I have lost the ability to save music in MP3 format [SOLVED....sort of]

stan gryt2 at q.com
Fri Nov 5 04:22:11 UTC 2010


On Thu, 4 Nov 2010 22:56:18 -0400
Paul Otheim <coriolis220 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I went into the ~/.gconf/system folder, since the problem was not
> application specific it seemed like a good place to start. 

I don't have that folder in ~/.gconf on my system.  Only apps and
desktop.  Both those folders have the %gconf.xml file in them.  And I
just checked, I can play an mp3.

> So my question now is what is the purpose of this empty file? 

I don't know for sure, but I would guess it is being used as some sort
of flag.  Or perhaps for locking.

> Presumably the apps go into the ~/.gconf/system
>  directory looking for these files, apparently they would hit this
> particular instance of it and use it for something but who knows what?

It probably indicates the access for gstreamer in the system.  Maybe
you have to be a member of a specific group to use gstreamer if it is
flagged in system.  I suspect you could move the entire system folder to
something else and your sound would work just fine, and there would be
no other problems.

You probably did something on your system that had the inadvertent side
effect of creating this.  I don't know enough about what this is to
tell what you might have done.

Anyhow you have sound back.  And you know something more about your
system.


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