This forum has been archived. All content is frozen. Please use KDE Discuss instead.

Let me know when amarok is stable

Tags: None
(comma "," separated)
Anon
Karma
0

Let me know when amarok is stable

Sun Mar 20, 2005 7:16 pm
Let me just start off by saying that I am totally aware that there is a good chance that all of the problems I\'ve had with amarok are due to the fact that I tinker with my system a lot, and that I may have broken something somewhere without knowing it.

However, I have been tinkering for over 4 years, and every single other application on my system works just fine. I have never, ever had as much trouble with another application as I have had with amarok. Amarok has some really nice features, and I really want to use it (which is why I have been so patient up to this point), but enough is enough.

I have had problems with every single version of amarok I\'ve tried (more than 4), and have had the latest version of gstreamer and gst-plugins installed every time. 1.2.1 was working OK for me (with gstreamer 0.8.7 and gst-plugins 0.8.6 mind you--the newer versions would crash). Then I upgraded to 1.2.2 and, surprise, surprise, amarok can\'t even play a song. Not with the above-mentioned versions of gst*, nor with the latest versions. This has been the story over the last 4 or five versions of amarok I\'ve tried. Every time a new version comes out I have to try every permutation of library and amarok version.

And I have asked for help, and I have filed bug reports. But no one has ever been able to help me. And besides, what\'s the point if there is a new problem every time you upgrade (and often even when you don\'t touch anything)?

The most annoying part of all of this is that crashes (or amarok just not working at all) seem to be totally random. It will work OK for a while, then one day just decide to not want to start up anymore, without me having made any changes to my system. Which leads me to believe that amarok corrupts its own collection DB and cannot deal with whatever it has broken.

I know people like to blame all these problems on the backends, and maybe they are right. But an application with an unstable backend is an unstable application. Plus the fact that amarok will work fine with a given version of gst* and then just stop wanting to even start up properly with no changes makes me doubt that it\'s all the backends. And you might say \"well, amarok supports many backends\", and you would be right. But all you ever hear from amarok developers is that everyone should be using gstreamer.

I also know that the free software motto is \"Don\'t complain, contribute\", but I simply do not have the time. Besides, this isn\'t a complaint, it\'s a suggestion. And the suggestion is that the amarok developers shift their focus to making amarok more stable. Maybe it works fine on stock Debian, Red Hat, etc. installations, but it sure as hell doesn\'t work on my system. And, like I said before: everything else does.

I know I am not alone, either. I have seen many other people complain about amarok being unstable and crashing. I am not trying to imply that the developers are ****. I don\'t think I would be able to do a better job myself. It\'s just that in over 4 years of compiling almost everything from source I have never failed to make an application work. And I have never spent as much time on another application as I have on amarok. Thus it is now time to throw in the towel.

No hard feelings, though. This was never intended to be a flame. I\'m just frustrated. So now I say goodbye, amarok. I will give you another try in 6 months or so.
User avatar
eean
KDE Developer
Posts
1016
Karma
0
OS
Well, not ashamed to admit that I didn\'t read all that. Try the xine engine.


Amarok Developer
Anon
Karma
0
Well maybe if you\'d read it all you wouldn\'t have given me totally useless advice.
User avatar
apachelogger
KDE Developer
Posts
525
Karma
5
OS
I read all, and I only have to say: simply BS

but everyone should have it\'s own opinion, so it\'s ok


Annoyed with bbcode since 1999.
x99
Karma
0
_TuX_ wrote:
I read all, and I only have to say: simply BS


Uhh, ok. You\'re saying s/he\'s making all that up? I didn\'t have any problems installing, but I\'ve never seen an app crash this much, in any OS. Ever. It crashes when songs are playing. It crashes when songs aren\'t playing. It crashes when songs are paused. I like it, and it can only get better (I\'m assuming), but babysitting it is annoying when I can squeeze at most one or two albums out of it.

Be thankful yours is stable, but saying "BS" is just stupid.
User avatar
apachelogger
KDE Developer
Posts
525
Karma
5
OS
ok, ok, BS is maybe a littlebit overplayed, but it\'s for me unbelievable that amaroK crashes all the time, or you aren\'t able compile it...

since I know amaroK, I compile it by my self and I\'ve never had problems, like this...

the only time amaroK crashes on my machine, is if I use the CVS

so, how could this be, that on the one machine it runs \"super\"stable, and on the other it crashes all the time?

and now why I\'ve said BS: we are all using the same code! so the problem isn\'t amaroK it self, it\'s the environment on that he\'s running


Annoyed with bbcode since 1999.
Bill Gates
Karma
0
On my computer amarok freezes a lot between track change. I also have compiled everything myself on this computer. It\'s the most unstable app on my system... but I\'ll keep using amarok because of the eye candy.
imported-werner
Registered Member
Posts
10
Karma
0
Hi,

I am using Amarok since version 0.9.

