Wes M's dashboard

Wes M replied on October 02, 2009 04:00 to the problem "Songbird fails to start on some Linux systems due to gstreamer-python" in Songbird:

@Mike: I just tested this and it worked for me as well. Do you know if this issue will be fixed in 1.4?

For everyone else, you can create a simple shell script to handle launching Songbird if you'd rather not have to open the Terminal every time, or if you just want to reduce the amount of typing you have to do. It's fairly straightforward - open a new Terminal window and type this in:

sudo touch /usr/bin/songbird_script
sudo chmod 755 /usr/bin/songbird_script
gksudo gedit /usr/bin/songbird_script
Each line is a separate command, so hit enter after each one. Then copy and paste this into the new text file that opens:

#!/bin/sh
export LD_BIND_NOW=1
cd /usr/share/Songbird
./songbird
If you have Songbird installed somewhere besides /usr/share/Songbird then you'll have to change the path. Save the file as "songbird_script" and close the window. If you already have a launcher set up for Songbird, all you have to do is edit it and change the command from "songbird" to "songbird_script". Otherwise you'll have to create one or launch Songbird from the Terminal (just type in "songbird_script" without the quotes and hit enter).

Wes M replied on September 06, 2009 21:04 to the problem "New Ubuntu Gstreamer stops SB from starting" in Songbird:

@Timo: You can try creating a new profile and see if that works. Open a new Terminal window and type this:

/usr/share/Songbird/songbird -p &
Then hit enter. If you installed Songbird somewhere else you'll have to change the path. The profile manager should come up instead of the normal Songbird window. Create a new profile and name it "new profile". Then select it and click Start Songbird. Re-import all of your songs and see if you get the same error. If not, re-install all of your add-ons and restart Songbird (make sure you click the restart button so it'll bring you back to the same profile). If everything is still working, close Songbird and re-open the profile manager. This time, rename the "default" profile to "old profile" and rename "new profile" to "default". This way Songbird will always load the profile you just created instead of the old one.

If creating a new profile doesn't work, download Songbird again from the home page and unpack it. Assuming it's in your ~/Downloads folder, type this into Terminal:

cd ~/Downloads/
sudo chown -R root:root Songbird
sudo chmod -R 755 Songbird
sudo cp -rp Songbird /usr/share/
Each line is a separate command, so hit enter after each one. If you're still getting the same error after a fresh install, try using the Force Version method I described in my last post to downgrade the rest of the gstreamer packages. The error you're getting doesn't sound like it's being caused by gstreamer, but it can't hurt to try.

If all else fails, type "songbird &" (without the quotes) into Terminal and hit enter, then come back here and paste the output it gives you.

Wes M replied on September 06, 2009 01:53 to the problem "New Ubuntu Gstreamer stops SB from starting" in Songbird:

I've figured out a temporary workaround for this issue for Ubuntu users until the songbird devs can fix it. Open Synaptic Package Manager and search for "python-gst0.10". Select the python-gst0.10 package, then click Package > Force Version. Select "0.10.14-1ubuntu1" from the list and click the Force Version button. Do the same thing with the python-gst0.10-dbg package and then click Apply. Once it's done downloading and installing the packages you can close Synaptic. Both Songbird and Pidgin should work now, though I haven't done any extensive testing so I don't know if this will cause any problems with other applications.

Wes M replied on August 25, 2009 21:31 to the problem "GStreamer update from Pidgin 2.6.1 PPA update breaks Songbird under Ubuntu 9.04/x86" in Songbird:

I'm having the same problem in Jaunty 32-bit after updating Pidgin. Unfortunately removing the python-gst0.10 package isn't an option since a lot of my other applications depend on it, so it looks like I'm stuck with Rhythmbox until the Songbird devs work this issue out.

Wes M replied on August 20, 2009 15:00 to the question "How can I use Jolicloud in virtualization software?" in Jolicloud:

I noticed nobody's brought up the issue of VirtualBox Guest Additions so I thought I would write a short how-to in case anyone was wondering how to get it working. Jolicloud doesn't come with everything you need to build the extra kernel extensions, so you'll need to install a couple of things. First you need to mount the Guest Additions ISO (click the Devices menu, the Install Guest Additions). Once you have it mounted open up a new Terminal window and type this:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install make linux-headers-$(uname -r)
cd /media/cdrom0
sudo ./VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run
Each line is a separate command, so you'll have to hit enter after each one. Once everything is done downloading and compiling restart the virtual machine and when it starts back up everything should be working.

