AddAsPodcast Bug for Amarok on Kubuntu

May 29, 2008 · Filed Under Linux 


Does it really have to remind me every time I move my mouse?

I recently switched to Linux from Windows XP, and I could not be happier, but getting where I am today has not been a walk in the park. A friend once told me that “Linux isn’t free, you pay for it with your time” and although that may be true to some extent, it is not as true today as it once was.

That being said, I thought that I would chronicle my experiences with Kubuntu and write an article on any inconveniences I come across as a former “Windows user”. To start things off, here is a very annoying bug between Amarok and Dolphin - a combination of two bugs.

For those of you who are not familiar with these programs, Dolphin is the file explorer for KDE that comes with Kubuntu, and Amarok is the popular media player for KDE. Apparently, developers for Amarok forgot a line in one of their .desktop files (menu/shell extensions for dolphin) which results in an error. Meanwhile, developers of Dolphin thought it would be really funny if every time you had an error message in a .desktop file it should show a popup error message to tell you about it.

Now, if you don’t do anything with .html files or xml files, then you may never see this bug, but if you do then you’ll know what I mean. Dolphin accesses the broken file every time you mouse over an html or xml file, which means just moving your mouse over a file with a .html, .htm, or .xml extension will cause a popup error message to appear. This is unbelievably frustrating if you do any kind of web development, but at least it is fairly simple to fix.

Just open Dolphin (click on the System menu next to the K menu and select any folder) and click on the shortcut on the left-hand side for “root”. Then go to /usr/share/apps/d3lphin/servicemenus and look for the file named “amarok_addaspodcast.desktop” (it will probably be the first file listed).

Right click on it and choose Actions -> “Edit as root” from the submenu. Find the line that says “Icon=amarok” and add the following line after it (without quotes):

“Exec=amarok -a %u”

Save the file and you’re all set!

If for some reason the option for “Edit as root” doesn’t appear under the Actions menu, you can go up one folder and right click on the servicemenus folder and choose Actions -> “Open as root”. Then you should be able to just open the file normally and still be able to make changes.


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Comments

8 Responses to “AddAsPodcast Bug for Amarok on Kubuntu”

  1. Scott Hill on May 30th, 2008 3:26 pm

    Thank you for this tip i got this first hit when googling for this bug, the internet is great. We do pay for linux with our time, but time spent learning is well spent as paying someone to do it might be a good option but not for those who have chosen to do it for living it will always make sense to keep learning, it pays eventually.

  2. Bunny on May 31st, 2008 10:31 am

    Thanks for sharing, just hit this bug and your information has helped.

  3. Craig Foster on June 12th, 2008 8:12 am

    Thank you very much for this fix, as I have tried a number of ways to correct this error, but this is the best solution I have come across. This should be posted on amarok’s site for all those people who have had the same problem.

  4. Paul on June 12th, 2008 10:41 am

    Thanks for the great feedback all! We are glad to hear this has been so useful for people. :)

  5. doug hastings on June 26th, 2008 3:04 pm

    thanks for th post, really helpful.

  6. Merike on June 28th, 2008 2:15 pm

    Another thanks.

  7. tjh on July 1st, 2008 8:28 am

    Thanks very much!

  8. Toni on August 5th, 2008 5:44 pm

    > “Linux isn’t free, you pay for it with your time”
    “A pirated windows isn’t free, you pay for it with your time”

    Another thanks for your article!

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