Rhythmbox - ArchWiki

Jump to content
From ArchWiki

Rhythmbox is an audio player that plays and helps organize digital music. It is designed to work well under the GNOME desktop using the GStreamer media framework.

## Installation

Install the rhythmbox package.

## Tips and tricks

### Playing remote media from Internet sources (blip.tv, Jamendo, SHOUTcast)

Rhythmbox takes advantage of the Grilo framework to browse external sources such as SHOUTcast webradios and more.

You need to install the grilo and grilo-plugins packages. Then, be sure to enable the Grilo Media Browser plugin into Rhythmbox ("Edit" > "Plugins").

### How to activate the Cover Art plugin

If you want to use the cover art plugin, but are unable to do so, you need to install gnome-pythonAUR.

After you do that, restart Rhythmbox.

This requirement also affects the Song Lyrics and Magnitune plugins, as well as several others.

### What to do when the little red icon shows when you try to play radio stations

First thing to do when the stop sign icon shows is to right-click the name of the station you are trying to listen to and open the Properties dialog box. Rhythmbox should give a bit more explanation about why it was unable to start playing the audio stream.

### Using the DAAP Music Sharing plugin

Install the optional dependency for DAAP sharing, libdmapsharing, and set up hostname resolution with Avahi.

## Troubleshooting

### "Unknown Playback Error" when streaming or playing from regular files

Rhythmbox may display this error when it does not have the correct codec to play that stream. You will need to identify what format the stream is (by looking at the command line error messages that Rhythmbox displays) and then install the correct GStreamer codec for that particular audio stream: see GStreamer#Installation.

### "Error, impossible to activate plugin 'Audio CD Recorder'" shows up every time I start Rhythmbox

You have two options:

1. install brasero
2. disable the cd recording plugin: Run `dconf-editor`, navigate to `/org/gnome/rhythmbox/plugins/` and remove cd-recorder from active-plugins.

### Slow start and "Unable to start mDNS browsing: MDNS service is not running" output

You have two options:

1. activate the DAAP Music Sharing (see #Using the DAAP Music Sharing plugin above)
2. disable the DAAP plugin: Run `dconf-editor`, navigate to `/org/gnome/rhythmbox/plugins/` and remove DAAP from active-plugins.

### Rhythmbox Startup is Slow

This can be easily fixed by disabling some of the plugins. For example, if you do not use a mediaplayer gnome-shell extension you do not need the MRPIS and D-bus plugins enabled.

### No cover are shown in the dedicated box

Creating a lastFM account and login in with the rhythmbox plugin can solve the problem.

### Cannot enable MTP device support

Install gvfs-mtp.

### Cannot enable iPod support

Install libgpod.

### Music files within the music library are not found

Sometimes it helps to remove the Rhythmbox library in order to rebuild it properly. Quit Rhythmbox, move `~/.local/share/rhythmbox/rhythmdb.xml` to an other directory. Restart Rhythmbox and rescan your music library.

### uPnP/DLNA Client does not work out of the box

Install grilo-plugins and dleyna. Then enable Grilo media browser plugin. DLNA server should appear under shared sources.

### Certain files return "Additional GStreamer plugins required"

Install gst-plugins-ugly. However, these plugins may pose distribution problems.

Category:

- Music