Google Play Music desktop player is "installed" but won't open

Greetings; first post. My system info is in my profile.

I downloaded the Google Play Music Desktop app from this location. I selected the Debian 32-bit version . . .

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. . . and then selected the Open with software install option.

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So far, so good. It appears that the program is successfully installed:

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And when I select the program from the list, I am presented with the Launch option, which I take as a sign that it will actually operate:

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So, when I click the launch button, here’s what happens. The program icon appears in the dock . . .

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. . . and the wheel spins for a short bit, and then the program icon in the dock disappears:

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. . . and the program does not launch. Yet the “launch” button remains active, taunting me to try it again.

Thank you.

Are you running a 64bit or a 32bit UB installation? Usually you should run 64bit .deb with a 64bit installation and Visa versa

If you run the applicatio via a terminal it should give you more info as to why it is failing.

Thanks for the reply. I’m running the 32-bit UB installation, because my OS is 32-bit (see my profile for full system specs).

Thanks for the terminal tip. I’ll give that a shot and report back.

Ah. A little surprised. Your specs are good enough to run 64bit UB. An extra bit of extra memory would help though.

There is a flatpak version of Google Music Desktop Player. https://flathub.org/apps/details/com.googleplaymusicdesktopplayer.GPMDP

Thanks. A bit of a sidebar question: I’ve always been confused by this:

$ lscpu
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit

Is it even possible for a system to be both modes at the same time, and if so, why would any system be both at the same time? If a system is capable of 64-bit, wouldn’t it be sufficient to call it a 64-bit system and leave it at that? It’s the duality of the modes – and why duality would even be desired – that confuses me.

Further confusion. When you call up Users / About, the system presents this:

system%20info

Note that OS type says 32 bit only. No mention of 64 bit. Conclusion? This is a 32-bit-only system. If I’m incorrect about that, what/where is the clue that I’ve been missing that shows I’m incorrect?

Kan, thank you very much for this heads-up. Using Flatpak, I was able to successfully install Google Play Music Desktop Player.

This required installing Flatpak on my system, but this was easy, as the Flatpak website provides very simple command-line installation instructions.

For reasons I can’t explain, trying to install GPMDP via Budgie’s Software utility (v 3.28.1) resulted in the dead-end loop described in my OP. But Flatpak saved the day; thanks for the recommendation.

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The OS type just says what operating system type you have installed.

lscpu shows what you are capable of running. So in this case you can install either a 32bit operating system or a 64bit operating system.

There are certain apps such as chrome that will.only run on 64 bit. Hence it is recommended to install 64bit where possible.

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At the risk of hijacking my own thread . . .

. . . once you spelled it out, I had one of those “of course” moments where I slapped my forehead. It simply never occurred to me that it was left to me to determine whether my system should operate in either 32- or 64-bit mode. I had assumed it was preconfigured at the factory to be only one, only the other, or – somehow, mysteriously – both at the same time, i.e. op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit

If
$ lscpu
had returned this instead:
op-mode(s): 32-bit or 64-bit, your choice

. . . then I would have understood clearly. It took your answer to finally lift the fog for me. So, thank you for that.

And now I have a 64-bit UB distribution on a bootable USB stick, ready to go.

But, I wonder.

You say my system is adequate to run 64-bit UB distribution. The UB download site says, Not so much. My system is 1st-gen XPS, and there is a lot to like about this machine, but when it comes to Ubuntu Budgie, it seems to occupy a performance gray zone: It has 165 percent of the memory needed to run 32-bit UB, and 83 percent of the memory recommended to run 64-bit UB.

So far, the current 32-bit installation runs great. System bootup is the fastest I’ve ever experienced. Everything I touch has a snappy response. And, very important to me, the machine operates at a much cooler temperature than before.

Before I installed UB, I was running the 32-bit distribution of Kubuntu 18.04. Doing almost nothing at all with software, temperatures in the componentry would routinely hit 80C-85C, and the fan would be in overdrive constantly. The keyboard would be almost too hot to touch.

Now, as I type this, my system is running very comfortably (and quietly) at 53C – even though Budgie, like Kubuntu, is built upon Ubuntu 18.04.

Weird. Anyway, whatever I do, I don’t want to return to the days of 85C temps. And I worry that installing the 64-bit distro of UB would introduce stress that would push the temps back up into the danger zone.

Or maybe not? I’m too much of a noob to know whether 32- or 64-bit makes any difference in that regard.

I have reasons to think switching to a 64-bit setup might be beneficial. The current, 32-bit setup has some quirks: Trackpad performance is very poor; the Gedit text editor is stuck in always-on-top mode (opening or clicking another window does not send the text editor behind the selected window); and there were the aforementioned problems with UB’s software app failing to install the Google Play Music desktop player.

But again, I don’t know if any of those issues have any connection to 32- or 64-bit OS modes.

I know Chromium requires 64-bit, but I don’t use Chromium and prefer Firefox anyway. I’m not a gamer, but I would like to install Steam to access some of the low-wattage, old-guy games that I would enjoy revisiting, but Steam requires 64-bit. So, there’s that.

So, for now, I have the 64-bit installation locked and loaded, and my finger is on the trigger. I just haven’t decided whether to pull it.

As long as you have got what you need backed up then trying stuff out is basically 30minutes out of your valuable time… if it does not work out for you, you can just reinstall the previous 32bit version.

I would give it a try … and if you find a few spare coins down the back of the sofa you can always uplift the ram in your computer

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An update, for the possible benefit of anyone else who may have this same question:

I gave it a try, as you recommended. I did clean install of 64-bit UB. Everything seems to be running fine. Installation went without a hitch. There’s been no meaninful change in the system operating temperatures. Performance appears to be, at first look, no different – that is to say, every bit as snappy and responsive – as it did with the 32-bit installation. If there are benefits under the hood that I can’t see, so much the better.

And now, with a 64-bit OS, I have installed Steam, which I could not do with a 32-bit OS. I could, if I wanted to, install Chromium, which also is 64-bit-only.

Some of the bugs of the 32-bit installation persist. The most noticeable is inconsistent touchpad performance – it takes a lot of “raking” of the touchpad to get the pointer, finally, to the place you need it. So, whatever’s causing the issue, it’s not the 32-bit version.

But overall, Evertying seems to be working fine, and I think I’ll plan on adding 4GB of RAM soon. Thanks for the help.

Does this Q&A help with your touchpad issues?

And just to note, there is a Steam Flatpak app as well. The benefit to this is that it bubble wraps all the 32-bit dependencies required until Steam releases a 64-bit application.

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