[Pkg-audacious-maintainers] Bug#500081: audacious: tampers with timer_mode config after playing Internet stream

[Francesco Poli]

Package: audacious
Version: 1.5.1-4
Severity: normal

Hi!

I think I noticed a bug (or perhaps a design flaw) in how audacious
handles the timer_mode configuration option (Time Elapsed / Time
Remaining in the View menu).

I set Time Remaining, because I prefer seeing how long a given audio
file will take to end, rather than how much time I have been listening
to it.
Obviously showing the remaining time is not possible when playing
an Internet radio stream (because a stream is virtually never-ending).
As a consequence, when I listen to a stream, audacious shows the
elapsed time, even if I set Time Remaining in the View menu.

This is perfectly fine with me and it's the desired behavior.

The problem is that playing an Internet radio stream makes audacious
change its configuration file, so that next time I start the program
it will always show the elapsed time, even with local audio files!
This is frustrating and should not happen: audacious should *not*
permanently change its configuration file, just because it could
not honor a configuration option in a particular situation!

In other words, audacious should behave as outlined above, but
*without* permanently modifying the timer_mode option is its
configuration file.


Steps to reproduce the bug:

  $ grep timer_mode ~/.config/audacious/config 
  timer_mode=1
  $ cp -a ~/.config/audacious/config ~/tmp/config-audacious-config_SAVE
  $ audacious &

  Check the View menu: Time Remaining is set  :-)
  Play an Internet radio stream for a while   \m/
  Look at the timer: elapsed time is shown    :-)
  Press stop and quit audacious

  $ diff ~/tmp/config-audacious-config_SAVE ~/.config/audacious/config
  142c142
  < timer_mode=1
  ---
  > timer_mode=0

  As can be seen, the timer_mode option has been modified    :-(

  $ audacious &

  Check the View menu: Time Elapsed is set   :-(
  Play a local audio file                    \m/
  Look at the timer: elapsed time is shown   :-(
  Press stop and quit audacious

  $ cp -ai ~/tmp/config-audacious-config_SAVE ~/.config/audacious/config
  $ grep timer_mode ~/.config/audacious/config 
  timer_mode=1
  $ audacious &

  Check the View menu: Time Remaining is set  :-)
  Play a local audio file                     \m/
  Look at the timer: remaining time is shown  :-)
  However, the problem will show up once more, as soon as audacious
    plays a radio stream again...                     :-(


Please forward this bug report to upstream, as appropriate.
Thanks.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.26-1-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages audacious depends on:
ii  audacious-plugins             1.5.1-2    Base plugins for audacious
ii  dbus                          1.2.1-3    simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  gtk2-engines-pixbuf           2.12.11-3  Pixbuf-based theme for GTK+ 2.x
ii  libatk1.0-0                   1.22.0-1   The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libaudclient1                 1.5.1-4    audacious dbus remote control libr
ii  libaudid3tag1                 1.5.1-4    audacious id3 tag manipulation lib
ii  libc6                         2.7-13     GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libcairo2                     1.6.4-6    The Cairo 2D vector graphics libra
ii  libdbus-1-3                   1.2.1-3    simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libdbus-glib-1-2              0.76-1     simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libglib2.0-0                  2.16.5-1   The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgtk2.0-0                   2.12.11-3  The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libice6                       2:1.0.4-1  X11 Inter-Client Exchange library
ii  libmcs1                       0.7.1-1    Abstraction library to store confi
ii  libmowgli1                    0.6.1-1    a high performance development fra
ii  libpango1.0-0                 1.20.5-2   Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  libsamplerate0                0.1.4-1    audio rate conversion library
ii  libsm6                        2:1.0.3-2  X11 Session Management library
ii  libx11-6                      2:1.1.4-2  X11 client-side library

Versions of packages audacious recommends:
ii  audacious-plugins-extra       1.5.1-2    Various extra plugins for audaciou
ii  unzip                         5.52-12    De-archiver for .zip files

audacious suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information