AMAROK: No Engine Loaded, cannot start playback

[Peter Garrett]

On Wed, 5 Jul 2006 08:06:40 +0300
"OOzy Pal" <oozypal at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 7/5/06, Colin Brace <cb at lim.nl> wrote:
> > On 7/4/06, OOzy Pal <oozypal at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > AMAROK is complaining that:
> > >
> > >  No Engine Loaded, cannot start playback
> >
> > Do you have these installed?
> >
> > apt-get install amarok-engines
[snip]
> Yes, I do have them installed because I was listing to audio a day
> before. I think Skype is causing the problem because every time I run
> Skype and I talk with one of my friends then I hangup, a problem is
> caused as a matter of fact I can not even make another skype call
> until I restart Skype.

Skype does this - it hijacks the sound device (/dev/dsp) This is a known
issue. There is a "skype hijacker" written to lessen the damage. I believe
you can install it by adding the line

deb http://users.lichtsnel.nl/~seveas/ breezy-seveas
extras

To your /etc/apt/sources.list , updating, then installing the
"skype-dsp-hijacker" package. ( gleaned this information from 
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=171761 )

You can also get the source code from 

http://juljas.net/linux/skype/#hijacker

If you are comfortable with compiling. If you go that way, I suggest using
the checkinstall utility to package your compiled hijacker :)

Regarding your amarok problem: does this only happen with one sound format
- for instance, mp3 ? Have you installed libxine-extracodecs? If not, try
installing that package. ( It's in dapper multiverse)

Peter