Upgrading python-gobject from 3.50 to 3.52 breaks rythmbox xed and may other apps [resolved]

[joekamprad]

Rhythmbox broken

I’ve got some other things depending on python-gobject, like gnome-control-center, gnome-tweaks, alacarte, gufw and a couple more. They seem all to be working fine. I launched them from a terminal and I don’t get messages like those when I launched rhythmbox. Could it be a combination of several things together? I don’t know. There is this report for now:

xed not starting after gnome 48 upgrade (archlinux based distro)

Same issue with xed for me, and others.

Just downgraded to python-gobject 3.50.0-2 and xed should work again same for rhythmbox:

sudo downgrade python-gobject

and select 3.50.0
I do NOT recommend adding it to ignore list.. Better wait for next update as it will prevent from partly updated system.

Let us know if you have any details or other issues.

[UncleSpellbinder]

@joekamprad, if I downgrade python-object and select 3.50.0, and I don’t add it to the ignore list, will it still get updated when the next version hits the repos?

EDIT: I answered my own question by doing yay and was offered 3.52.3-2. So I’ll just exclude that until the next python-gobject update.

[joekamprad]

it will also without any update to the package itself would get updated to latest version on next update.

[cactux]

Interestingly enough, all my applications depending on python-gobject (gnome-control-center, gnome-tweaks, meld, soundconverter, alacarte, bleachbit , gpodder) work fine.
No downgrading for me this time

[joekamprad]

@cactux

gnome-control-center, gnome-tweaks, meld, soundconverter, alacarte, bleachbit , gpodder)

Question would be if they break if you downgrade
But do not do if system runs fine..

[cactux]

@joekamprad

Question would be if they break if you downgrade

Perhaps or perhaps not. But I am not tempted to try

@joekamprad

But do not do if system runs fine..

Yes. no reason to do, if it is fine.

[kwg]

I’ll just add (for the benefit of anyone searching the forum for liferea) that liferea is also fixed by downgrading python-gobject to version 3.50.0-2.

The python-gobject maintainer writes that he is looking into this issue:

My first hunch is that this is because PyGObject 3.52 uses GIRepository-3.0 (libgirepository-2.0), where 3.50 used GIRepository-2.0 (gobject-introspection).

After pygobject 3.52.3 upgrade enabling gedit-plugins freeze gedit (#686) ·...

[kwg]

Today’s update of python-gobject to version 3.52.3-3 seems to have fixed the problem for me. I find now that liferea and xed load normally.

[joekamprad]

okay let’s try!

Last Updated: 2025-03-24 03:58 UTC

[manuel]

Here xed works again.

[joekamprad]

same here both working xed and rythmbox (also i do not use the second)

[Cubicle7595]

Unfortunately they didn’t fully restore the previous functionality. I have a system tray plugin in rhythmbox that worked even in wayland (with “GDK_BACKEND=x11”), but it stopped working with the gobject hotfix.

[joekamprad]

hotfix?

[Cubicle7595]

I meant new version 3.52.3-3

[kwg]

I don’t use rhythmbox, but I hope to be helpful nevertheless. I just installed rhythmbox on a test machine.

@Cubicle7595

I have a system tray plugin… it stopped working

Which system tray plugin, and in what way did it stop working? I see three system tray plugin possibilities in the AUR (none of which may be actively maintained):

$ yay -Ss rhythmbox | grep tray
aur/rhythmbox-tray-icon-git 3abf81c-4 (+4 0.00) 
    Restores the tray icon functionality from the 0.x series.
aur/rhythmbox-plugin-tray-icon 2020.05.21-1 (+6 0.00) 
    A tray icon plugin for rhythmbox music player
aur/rhythmbox-tray-icon 0.2_1-4 (+7 0.00) 
    Rhythmbox tray icon functionality similar to 0.x series

I also see options online for manually installing a system tray plugin for Rhythmbox.

Just wondering: When you updated python-gobject to 3.52.3-3, were rhythmbox and your plugin both closed? If not, did you reboot (or log out and log in again) after the update?

[Cubicle7595]

Hi there. It is rhythmbox-tray-icon-git, although I downloaded it manually. It was closed before updating and rebooting.

I tried reactivating the plugin and got the error Could not load plugin loader ‘python3’. In fact, I tested it on a clean VM without this plugin, and when trying to activate the default ones most of them have some error.

[kwg]

On my virtual machine, running EndeavourOS KDE, fully updated, I install rhythmbox-tray-icon manually, using this command:

wget https://github.com/mendhak/rhythmbox-tray-icon/raw/master/rhythmbox-tray-icon.zip
unzip -u rhythmbox-tray-icon.zip -d ~/.local/share/rhythmbox/plugins

Opening rhythmbox anew, I see the Rhythmbox icon in the system tray. I then download an .mp3 file for testing. Opening the .mp3 file in rhythmbox, and then clicking the system tray icon, I see a thumbnail of my downloaded file and the usual array of controls: back, forward, pause/start, shuffle, and repeat; and a clickable timeline of the entire audio file.

Unfortunately for our diagnostics, I’m not experiencing any obvious problem.

[Cubicle7595]

This is strange. In fact to be sure I just reinstalled endeavourOS kde with the preset configuration and the latest iso, however I got the same result for tray-icon and default plugins, even on x11. Maybe virtualbox inherits the same problem?

Thanks and sorry for the inconvenience, but I’ll just move to flatpak. It seems to be working fine, the tray-icon plugin took me a few extra tries, but just disabling the wayland socket is enough.