My Rhythmbox not playing mp3

To play mp3 files with Rhythmbox you need the gstreamer 'ugly' plugins. There are 3 good choices to getting these installed and running with Rhythmbox;

1. This should be shown when you try to open such a file:

Simply install from here and Rhythmbox will happily play your mp3s.

2. If the menu does not appear you can install install from the commandline (on Trusty Tahr):

sudo apt-get install gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly

And hopefully this will be enough to get your mp3s playing.

3. If not the final choice is to get the latest and greatest Rhythmbox with the annoying 'can't see mp3s/plugins properly' bug ironed out:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fossfreedom/rhythmbox
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install rhythmbox gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly gnome-control-center rhythmbox-plugin-visualizer

And then all should be well...

If you have tried the solutions on this page and STILL can not get your .mp3 files to play in Rhythmbox, try this:

1. Open Terminal

2. Enter the following:

   sudo chmod 777 path/to/YourJamz
   

   2a. Lazy Person Tip: After entering sudo chmod 777 in the terminal, Open Nautilus, find your music files and drag them into the terminal. Terminal will automatically display the /path/to/your/files/for/you/ for you.

3. Press Enter

4. Close Terminal.

5. Open Rhythmbox; your files should be visible/able to be played.

   5a. Alternately, open Nautilus, right click your file, select "open with Rhythmbox"; your .mp3 file should now be playing with Rhythmbox.

This worked for me, I hoped it helped. Good luck, and happy breakdancing!

Because the ethos of Linux is that all software should be free in terms of Liberty and usually but not necessarily cost. There is some software that does not get installed by default.

One example is mp3 which is a propriety format and someone has had to pay a licence fee and sign an NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) in order get access to to details so that mp3 files can be decoded. Because of this it is not possible to make this software open source.

In earlier versions of Ubuntu this made things awkward as you had find and install these your self. However, in more recent versions you are now asked if you want these propriety, non open source, programs installed when you install. If you didn't say yes during installation you can find them in the software centre under restricted-extras.