[Bug 689426] [NEW] Confusing error message when the sound capture fails

[Arseniy Alekseyev]

Public bug reported:

Binary package hint: empathy

I received the following message when the sound capture failed during an
audio call:

There was a failure in the call engine:
Could not link source

The underlying problem turned out to be incorrect configuration of the default gstreamer source. I had /system/gstreamer/0.10/default/audiosrc set to "osssrc" while I did not have OSS installed.
ALSA-based applications worked perfectly so I had no idea why empathy would fail.

The problem became obvious when I executed the following command: gst-
launch-0.10 gconfaudiosrc ! gconfaudiosink

The output clearly showed what went wrong:

ERROR: from element /GstBin:bin0/GstOssSrc:osssrc0: Could not open audio device for recording.
Additional debug info:
gstosssrc.c(379): gst_oss_src_open (): /GstBin:bin0/GstOssSrc:osssrc0:
Unable to open device /dev/dsp for recording: No such file or directory

I think it would be great if the empathy error "Technical details"
showed this information or at least hint what it was trying to do (open
the "gconfaudiosrc" gstreamer element).

Even a slight modification of the error message could make it vastly more useful:
"Could not link gstreamer source 'gconfaudiosrc'."

** Affects: empathy (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/689426

Title:
  Confusing error message when the sound capture fails