Unable to play from google music on Ubuntu 12.04

Thanks for taking the time to report this bug.

On Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 6:56 AM, Justin Hardcastle
<email address hidden> wrote:
> Public bug reported:
>
> Version:
> Nuvola Player 2.0~beta1
> Revision: 441, <email address hidden>
> Uname output:
> x86_64 x86_64
> Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, Precise
> Shockwave Flash 11.2 r202
>
> Fresh install of Nuvola player on Ubuntu 12.04. Simply started the
> player, chose a song, and an error saying "Couldn't play song, skipped
> ahead." appears until a final error of "Google is having trouble
> reaching the server, please try again later." appears.
>
> Assumed this was a flash issue, but music plays fine in Chromium. Midori
> also plays music just fine

Nuvola Player doesn't use Flash plugin for Google Play Music (and
other services that have message "This streaming service should not
need Adobe Flash plugin to work properly."). It works fine without
Flash on Debian Wheezy and Linux Mint 12, but it seems to have
problems on Ubuntu 12.04 :-(. Please run following multi-line command
in terminal and report whether playback works.

/usr/lib/webkitgtk-3.0-0/libexec/GtkLauncher \
--enable-plugins=false \
https://play.google.com/music

  status incomplete

I've compared Debian Wheezy, where Google Play works without any problem, with Ubuntu 12.04, where Google Play fails to play. MP3 playback is available on both systems. Almost all libraries needed by Nuvola Player have same version, Ubuntu 12.04 contains older version of WebKitGtk (1.8.0), so I installed newer version (1.8.1), but it still no luck.

I'll check release notes of Ubuntu 12.04 to find out what exciting experiments have been done this time and may have impact on this issue. If I'm not be to find cause of this issue, I'll add an option to enable Flash plugin for Google Play and U12.04 users will have to use Flash-based playback, whereas users of other distributions (including U11.10) will still enjoy Flash-free playback.

Well, the issue is probably a missing MP3 decoder, you can install package gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3

sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3

Justin, does this solve your problem?

Works perfectly after installing gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3

Thanks!

Fix committed to lp:nuvola-player as revision 448. Service selector screen contains information about audio playback requirement of a particular service and link to FAQ #2011.

Justin, just one legal notice: MP3 format is protected by a software patent. In case you live in a country, where software patents do apply (e.g. USA), you cannot legally use the open-source MP3 decoder provided by the package gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3, unless you have obtained a patent license from patent holders.

However, there are two ways how to get non-free (=restricted usage) no-cost binary MP3 decoder with valid license:
1) You can install MP3 decoder from package gstreamer0.10-fluendo-plugins-mp3-partner from Ubuntu Partner repository.
2) You can download MP3 decoder provided by Fluendo at http://www.fluendo.com/shop/product/fluendo-mp3-decoder/

More legal details are available at http://www.fluendo.com/shop/product/fluendo-mp3-decoder/

Fix committed to lp:nuvola-player/1.1.x as revision 441.

Fix released in Nuvola Player 1.1.0 and 2.0.0.