Archives For rhythmbox

Rhythmbox music player

Alternative toolbar plugin released a new bug-fix version today with the latest Rhythmbox music player 3.4.3 compatibility.

Alternative toolbar is a third-party plugin for Rhythmbox. It replaces the default header bar with Gnome-style client-side decoration. And the standard toolbar replaced by a compact toolbar.

The plugin is installed in Ubuntu 18.04 and higher out-of-the-box. However, it does not work well in the most recent Rhythmbox 3.4.3 release.

For Ubuntu 18.04 and Ubuntu 18.10 users upgraded to Rhythmbox 3.4.3, you may do following steps to update the Alternative Toolbar plugin:

1. Open terminal either from app launcher or via Ctrl+Alt+T keyboard shortcut. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

Type user password (no asterisks feedback) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.

2. Then launch Software Updater, and update Rhythmbox as well as the plugin:

Uninstall:

You can remove the PPA by launching Software & Updates and navigate to Other Software tab. Or simply run command in terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

Rhythmbox 3.4.3 Released with Numerous Bug Fixes

Last updated: January 8, 2019

Rhythmbox music player

The default Rhythmbox music player released version 3.4.3 a few days ago. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 18.04.

Rhythmbox 3.4.3 release highlights:

  • Improved Android plugin to work better with Samsung and Android 9 devices
  • Replaced status bar with floating bar as used by Nautilus
  • Fixed crash when store request processing fails
  • Fixed crashes when editing auto playlist sorted by Location / Bitrate
  • Fixed crashes when insert a cd
  • Fixed issue that can not transfer songs to phone over MTP
  • And many other changes.

How to Install Rhythmbox 3.4.3 in Ubuntu:

For Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 18.10 and derivatives, you can install Rhythmbox 3.4.3 from the unofficial PPA.

1. Open terminal either from app launcher or via Ctrl+Alt+T keyboard shortcut. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

Type user password (no asterisks feedback) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.

2. Then launch Software Updater, upgrade the music player packages:

How to Restore:

You can purge the PPA which also downgrade Rhythmbox to the stock version via command:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

Rhythmbox music player

Rhythmbox, Ubuntu’s default music playing application, got a new release update after a year of development.

Besides removing visualization plugin, Rhythmbox 3.4.2 features responsiveness improvements during media player sync, better network buffering when crossfading is enabled, and various bug-fixes (or feature request) including:

  • Critical Assertion Errors
  • Add --version command option.
  • Rhythmbox crashed with SIGSEGV during import
  • Expand playing icon column in entry view
  • Import hangs for special file
  • Playqueue UI improvements
  • Memory leak in error handling of utimes on podcast-timestamp
  • Open settings crashes the app
  • build failure with gcc 7.1.1
  • Keyboard navigation with tab is broken by search entry widget

How to Install Rhythmbox 3.4.2 in Ubuntu:

The project leader for Ubuntu Budgie, fossfreedom, was maintaining PPA with Rhythmbox package and its plugins, though they are not updated for a period of time.

So I uploaded Rhythmbox 3.4.2 into the PPA, available for Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 17.04, and Ubuntu 17.10.

1. Open terminal via Ctrl+Alt+T and run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

Input your password (no visual feedback while typing) when it prompts and hit Enter.

2. Then upgrade the music playing application via Software Updater:

or upgrade your system via command:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

How to remove:

To revert back to stock version of Rhythmbox in your Ubuntu, purge the PPA as well as downgrade the player via command:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

If it’s working good, you may still remove the PPA repository via Software & Updates utility under Other Software tab.

Rhythmbox music player

Gnome’s default music player, Rhythmbox, has reached the 3.4 release. It has been made into the universe repository (to be default) for Ubuntu 16.10 Yakkety.

Rhythmbox 3.4 comes with a new remote web control plugin, allows users to control the basic music playback remotely via a web browser.

Other changes in Rhythmbox 3.4:

  • Grilo plugin now uses Grilo 0.3
  • Soundcloud plugin fetches more search results and allows pausing
  • No longer uses webkit (partly due to OpenBSD W^X enforcement)
  • Slightly better handling of keyboard shortcuts for playback
  • Core and some plugin data files compiled into binaries using GResources
  • Memory leak and plugin fixes, translation updates, etc.
  • See more in NEWS page.

Rhythmbox 3.4

rhythmbox 3.4 web control plugin

Install Rhythmbox 3.4 in Ubuntu 16.04

Besides building the new release from source, you can install Rhythmbox 3.4 in Ubuntu Gnome 16.04 via a third-party PPA repository.

Tried both official Rhythmbox 3.4 build in Ubuntu 16.10 daily and the PPA backports in Ubuntu 16.04, there are a few issues found in my case:

  • No menu (global or title bar menu) in Unity Desktop
  • new web control plugin does not work in my browser

If you intend to install Rhythmbox 3.4 via PPA, follow below steps:

1. Open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fossfreedom/rhythmbox

Add rhythmbox PPA

2. Update package index and install the 3.4 packages:

sudo apt update; sudo apt install rhythmbox rhythmbox-plugins

DO NOT use apt upgrade, because the PPA also contains GTK 3.20 backports you may not want.

3. Remove the PPA after installation, via either Software & Updates -> Other Software or the command below:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:vascofalves/gnome-backports && sudo apt update

4. (Optional) To revert back to Rhythmbox 3.3, purge the PPA via ppa-purge

sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:fossfreedom/rhythmbox

Rhythmbox music player

Rhythmbox, Gnome’s default music player, has reached the 3.3.1 release with a few improvements, bug fixes, and translation updates.

According to the changelog, Rhythmbox 3.3.1 features:

  • Better handling of locked Android devices
  • Simplified ReplayGain processing that might crash less
  • Switched to webkit2 API, except for the context plugin which is disabled
  • Notifications behave better when actions aren’t available

And a few reported bugs has been solved in this release:

  • Rhythmbox segfaults when trying to access Android 4.0 MTP device already mounted by Nautilus
  • Rhythmbox crashes when trying to access Android device.
  • Port to WebKit2
  • CD playing with cross fading on crashes rhythmbox
  • Display notifications about playing song when pausing
  • RhythmDB-CRITICAL **: rhythmdb_entry_get_entry_type: assertion ‘entry != NULL’ failed
  • Gtk-WARNING **: Drawing a gadget with negative dimensions. Did you forget to allocate a size? (node grid owner RBHeader)
  • Rework logic of Python support option

How to Install/upgrade Rhythmbox 3.3.1 in Ubuntu:

Besides building from the source, fossfreedom is maintaining a PPA to make it easy to install the latest Rhythmbox music player for all current Ubuntu releases.

Check out the PPA page before doing following steps since there may be a small delay for the latest packages to be made into PPA.

1. Launch terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run below command to add PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fossfreedom/rhythmbox

Type in your password (no visual feedback just type in mind) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.

Add rhythmbox PPA

2. After that, launch Software Updater and install updates for Rhythmbox, or just run below commands one by one in terminal:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install rhythmbox

3. (Optional) To downgrade to the stock version of Rhythmbox in your Ubuntu release, use ppa-purge:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge

sudo ppa-purge ppa:fossfreedom/rhythmbox