Pithos Freezes Sound Controls in Ubuntu 14.04

[PetroDawg]

Installed Pithos 0.3.18 through "ppa:pithos/ppa" in Ubuntu 14.04.

After opening Pithos I can no longer adjust volume using the Ubuntu sound indicator menu in notification area. The volume slider and all other controls under the sound indicator are "frozen". The sound can be adjusted normally through volume control in Pithos or in Ubuntu sound settings.

Also, no album art is displayed and songs cannot be paused or skipped using sound indicator controls. These are all things I remember being able to do in Ubuntu12.04.

The issue persists even after Pithos is closed, a reboot is required to regain sound controls through the sound indicator menu.

[unrulyRobot]

I have the same problem, but for me the media keys died as well. I can't use them for anything. It crashes the sound indicator service as well.

[Spencer-Dawson]

Same issue here. I've also seen this issue with my last desktop computer on a previous Ubuntu release IIRC this was an issue in 12.04 LTS, but not in 13.10.

Sound itself works fine, and you can change volume by using the system settings -> sound so it's just an issue with the indicator crashing for some unknown reason related to using Pithos. The issue is frequent for me, but does not always occur.

A workaround to restart the panel is to use the CLI command "killall unity-panel-service"

[PetroDawg]

Thank you for the heads up on "killall unity-panel-service"

I made a .desktop file that runs opens Pithos with the following command...
sleep 4 && killall unity-panel-service & pithos

Which opens pithos, sleeps for 4 seconds, and then resets the unity panel service. It seems to work well enough, until a better fix is issued.

[Spencer-Dawson]

No Problem.

Anyway I decided to dig into logs a little bit and I noticed that indicator-sound is segfaulting.

From var/log/syslog:

Apr 21 19:25:09 spencer-Desktop kernel: [149346.219866] indicator-sound[8198]: segfault at 20 ip 00007fd8b8e539c0 sp 00007ffff518f628 error 4 in libglib-2.0.so.0.4000.0[7fd8b8dd2000+106000]
Apr 21 19:25:10 spencer-Desktop kernel: [149346.444024] indicator-sound[11358]: segfault at 20 ip 00007f30467319c0 sp 00007fff4a446f68 error 4 in libglib-2.0.so.0.4000.0[7f30466b0000+106000]
Apr 21 19:25:10 spencer-Desktop kernel: [149346.684687] indicator-sound[11417]: segfault at 20 ip 00007f607534c9c0 sp 00007fff894b6d78 error 4 in libglib-2.0.so.0.4000.0[7f60752cb000+106000]

Also this might be a dupe of https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gvfs/+bug/1030179

Edit: I just filed a bug on this with indicator-sound https://bugs.launchpad.net/indicator-sound/+bug/1310951

[Ignesias]

Until they fix the bug i found a nifty workaround, works flawlessly for me.. just restart indicator-sound-service

Or create a Pithos start-up icon/app by saving the following code into a [whatever].sh (bash script file):

#!/bin/bash
pithos & sleep 3 && /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/indicator-sound/indicator-sound-service

--it starts pithos, sleeps for 3 seconds to allow program to bootup, then restarts the sound service. Cheers! Dont forget to modify the permissions of the file to allow it to execute:

sudo chmod 755 [whatever].sh

--then just create youself a nifty icon-launcher and you are good to go!

[gregsheremeta]

I just pushed 1.0.0 to pithos/ppa.

Please upgrade.

Enjoy :)

[unrulyRobot]

Open it back up. I experienced this issue again on two consecutive instances today after updating to 1.0.0

[gregsheremeta]

@mavericktx you on 14.04?

[unrulyRobot]

Yes.

[PetroDawg]

Thanks for pushing an update, but unfortunately Pithos version 1.0.0 still has same issue, except now even my old work around to reset the unity-panel-sevice no longer works while Pithos is running. Must close Pithos, and then reset the panel service to get sound control working again.

[gregsheremeta]

Yep, duplicated on 14.04. Let me see if I can work around it.

[brandex07]

Having same issue on Ubuntu 14.04 with Pithos 1.0.0, and yes the workarounds don't work. I have to log out and back in to adjust the sound. However the buttons on my keyboard continue to work throughout running Pithos, its the indicator itself that is 'frozen'.

[JedAddy]

Same issue on Xubuntu 14.04. Sound indicator is greyed out and can't restart it without killing Pithos.

[ashfallen0]

Confirmed on Xubuntu 14.04LTS upgrade from 12.04LTS AND Bare-metal 14.04 install.

