For some reason, the Banshee media player on my Ubuntu installation stopped responding and, as a result, its database was damaged. The result? Whenever I tried to play a video podcast, Banshee would attempt to start playing and then crash.

Rebuilding Banshee’s database to fix the corruption is pretty easy.

1. If you don’t already have sqlite3 installed, get it via the following command:

   sudo apt-get install sqlite3

2. Go to Bashee’s config directory:

   cd ~/.config/banshee-1

3. Dump out the database:

   sqlite3 banshee.db ".dump" > dump

4. Make a backup of the original database file, in case the repair doesn’t work properly:

   mv banshee.db banshee.db.backup

5. Reload the dumped data into a new database file:

   cat dump | sqlite3 banshee.db

Worked great for me. Thanks to boombox1387 for posting the info. I ended up putting these commands into a shell script called BansheeFix.sh, so it’ll be even easier to take care of next time.

Is your Banshee crashing for a different reason? Got a fix for it? Post it in the comments.

Post a comment

Are you experiencing an intermittent popping sound from your speakers when nothing is playing? I encountered it after upgrading a PC with an HDA Intel audio controller to Xubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala. It occurs 10 seconds after a sound stops playing because that’s when the audio chip is turned off to save power.

To prevent the popping noise, you just have to disable the power saving mode.

1. With your favorite editor, open /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf as root (Important: Run the editor using sudo or gksudo to give it root permission. You can’t save the file otherwise.)
2. Locate the line that reads, “# Power down HDA controllers after 10 idle seconds”
3. Immediately following that comment is the offending option:
   options snd-hda-intel power_save=10 power_save_controller=N
4. Insert a hash # character at the very beginning of the option line to turn it into a comment. It should look like the following:
   #options snd-hda-intel power_save=10 power_save_controller=N
5. Save the file and restart Ubuntu

If you have a different sound controller and are experiencing this noise, look in the file for a similar-looking option (e.g., options snd-hda-something power_save…) and comment it out. Share your experience in the comments.

Post a comment

Today, my Pidgin IM client started giving the error, “Received unexpected response from http://api.oscar.aol.com/aim/startOSCARSession”, when connecting to the AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) server. Apparently, it can also happen when connecting to ICQ. Fortuantely, the fix/workaround on Windows and Linux is really easy.

1. Go to Accounts
2. Modify the AIM or ICQ account
3. On the Advanced tab, clear the checkbox labeled Use clientLogin
4. Save

Are you using Adium? It may also have this issue on the Mac. If you’ve solved it, post the steps in a reply.

Update: Alternatively, in step 3, you can clear the checkbox labeled Use SSL

Post a comment

So you’ve recently installed or upgraded Kubuntu to 9.10 Karmic Koala and installed Firefox. To your horror, you find that all the menus and labels in the browser’s interface are either HUGE or tiny relative to the included KDE applications. Here’s the quick fix.

1. Click on the K menu
2. Select System Settings
3. In the Look & Feel section, click the Appearance icon
4. In the left panel, click the Fonts icon
5. At the bottom of the Fonts settings, the Force fonts DPI drop down list control is set to Disabled by default
6. If you want to make Firefox’s fonts smaller, select 96 DPI; to make them larger, select 120 DPI
7. Click the Apply button
8. Restart Firefox

If you’re using Ubuntu with the Gnome desktop and run into this problem, there should be a similar DPI setting for either fonts or the display. Let me know how you resolved it on Gnome.

Post a comment

After installing Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty and enabling the nVidia 180 driver (onboard video is a nVidia GeForce 6150 LE), I restarted the system and was greeted by the normal login screen. However, after logging in, my screen (Dell 2407WFPHC) went blank with a monitor message that the resolution was out of range. It appears that many people are running into this problem. The following fixed it for me.

1. Open a terminal window
2. Go to the X11 directory (cd /etc/X11)
3. Make a backup of the current xorg.conf file (e.g., sudo cp xorg.conf xorg.conf.backup)
4. Use your favorite editor to open xorg.conf (e.g., sudo vim xorg.conf)
5. In the section “Device”, add the following line:
       Option “UseEdid” “False”
6. The “Device” section should now look like the following:
       Section “Device”
           Identifier “Default Device”
           Driver “nvidia”
           Option “UseEdid” “False”
       EndSection
7. Save the xorg.conf file
8. Log off and restart the X server (from the login screen, click on Menu and select Restart X server)

That’s it. Now, when I log in, I’m able to see the screen and select a resolution using the nVidia X Server Settings tool.

Note: In the nVidia X Server Settings tool, if when you click the Save to X Configuration File button, you get an error message that it can’t save, run nvidia-settings from a terminal window using gksudo (for Gnome, e.g., gksudo nvidia-settings) or kdesudo (for KDE, e.g., kdesudo nvidia-settings). If, instead, you get a “can’t parse xorg.conf”, just rename /etc/X11/xorg.conf to something else so nvidia-settings can create a new file.

Can’t set your screen to the native resolution of your monitor? See the companion post, Ubuntu 9.04 nVidia Driver Screen Resolution Problem.

Post a comment