waiting for gstreamer?

[Per Bothner]

This is slightly off-topic, as it is about F12, not Rawhide.
However, it's a relatively recent failure in a full-updated D12,
so it's not *too* far off-topic, I hope!

The problem is that neither amarok nor digikam nor rhythmbox
will start up. rhythmbox does nothing.  The two KDE application
(run under Gnome and metacity) will put up a splash screen, and
then hang.

In the case of digikam it looks like Phonon is waiting on gstreamer,
based on a gdb stack-trace (with digikam compiled from source):

0  0x00d1a416 in __kernel_vsyscall ()
#1  0x007d2f25 in ppoll () from /lib/libc.so.6
#2  0x01f13e41 in gst_poll_wait () from /usr/lib/libgstreamer-0.10.so.0
#3  0x01f10ab6 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstreamer-0.10.so.0
#4  0x01f123b4 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstreamer-0.10.so.0
#5  0x01f1cfe9 in gst_update_registry () from 
/usr/lib/libgstreamer-0.10.so.0
#6  0x01ec90d2 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstreamer-0.10.so.0
#7  0x00e34100 in g_option_context_parse () from /lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#8  0x01ec86fe in gst_init_check () from /usr/lib/libgstreamer-0.10.so.0
#9  0x027b5362 in ?? ()
    from /usr/lib/kde4/plugins/phonon_backend/phonon_gstreamer.so
#10 0x027b5781 in qt_plugin_instance ()
    from /usr/lib/kde4/plugins/phonon_backend/phonon_gstreamer.so
#11 0x06133df4 in QPluginLoader::instance() () from /usr/lib/libQtCore.so.4
#12 0x07d0e51b in ?? () from /usr/lib/kde4/plugins/phonon_platform/kde.so
#13 0x07d0f791 in ?? () from /usr/lib/kde4/plugins/phonon_platform/kde.so
#14 0x02513ee4 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libphonon.so.4
#15 0x02514d83 in Phonon::Factory::backend(bool) ()
    from /usr/lib/libphonon.so.4
#16 0x0250ec9a in 
Phonon::GlobalConfig::audioOutputDeviceListFor(Phonon::Category, int) 
const () from /usr/lib/libphonon.so.4
#17 0x0250f500 in 
Phonon::GlobalConfig::audioOutputDeviceFor(Phonon::Category, int) const 
() from /usr/lib/libphonon.so.4
#18 0x0250a3b6 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libphonon.so.4
#19 0x0251adeb in ?? () from /usr/lib/libphonon.so.4
#20 0x0251b0f1 in Phonon::VideoPlayer::VideoPlayer(Phonon::Category, 
QWidget*)
     () from /usr/lib/libphonon.so.4
#21 0x082ef06a in Digikam::MediaPlayerView::MediaPlayerView (
     this=<value optimized out>, parent=<value optimized out>)
     at 
/home/bothner/Software/digikam-1.0.0-rc/digikam/mediaplayerview.cpp:107
#22 0x08279ea0 in Digikam::AlbumWidgetStack::AlbumWidgetStack (
     this=<value optimized out>, parent=<value optimized out>)
     at 
/home/bothner/Software/digikam-1.0.0-rc/digikam/albumwidgetstack.cpp:109
#23 0x082aee4e in Digikam::DigikamView::DigikamView (
     this=<value optimized out>, parent=<value optimized out>)
     at /home/bothner/Software/digikam-1.0.0-rc/digikam/digikamview.cpp:215
#24 0x08295160 in Digikam::DigikamApp::setupView (this=<value optimized 
out>)
     at /home/bothner/Software/digikam-1.0.0-rc/digikam/digikamapp.cpp:493
#25 0x082a3933 in Digikam::DigikamApp::DigikamApp (this=<value optimized 
out>,
     __in_chrg=<value optimized out>, __vtt_parm=<value optimized out>)
     at /home/bothner/Software/digikam-1.0.0-rc/digikam/digikamapp.cpp:232
#26 0x083a24fa in main (argc=<value optimized out>, argv=<value 
optimized out>)
     at /home/bothner/Software/digikam-1.0.0-rc/digikam/main.cpp:172

rhythmbox also hangs in gstreamer.

One data-point which might be relevant: I briefly experimented
with xmonad (if it had a less steep learning-curve, including
better mouse support and easier defaults I might have stuck with
it).  After than the desktop icons are gone, and I can no longer
open a terminal by right-clicking the desktop (nautilus-open-terminal).
I'm not sure if the these failures predate or postdate the
xmonad experiment, but it's possible that switching to xmodad
might have done something nasty.
-- 
	--Per Bothner
per at bothner.com   http://per.bothner.com/