Xubuntu 14.04 sees the following: in the background if invoked from CLI, AND if indicator-sound-service is attempted to be restarted in the background while pithos 1.0.0 is running:

ash@jane:~$ /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/indicator-sound/indicator-sound-service

** (process:7023): CRITICAL **: volume_control_set_volume_internal: assertion '_tmp1_ == PA_CONTEXT_READY' failed

(process:7023): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_variant_new_string: assertion 'string != NULL' failed

(process:7023): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_variant_ref_sink: assertion 'value != NULL' failed

(process:7023): GLib-GIO-CRITICAL **: g_simple_action_set_state: assertion 'value != NULL' failed

** (process:7023): CRITICAL **: media_player_mpris_update_current_track: assertion 'metadata != NULL' failed

(process:7023): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_variant_new_string: assertion 'string != NULL' failed

** (process:7023): CRITICAL **: file /build/buildd/indicator-sound-12.10.2+14.04.20140401/obj-x86_64-linux-gnu/src/volume-control.c: line 1775: uncaught error: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.InvalidArgs: No such interface (g-dbus-error-quark, 16)

(process:7023): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_variant_new_string: assertion 'string != NULL' failed
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

[scottkosty]

The current Ubuntu bug for this is:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/indicator-sound/+bug/1305902
(the other bugs were marked as duplicates of it). Currently only two people (including myself) are affected by it. The more people we have that log in to launch pad and click on "This bug affects me", the more attention it will get.

[gregsheremeta]

+1 @scottkosty, thanks. We can try to work around this, but it's an upstream bug for sure.

[darocket]

the Ubuntu repository has version 0.3.17. This version works fine on Xubuntu 14.04. Adding the Pithos PPA and upgrading to 0.3.18 is when this problem arrived. Mine is the same as others. With 0.3.18 it freezes/greys out the volume control and playback control in indicator-sound/indicator-sound-service. I too can reload indicator-sound/indicator-sound-service after Pithos 0.3.18 is running and it works fine. After updating to Pithos 1.0.0 when Pithos is started the indicator-sound/indicator-sound-service freezes/greys out volume control and playback control. It will not function without killing Pithos process then manually restarting.

I rolled back to 0.3.17 from the repository and everything works fine.

Thanks for your work. My favorite audio app is Pithos.

[scottkosty]

Thanks for the info da rocket (and thanks for adding that to the Ubuntu bug report as well).

[darocket]

let me make it real easy for ya.....

sudo apt-get purge pithos
sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pithos*
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install pithos

This removes any version you installed from the PPA, removes the PPA from Software Sources, Updates and then Installs 0.3.17.2 from the Ubuntu repository which is tested and does not have any issues with the sound-indicator/sound-indicator-service.

Peace.

hahahahaha....just thought about it....sometimes ya' got to bleed a little if you ride the bleeding edge. Welcome to PPA.....Pleasure, Pain, Addiction....it's a Linux thing. Way funner than Windows!

[gregsheremeta]

Exactly.

[scottkosty]

Looks like this has been fixed, but only for 12.10 and 14.10 (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/indicator-sound/+bug/1305902)
Did I read that right? Is anyone running one of those that can test?

[rythornton]

Confirmed fixed working on Ubuntu 14.04 using method mentioned by darocket.
( purge old pithos repo, apt-get update ; apt-get install pithos ).
Thanks guys (and brandex07)

[brandex07]

It's not a fix but more a work around - using older version that is found
in the repositories rather than the latest deb.
On Jul 3, 2014 7:03 PM, "rthornton" notifications@github.com wrote:

Confirmed fixed on Ubuntu 14.04 using method mentioned by darocket.
( purge old pithos repo, apt-get update ; apt-get install pithos ).
Thanks guys

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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
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[JasonLG1979]

Installed Ubuntu 14.04 on my desktop and added the PPA. I can confirm that the bug still effects the 1.0 package in the PPA. But after I purged the package and installed from the latest source the issue is gone.

[solancer]

Same here sound menu on ubuntu 14.04 frezes after opening Pithos.

[m4rsm4n]

Also having the sound menu problem using the Pithos PPA.

[hotice]

This continues to occur in Ubuntu 14.10.

[TingPing]

I did briefly test 1.0.1 on Unity to try and reproduce this issue but everything worked fine for me...

[hotice]

I just tried the latest Pithos 1.0.1 (I built it from source because it's not available in the PPA) and indeed, the issue seems fixed in this release (tested in Ubuntu 14.10).

[TingPing]

If anybody still has this issue in 1.0.1 feel free to re-open.

[JasonLG1979]

I tested Pithos on Ubuntu, Xubuntu and Kubuntu 14.10 yesterday. The sound controls worked just fine in Ubuntu and Xubuntu(Kubuntu doesn't have the sound menu) I was however getting timeout errors and Pithos itself would lock up forcing me to kill the process in the system manager.