A new version of open source music app Rhythmbox has been released.
Rhythmbox 3.4.5 includes major improvements to its podcast downloading, playback, and management capabilities.
For instance, devs rewrote the podcast downloader to offer better resume and retry; episode order is preserve if/when multiple podcasts episodes share the same publication date; and podcast episode GUIDs (globally unique identifier) are now used to handle episode URL changes.
Adding a podcast feeds with no episode no longer throws an ‘unhelpful’ error message; cancelling a podcast download is more reliable; and various fixes ensure podcast album art and feed descriptions shows up as intended.
Other notable changes include scrapping the Soundcloud plugin (it no longer works); making cross-fading work better with network streams, and ‘better reporting of progress when transferring to Android or MTP devices’.
Rhythmbox is free, open source software. You can grab the latest source code from Gitlab, and install a recent-ish stable build from your distribution’s repos. Rhythmbox is also on Flathub if you prefer to get your software from there.