EMMS (emacs multimedia system) error in Emacs: “Don't know how to play track…”

Question

This is tricky. I've found another user through google that has the same issue but I couldn't seem to find any resolution. Specifically, on my machine, EMMS will play tracks fine when Emacs in running in a terminal, but will not play tracks when running in a GUI environment.

When I enable debugging on error, the backtrace log shows the following:

Debugger entered--Lisp error: (error "Don't know how to play track: (*track* (type . file) (name . \"/Volumes/Users/Public/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Music/311/Don't Tread On Me/01 Don't Tread On Me.mp3\") (metadata) (info-artist . \"311\") (info-title . \"Don't Tread On Me\") (info-album . \"Don't Tread On Me\") (info-tracknumber . \"1\") (info-year . \"2005\") (info-genre . \"Rock\") (info-playing-time . 188) (info-mtime 19534 7550))")
  signal(error ("Don't know how to play track: (*track* (type . file) (name . \"/Volumes/Users/Public/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Music/311/Don't Tread On Me/01 Don't Tread On Me.mp3\") (metadata) (info-artist . \"311\") (info-title . \"Don't Tread On Me\") (info-album . \"Don't Tread On Me\") (info-tracknumber . \"1\") (info-year . \"2005\") (info-genre . \"Rock\") (info-playing-time . 188) (info-mtime 19534 7550))"))
  error("Don't know how to play track: %S" (*track* (type . file) (name . "/Volumes/Users/Public/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Music/311/Don't Tread On Me/01 Don't Tread On Me.mp3") (metadata) (info-artist . "311") (info-title . "Don't Tread On Me") (info-album . "Don't Tread On Me") (info-tracknumber . "1") (info-year . "2005") (info-genre . "Rock") (info-playing-time . 188) (info-mtime 19534 7550)))
  emms-player-start((*track* (type . file) (name . "/Volumes/Users/Public/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Music/311/Don't Tread On Me/01 Don't Tread On Me.mp3") (metadata) (info-artist . "311") (info-title . "Don't Tread On Me") (info-album . "Don't Tread On Me") (info-tracknumber . "1") (info-year . "2005") (info-genre . "Rock") (info-playing-time . 188) (info-mtime 19534 7550)))
  emms-start()
  emms-playlist-mode-play-current-track()
  emms-playlist-mode-play-smart()
  call-interactively(emms-playlist-mode-play-smart nil nil)

I'm using Emacs 23.2.1 in Terminal.app on Mac OS X 10.6.4 when it works. When it doesn't, I'm using Emacs 23.2 from Emacs for OS X.

Answer 1

I have the same error on Emacs 24, but problem resolved after i added the follow to .emacs file(or your emacs init file):

(require 'emms-setup)
(emms-all)
(emms-default-players)

which emma-setup location is ~/.emacs.d/elpa/emms-{version}/emms-setup.el.

Answer 2

Something was wonky in my init file. Solved the issue by customizing variable "emms-player-list" and inserting a value of "emms-player-mplayer".

Answer from EMMS help list.