Amarok 1.4.8, using KDE 3.5.9. Build date Mar 4 2008
sidux, kernel 2.6.24 amd64. Filesystem ext3.

Problem: songs with a # in the name don't play. The playlist handles filenames wrongly.

Songs are scanned allright, they appear in the collection, they can be added to the playlist but won't play. The file is 'greyed out' in the playlist. When selected by double clicking, the message "Local file does not exist." appears. The file exists of course, it was scanned and added to the playlist after all, but there's a problem with how Amarok treats filenames.

Example:
filename

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16 Stateless -  Prism #1.mp3

When I try to 'Edit Track Information' in the playlist window I get a message:

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This file does not exist: /home/user/mp3/albumname/16 Stateless - Prism

Funny enough Amarok doesn't complain when I change id3 tags in the playlist window (but also doesn't save it) and I can also edit track information in the collection browser (which gets saved). When I remove the # from the filename, I can add the file to the playlist again and play it.

Amarok works ok, other songs (from this particular album) play ok and the track can be played with another player (like Kaffeine, both with Xine backend).

I can't say for sure but it seems to me this behaviour is fairly recent, perhaps a few months. I think I've played files with a '#' in their names with Amarok before. It's possible this behaviour was introduced when I messed around with locale settings, changing bits and pieces to UTF8.

Questions:
- can other people confirm this?
- is this a bug?
- is it a problem with UTF (LANG=en_US.UTF-8)?
- is there a setting with which this can be influenced?
- can anyone tell me a way to solve this (without renaming files)?

Best way to find out if something is a bug is to post it on bugs.kde.org - this certainly seems to be bug-like behaviour, which is what the bug tracker is for. Devs are more likely to read about it there than here.

dangle_wtf wrote:Best way to find out if something is a bug is to post it on bugs.kde.org - this certainly seems to be bug-like behaviour, which is what the bug tracker is for. Devs are more likely to read about it there than here.

I agree times 4. I also looked at bugs.kde.org (and this forum) before I started this thread but the issue is a bit hard to find good search criteria for. Before I file a bugreport, I'm very curious about the "can other people confirm this?" part because if it's an Amarok bug then I can't be the only person experiencing it. If I am then it may be that I need to look at other users of my distro for answers in stead of Amarok devs or perhaps we can find out that it's a 64bit only issue, which will greatly help the devs in reproducing and (hopefully) bugfixing.

So for those who are a bit curious and don't mind to to post their experiences:
reproduction steps 1: open Amarok, type a # in the search field of the collection browser. If you get a result, it means you have a song in your collection with a # in the tags. Check to see if that song also has a # in the filename, then add it to your playlist. What do you see, can you play it?

reproduction steps 2: rename a MP3-file so that it has a # in its filename. Open Amarok and update collection. Select the song, confirm it has a # in its filename, add it to your playlist. What do you see, can you play it?

I'd be grateful if you can add your distro/ other OS details if you bother to reply, perhaps including Amarok version and architecture. TIA

I'd still suggest posting a bug report. There's a bug day today and your lack of reporting might preclude this being worked on.

Done, good thing because I looked at it more closely and it's stranger than I thought: not every track with a # in its name is a problem and I can solve it by removing problematic files, re-installing and adding them to Amarok again.

http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=159411