Banshee encountered a Fatal Error (sqlite error 11: database disk image is malformed)

This problem is, unfortunately, not completely uncommon. It's often caused by a system crash or power outage while Banshee is running, but there may be other causes as well. The Banshee FAQ page has a list of instructions that work most of the time. In terminal, with the sqlite3 program installed, try this:

Change into the directory where Banshee stores the database:

cd ~/.config/banshee-1

Execute the ".dump" command on the database, which will convert all tables to text. Save this output in a file named dump. You may need to sudo apt-get install sqlite3 if you don't already have it.

sqlite3 banshee.db ".dump" > dump

Rename your current database to create a backup:

mv banshee.db banshee.db.backup

Pass the contents of your dump through the sqlite3 command, creating a new database (hopefully with the same contents as the original):

cat dump | sqlite3 banshee.db

There is ongoing work in Banshee to make database backup and recovery automatic. If you want to stay up-to-date on the progress, feel free to CC yourself to the bug report.

It looks like Banshee's database has become corrupt. To make Banshee run, you should remove the corrupt database file (or repair it). The database is located at

~/.config/banshee-1/banshee.db

Rename it, and Banshee can run again. But all your settings are lost. If you'd like to recover it, follow this article.

That consists of:

1. Open a terminal window and navigate to ~/.config/banshee-1 and install sqlite3: sudo apt-get install sqlite3
2. Backup the file banshee.db by copying it.
3. Open the database file using sqlite3: sqlite3 banshee.db
4. Do an integrity check by issuing the command PRAGMA integrity_check;. This reports errors, but does not correct those
5. Try the command REINDEX;

If none of the above worked, continue reading Recovering a Corrupted Banshee Database.