I have never ever had any crashing or freezing problem
since then.

But... I am using the ARTS plugin, which, for me, is the only
usable plugin despite the strange fact that it is deprecated
by Amarok.

Anyway, it just works!

So I suggest to try to change your plugin and give this great
player a new try...

Werner
thc
Karma
0
Same here, amarok crashes most often at startup, sometimes after playing a song and I hit the Stop-button. When it crashes it crashes everything, kicking me back to kdm.

I\'ve tried amarok (1.2.0, 1.2.1, 1.2.2) on kde-3.3, and kde-3.4. Same thing happens on both versions of kde. I\'ve tried reinstalling it a million times, trying different engines, removing amarok config files from my homedir, different CFLAGS, no help.

I\'m compiling 1.2.3 now, crossing my fingers hoping it to work.

My sysinfo:
Athlon XP1800+
Kernel-2.6.11
KDE-3.4.0
gcc version 3.4.3-20050110 (Gentoo Linux 3.4.3.20050110-r1, ssp-3.4.3.20050110-0, pie-8.7.7)
CFLAGS=\"-march=athlon-xp -O3 -pipe -mfpmath=sse -msse -mmmx -m3dnow -fomit-frame-pointer\"
muesli
KDE Developer
Posts
230
Karma
0
it kicks you back to kdm? lol, that _really_ doesn\'t sound like an amarok problem, sorry.

...muesli
Flex
Registered Member
Posts
11
Karma
0
thc wrote:
Same here, amarok crashes most often at startup, sometimes after playing a song and I hit the Stop-button. When it crashes it crashes everything, kicking me back to kdm.


There is a thread about the same problem, amarok killed the X server. ¿Are you using Firefox with foxytunes? Some of us could reproduce the same problem and uninstalling foxytunes amarok has never killed kde again.
thc
Karma
0
Yes, I\'m using foxytunes. Gotta inspect this. Thanks for finding the link for me!
maddox
Karma
0
This post is dead on. I would like to see the stability of Amarok improved. Amarok is a very nice player, but I can\'t use it anymore because it won\'t go more than 15 seconds while playing a sond without crashing. I also can\'t listen to radio stations because it will freeze on me.
catmandu
Karma
0
Thank God I\'m not the only one having these problems. This program crashes more times then I do for sleep. I swear, I\'m amazed at how much this program crashes. It\'s just bogus. To even think of telling this guy to use xine instead of taking ownership and addressing the issue is completely out of line.

I\'ve tried so many things to try to keep this thing from crashing, including new installs on solid hardware and it still goes boom. I\'ve used it on multiple distros on multiple machines and still it goes boom everywhere.

Goodness, not everyone can contribute and not everyone should. Sometimes, maybe even most of the time the best thing we can do is complain. Linux is supposed to be this utterly stable OS yet amaroK crashes so much it makes linux seem like a pile of trash.

This program has alot of nice features and a very nice look. Can\'t you guys just pop up error messages instead of just dumping us back to the desktop.

One place this program crashes more than any for me is when I first load it and click on a song to play. Usually the first time I do this it crashes, poooooof. Then the next time crash!!!! The third time it is iffy. Once in a while it works and other times it won\'t. Sometimes the gst engine works and other times it doesn\'t. Sometimes it say xxx is in use by another device when it isn\'t and I have to restart the computer to get past it. Not log out of x or restart the program, but restart the whole computer.

My advice to you guys is to take ownership of this and find a way to present error messages rather than leting it just dump out to the desktop.
Catmandu
Karma
0
In fact, today I did a clean install of it. I then decided to build my collection. I passed thet ime while building the collection by coming here and posting. After my post I went back to see if the collection had been built. That task was complete.

I then searched through the collection and picked a song I liked. I double clicked on it. This time it didn\'t crash,but it didn\'t play the song either.

Down in the lower left of the widnow is a message saying that gstreamer error /dev.....oslink... is in use. I then went to the configure amarok and chose to look at the engine properties. I noticed that the gstreamer wasn\'t listed. In fact, no engines were listed. I then went and hit cancel. After that I clicked on the song again to see if it would play to get the exact error message and after .5 seconds it crashed.

Come on! What\'s it going to take?


Bookmarks



Who is online

Registered users: Bing [Bot], Google [Bot], q.ignora, watchstar