Songbird doesn't start because of GStreamer in Ubuntu 9.10

Question

I have just upgraded my system to Kubuntu 9.10 (Karmic). This has apparently broken Songbird. The fix I found on the web (removing libvisual-4.0-plugin, or so) does not work, since I do not have that package installed.

(songbird-bin:15641): GStreamer-WARNING **: Failed to load plugin '/usr/lib64/gstreamer-0.10/libgstlibvisual.so': /usr/lib64/gstreamer-0.10/libgstlibvisual.so: undefined symbol: gst_adapter_prev_timestamp
(songbird-bin:15641): GStreamer-WARNING **: Failed to load plugin '/usr/lib64/gstreamer-0.10/libgstdv.so': /usr/lib64/gstreamer-0.10/libgstdv.so: undefined symbol: gst_tag_list_new_full
././songbird-bin: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/gst-0.10/gst/_gst.so: undefined symbol: gst_task_pool_get_type
Could not initialize GStreamer: Error re-scanning registry , child terminated by signal

(I submitted this to their bug report system: http://community.bounceeverywhere.com/songbird/topics/gstreamer_problem_in_new_ubuntu_9_10)

Answer 1

They gave me a workaround:

For those of you having this problem: you should be able to keep gstreamer-python installed, but start songbird like this (from a terminal):

export LD_BIND_NOW=1
./songbird

Answer 2

I found a solution which might help some of us. (Website article and Songbird website)

In a Terminal session, cd to wherever you've got the Songbird binary, and then use command:

export SB_GST_SYSTEM=1;./songbird

to use the system GStreamer plugins exclusively whilst running Songbird;

or use the command

export SB_GST_NO_SYSTEM=1;./songbird

to use the GStreamer plugins bundled with Songbird exclusively whilst running Songbird.

The default behaviour of Songbird is to load both sets, a scenario almost certain to breed conflicts. I am using Ubuntu Studio 11.04 (Natty Narwhal); but the fix should work on any Ubuntu/Ubuntu Studio/Kubuntu/Xubuntu version 9.10 or later, to my best knowledge.

Answer 3

After upgrading 9.04 to 9.10, Songbird stopped working for me, Network Manager was broken and a bunch of other minor issues.

I decided to make a clean 9.10 installation. Now all works perfect, Songbird works perfectly without any tweaks. So I recommend you to make clean install if possible.

Answer 4

I have a Kubuntu system installed from scratch and song bird was not working. It was a Gstreamer error but Gstreamer packages were installed; at least what I thought were required.

I installed VLC player. VLC downloaded its dependencies and installed them, and voilà! Songbird starts to sing!