Amarok/Manual/Various/TroubleshootingAndCommonProblems

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Problems installing - bad packages, difficulties building from source

Problems starting up - corrupt playlist, config files, database

Problems Scanning, Sorting files

Amarok scans your music files on first startup, and will keep your collection up-to-date automatically, if you chose Settings -> Configure Amarok -> Collection -> Watch folders for changes. If you don't want Amarok scanning for changes, uncheck that, and use Tools -> Update Collection whenever you make changes to your collection. More about Amarok collection scanning.

Corrupt tags

Some folks notice that Amarok seems to be missing some files. One of the causes can be corrupt tags, which you can check using the tagging app [ kid3]. More about tagging here.

To find the bad file(s), run amarokcollectionscanner from the console. Details here.

Incorrect Sorting (Various Artists)

Sometimes people report that tracks are in Various Artists when they should not be, or are sorted into "Unknown Album." What separates Various Artists albums and tracks and albums sorted under their artists is the Album Artist tag. When you click Show under Various Artists in the context (right-click) menu, that tag will be emptied if it is filled. The opposite happens to a file in Various Artists when you choose Do not show under Various Artists, but the Album Artist tag will be auto-filled from the Artist tag.

If there is no Album tag, and no Album Artist tag, Amarok will put the track into Unknown Album in Various Artists. If you want them sorted otherwise, tag them the way you want them sorted. If you don't know some of the information, try out the new MusicBrainz function in the tag editor, or use a tagging application.

No sound, or bad sound -- Phonon backends, PulseAudio

Amarok skips over tracks, or appears to play them without sound

I write a tag, but Amarok doesn't save it - You may have permissions problems. Try

chown -R username folder/

How to make a backup of database (statistics) and config files: copy HOME/.kde/share/apps/amarok and $HOME/.kde/share/config/amarok* folders

How to run Amarok from the command line:

amarok -d --nofork

Amarok crashes, but Dr. Konqi doesn't pop up -- run in gdb:

gdb --args amarok --debug --nofork

, run, <wait for crash>, bt

How to file a bug

How to get personal support with problems: IRC (#amarok on Freenode IRC), Forum: http://forum.kde.org/viewforum.php?f=127, List: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/amarok