample rate" errors.
I also had to move some wma format songs. This version of Amarok won't play them. It's odd because Amarok 1.4 will play them.

I find that opening large NTFS directories takes much longer then ext4 ones, I see that with Dolphin. How large is your collection?

If you change your Phonon backend do the wma files play?

Huaidan wrote:the playlist still throws "invalid sample rate" errors.

These are emitted by the tag library and are harmless.