Wes M replied on July 25, 2009 09:07 to the idea "Put which Songbird version supports an add on please" in Songbird:

I would take this one step further and have add-ons that are only for specific platforms not show up if you're not on that platform. For example, the MTP add-on is Windows-only. I didn't know this at first, so I installed the latest nightly build in Ubuntu thinking I could finally get my mom's MP3 player to sync with Songbird. Not only were most of my add-ons incompatible with the new version, but when I went to the MTP add-on page to install it, the install button was still grayed out, with no indication why. I still had the .deb file for 1.2, so I managed to get all my add-ons back, but the point is that either there should have been some explanation as to why the add-on couldn't be installed or I shouldn't have been able to see that add-on since I wasn't using Windows.

Wes M shared an idea in Songbird on July 25, 2009 08:52:

Songbird should skip broken aliases & symlinks (or at least tell you about them)

I just spent 30 minutes trying to figure out why this window kept popping up on my Mac informing me that the server I was trying to connect to didn't exist or wasn't operational. I eventually traced the problem back to Songbird - there was an alias buried in my iTunes Music folder that pointed to a shared folder that didn't exist any more, and Songbird kept trying to import that contents of it. I'm honestly not sure how it got there, but I've never had this problem with iTunes, and Finder at least tells you that the reason you can't connect is that the alias is broken, and gives you the option to select a new original. Songbird should either inform you of the broken link like Finder does, or just ignore them like iTunes apparently does.

Wes M reported a problem in Songbird on July 25, 2009 08:39:

Songbird URL redirection fails in OS X

I tried opening last.fm in Songbird using the given example here: http://wiki.songbirdnest.com/Releases... This fails using both Safari 4 and Firefox 3.5. Instead of Songbird opening a new tab, it opens a new window that's only a couple of pixels wide and maybe 10 pixels tall. It's almost invisible, but you can switch between it and the main window using the keyboard (Command + `). If you manage to click the bottom right corner of this tiny window, it expands slightly, to the point where there's at least a recognizable window and a title bar. If you resize it, you can see that the title of the window is "Hidden". Oddly enough, if I open just the base URL ( http://launch.songbirdnest.com/ ), it opens Songbird and brings up a blank page.

Obviously something is wrong here. Has URL support been dropped from Songbird? Are the instructions on that page out-of-date? Or is this a bug in the way Songbird is handling URLs in OS X?

Wes M reported a problem in Songbird on July 25, 2009 07:42:

Songbird ignores the fact that it's been placed in the Dock, adds a 2nd icon

I have Songbird set to stay in my Dock in OS X. However, sometimes when I open Songbird it adds a new instance at the end of the Dock and I end up with two icons. This has also been happening with Firefox 3.5. See the image below for reference.

Wes M started following the idea "horizontally scrolling" in Songbird.

Wes M started following the idea "HTML5 \'audio\' and \'video\' tags via GStreamer" in Songbird.

Wes M started following the idea "Follow the Unix Philosophy!" in Songbird.

Wes M replied on July 08, 2009 06:25 to the idea "Make Downloaded Album Art Bigger" in Songbird:

@Michael: Thanks for the suggestions. I tried the Amazon Fetcher add-on and I've mostly gotten good quality images from that, though I had to go into about:config, disable the Last.fm fetcher, and change the Amazon fetcher's priority to 1. Not exactly user-friendly, but it does what it's supposed to.

Just out of curiosity, why is Last.fm the default album art fetcher if it gets such low-quality images?

Wes M reported a problem in Songbird on July 08, 2009 05:36:

Disabling "click selects all" doesn't work in Songbird.

In about:config, I have browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll is set to false, but single-clicking the address bar still selects the entire URL.

Wes M started following the problem "when does autoupdate update?" in Songbird.

Wes M shared an idea in Songbird on July 08, 2009 05:21:

Add AppleScript Support in the Mac Version of Songbird

One of my favorite iTunes features in OS X is the AppleScript menu that appears when you put one or more scripts in the ~/Library/iTunes folder. It would be great if there was something similar in Songbird, preferably with a centralized location for uploading/downloading user-created scripts (sort of like UserScripts.org, but for AppleScripts).

Wes M started following the idea "deleting form library deleting in folder option" in Songbird.

Wes M shared an idea in Songbird on July 08, 2009 05:10:

Make Downloaded Album Art Bigger

The default size for downloaded album art isn\'t big enough to fill the window that comes up when you double-click the album art pane. There are 3 solutions I\'ve come up with for this:

1 - Download them from a different source with higher-quality images
2 - Allow users with iTunes accounts to download art from the iTunes store (not sure if this would even be possible, though)
3 - Allow users to choose which source they want to use for album art downloads