transferring old music files to rhythmbox

Do they have different extensions? Have you got some MP3s?

I have MP3s and some wma's, but its mostly the MP3s I want in rhythmbox. Both would be nice. Thanks for the replay

Hi Tricia!

Welcome to the Linux club! One of the reasons why Rhythmbox can't play with your MP3 files is because it may be lacking the plugins necessary to do it. I suggest reading up on what's called "restricted" formats, such as WMA and MP3 here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/

I'm curious, where did those troublesome MP3 files end up? Are they in your Music folder right now? If so, what happens exactly when you try to import them into Rhythmbox? Let's say...

1. You start Rhythbox.
2. You click Music -> Import File... from the menus.
3. You pick one of those MP3s that refuse to be added...
4. What happens at this point? If you see an error, can you please type it in here exactly as it appears? If the file appears in your Rhythmbox music library, but when you try to play it you get an error, please tell me what the error message says exactly.

Hi Rouben,

Thankyou for the reply. This is the error message I have been getting.

The required software to play this file is not installed. You need to install suitable plugins to play media files. Do you want to search for a plugin that supports the selected file?

The search will also include software which is not officially supported.

I now have 192 files in rhythmbox but the rest will not go in there. I get this message as I wrote above. Also if the software to do this isn't free, do you have any idea how much it is. I need to know the exact one(s) that I need.

Thanks So much for your help.

Tricia

Hi Tricia,

The "non-free" software in this case does not refer to the price, but rather refers to freedom (to tinker, share and contribute). I think the quickest way to really grasp the concept of "software freedom" is to watch this 5 minute video clip by Stephen Fry: http://www.gnu.org/fry/

For political/philosophical reasons, and to avoid confusion, the words GNU and kernel in the video above refer to various components of the Linux operating system, of which Ubuntu is one of the many distributions (or flavours if you will), also known as "distros" (short form used in the community). I hope all this is starting to make sense... Please let me know if I've managed to completely confuse you here, I'm not the best when it comes to articulation. :)

Anyway, on to your question. Don't worry about installing the non-free software in terms of paying for it, it is free (as in pricetag), but at the same time it's restricted (as in freedom). MP3 playback, unfortunately, falls under this restricted (or non-free) category, because of the nature of the MP3 file format. The bottom line is, when Rhythmbox prompts you to install non-free or restricted components, go ahead and do it. If that still doesn't let you play your files, please do the following for me, so that I can help you further:

1. Find the problematic file in your computer... for example under your home folder -> Music. To open your home folder, click the "Places" menu and select "Home Folder". Then open the "Music" folder.
2. Right click on it and select Properties from the menu (should be the last item).
3. On the properties screen, right under the file's name you should see a File Type field. Please post it here in a response. For convenience, you can highlight that text and copy paste it here, that way we can see the exact text and you don't have to retype it.

For example, the properties screen for a ZIP archive will show the following file type: "Zip archive (application/zip)", a JPEG/JPG photo or image would have the following type "JPEG image (image/jpeg)" and an MP3 audio file should be "MP3 audio (audio/mpeg)".