Podcast app problem with L5

Hardware Librem 5
1

I installed what appears to be the only podcast program from the PureOS store via Flathub. It doesn’t work at all for me. I’ve pursued the available topics with regard to podcast problems but none seem to be like this.

Firstly I can’t find it amongst the list of installed apps (apt list –installed) despite me installing it twice after removing it and hoping that it may work. I had intended to purge/remove it from my system and try again but I can’t find it listed…does someone know if its called “Podcasts” as I can’t find either “Podcasts” or “gnome-podcasts”?

Secondly, when I try to play something I get these error messages (that I can’t read completely as the screen cuts it off). They follow each other in this order

  1. Play error: Error from element/GST PlayBin… and then I get
  2. The media player was unable to execute…

Interestingly, when I uninstalled and then reinstalled it I got a weird message while in the PureOS store that said:

From repo: GPG verification enabled but no signature in remote config to disable…

Again that is a truncated message as I can’t see all of it. I don’t know if this is related to this problem but it’s the first time I’ve seen it.

So I had intended to completely get it off my system and reinstall it, but as mentioned above, I can’t find it listed.

Can anyone throw some light on how I can fix this?

Or is there an alternative podcast app?

Getting podcasts going will be my final brick in my L5. Everything else is now working great.

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2

Use this command:

flatpak uninstall flathub org.gnome.Podcasts

Then:

flatpak install flathub org.gnome.Podcasts

@Kyle_Rankin used gPodder years ago, which may be worth considering.

3

I use GNOME Podcasts on a daily basis on my Librem 5.
It works well.

sudo flatpak list | grep -i podcast
The Podcasts developers	org.gnome.Podcasts	0.7.0	stable	flathub	system
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4

Thank you for that. When I run the first one I get a “Warning: flathub is not installed” which is strange as I did install it and it shows in the PureOS store.

It asks me if I want to make these system changes but I have held off

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5

I ran that and got the same output. But see my post about flathub not being installed. I’m a tad confused.

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6

Okay, use this command:

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

Then restart your phone and try uninstalling and reinstalling GNOME Podcasts again.

7

As a side note: I run flatpak commands always as root. With sudo or in a root shell.

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8

Thank you. I’ll have to give this a go tomorrow as work is on me. But I’ll try it.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge. I’ll report back of course.

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9

I would install Kasts. It’s much better than any other podcast app I’ve seen for the L5, it can be set up to be mobile friendly.

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10

Individual flatpaks are not installed with apt, so it cannot list them. To see installed flatpaks, run flatpak list.

(Installing a flatpak from the PureOS Store app will be using flatpak install invisibly, while installing a native PureOS app will be using sudo apt install.)

For listing your installed applications (and getting their package names), you might be interested in this thread, as well as the thread of Kyle’s that links from there. You can use the commands that those scripts use without creating the “apps” described in those threads, if you prefer.

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Another side note: I experienced that using the Byzantium version of PureOS Store (GNOME Software) is not reliable and has several issues. I highly recommend to use the apt and flatpak command line tools for managing software installs. Newer versions of GNOME Software are way better than the current version in PureOS Byzantium, so this might improve in the future.

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12

Thank you for making me aware of this method. I had no idea. I will make note of these and use them

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13

I have tried tgis code but get this error message:

Can’t load uri https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo: Error resolving “dl.flathub.org”: Name or server not known

I’m doing this on my phone so took great care and did it a few times.

Is thereca way to initially uninstall flathub and then reinstall?

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14

As seems to be the way with my latest problems.

Its now working and the solution was the same as what I did with Shortwave that was giving me grief.

I uninstalled Podcasts, restarted, updated flatpak by cli as suggested, reinstalled Podcasts via the store, restarted because the icon was missing, had it appear after the restart, and now it works. I’m extremely happy as now my L5 does everything I want it to. But it is Linux so it will evolve.

I have used qubes now for years so became a bit divorced from the vagaries of app stores. But the help here has been great. I’ll listen to some podcasts today and if it continues to perform I’ll come back and mark this as solved if all goes well.

On another note with Podcasts, is it possible to queue shows up to play?

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I do not think so, at least I never found that option. You could check if there is an issue or feature request for this at: Issues · World / Podcasts · GitLab.

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17

Thanks for that. I can live without it. But ut would be nice!

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