[SOLVED]VLC not working after yet another #4.1 re-install

[Myles]

Okay, Doktor or anyone else, I'm back again with yet more problems. And yes I have re-installed #4.1 twice this week but I get different problems each time! But this one is just about VLC.

So, this problem happened after re-install number 2. VLC would not play audio for a video, even ones I had already watched.

So I re-installed from the classic DVD yet again! But, this time I did a stock standard install (except chose my nVidia driver), did not select to choose extra avenues to download packages, did not select to download any updated packages since #4.1 had been released! So vanilla Mageia #4.1, or so I thought!!!

After I re-booted and logged into the system for the first time, I installed VLC from the DVD. Proceeded to play previously watched .mp4 video - same result - video but no sound! Why wouldn't VLC work when installed from the DVD, does it need other repositories enabled before installing to work properly? How does that work?

This is pretty much the same as this problem: https://forums.mageia.org/en/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2432. I have tried (I think) all of the recommended commands to no avail! Now I'm even worse off - VLC won't play video or audio of the previously watched videos.

VLC error playing - already watched - MP4 video - no video.png (19.53 KiB) Viewed 5418 times

VLC error playing - already watched - MP4 video - no sound.png (22.58 KiB) Viewed 5418 times

and Videos player wouldn't work either

Video Player error playing - already watched - MP4 video - nothing.png (55.49 KiB) Viewed 5418 times

.

After reading the other post I realised I had backports enabled, so I disabled them and ran

urpmi --auto-update

I ran this and it installed a lot of packages, but didn't solve the problem.

Results of commands mentioned in other forum post.

urpmq --list-media active

(is that what I should use Doktor?)

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[root@Bilbo myles]# urpmq --list-media active --list-url
Core Release (distrib1) http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/mageia/distrib/4/x86_64/media/core/release
Core Updates (distrib3) http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/mageia/distrib/4/x86_64/media/core/updates
Nonfree Release (distrib11) http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/mageia/distrib/4/x86_64/media/nonfree/release
Nonfree Updates (distrib13) http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/mageia/distrib/4/x86_64/media/nonfree/updates
Tainted Release (distrib21) http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/mageia/distrib/4/x86_64/media/tainted/release
Tainted Updates (distrib23) http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/mageia/distrib/4/x86_64/media/tainted/updates
Core 32bit Release (distrib31) http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/mageia/distrib/4/i586/media/core/release
Core 32bit Updates (distrib32) http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/mageia/distrib/4/i586/media/core/updates
Nonfree 32bit Release (distrib36) http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/mageia/distrib/4/i586/media/nonfree/release
Nonfree 32bit Updates (distrib37) http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/mageia/distrib/4/i586/media/nonfree/updates
Tainted 32bit Release (distrib41) http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/mageia/distrib/4/i586/media/tainted/release
Tainted 32bit Updates (distrib42) http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/mageia/distrib/4/i586/media/tainted/updates
google-chrome http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/rpm/stable/x86_64
[root@Bilbo myles]#


Do I need to show output from any other commands?

As an aside I had Clementine installed prior to disabling the backports repositories, now it work work or re-install, nor VLC. Now Digikam won't work either!
I must have really screwed up the urpmi database or something!

Perplexed once again.

As always, any help greatly appreciated to help sort out the mess I've made.

[doktor5000]

After I re-booted and logged into the system for the first time, I installed VLC from the DVD. Proceeded to play previously watched .mp4 video - same result - video but no sound! Why wouldn't VLC work when installed from the DVD, does it need other repositories enabled before installing to work properly? How does that work?

Yes, you need the tainted version of vlc. And vlc does certainly work, but it may not play all video/audio codecs.

urpmq --list-media active

(is that what I should use Doktor?)

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[root@Bilbo myles]# urpmq --list-media active --list-url


urpmq --list-media active --list-url should be used as you did, it shows enabled repos and their URLs.

Do I need to show output from any other commands?

Yes, at least

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rpm -qa | grep vlc | sort

[jiml8]

Just a comment...you are making a serious mistake continually reinstalling when something does not work.

It is never necessary to reinstall Linux to fix things...particularly something as peripheral as VLC. Reinstalling is the "Windows Way", and you should educate yourself out of that habit.

You need the tainted VLC and you'll want to install extra codecs. You can do this without reinstalling the whole distro. If you need to add or remove repositories in order to gain access to what you need, you may do so without reinstalling.

Remember that many things in Linux are not provided by default due to licensing issues, but those things ARE available to you to install on your own.

I have reinstalled Linux exactly once on my workstation, since I first installed Mandrake 7.2 sometime around the year 2000 (I forget exactly when). That one time was when I moved from 32 bit Mandriva 2010.0 (direct descendant of Mandrake 7.2) to 64 bit Mageia 2. The move from 32 bit to 64 bit required a reinstall. This is over MANY hardware changes through that period of time, and multiple incidents that corrupted the system along the way. Upgrade and/or recovery has ALWAYS been possible.

Reinstalls of Linux are never necessary.

[Myles]

Thanks Doktor -

Yes, you need the tainted version of vlc. And vlc does certainly work, but it may not play all video/audio codecs.

. Now I a aware of that that would explain it. I was actually asking whether I had used the correct tags, but anyway here's the output of commands.

Yes, at least

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rpm -qa | grep vlc | sort

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[root@Bilbo myles]# rpm -qa | grep vlc | sort
lib64vlc5-2.1.6-1.0.mga4.tainted
lib64vlccore7-2.1.6-1.0.mga4.tainted
libvlc5-2.1.6-1.0.mga4.tainted
libvlccore7-2.1.6-1.0.mga4.tainted
vlc-2.1.6-1.0.mga4.tainted
vlc-plugin-common-2.1.6-1.0.mga4.tainted
vlc-plugin-pulse-2.1.6-1.0.mga4.tainted
vlc-plugin-theora-2.1.6-1.0.mga4.tainted

Also does the message from the software installer when you select something to install, saying something like

"This package xxxxx was found. However this package is not in the package list. You may want to update your urpmi database."

This occurs obviously because I was playing around with the repositories, adding/removing etc. Now I don't know which repository I need for Clementine, and Digikam to get them to install (Clementine) or working (Digikam). Or should I make those separate postings?

Thanks again Doktor, as always, very grateful for your help.

[doktor5000]

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[root@Bilbo myles]# rpm -qa | grep vlc | sort
lib64vlc5-2.1.6-1.0.mga4.tainted
lib64vlccore7-2.1.6-1.0.mga4.tainted
libvlc5-2.1.6-1.0.mga4.tainted
libvlccore7-2.1.6-1.0.mga4.tainted
vlc-2.1.6-1.0.mga4.tainted
vlc-plugin-common-2.1.6-1.0.mga4.tainted
vlc-plugin-pulse-2.1.6-1.0.mga4.tainted
vlc-plugin-theora-2.1.6-1.0.mga4.tainted

Looks good - all from tainted, although you don't need the two 32bit packages if you have a 64bit installation:

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libvlc5-2.1.6-1.0.mga4.tainted
libvlccore7-2.1.6-1.0.mga4.tainted

Two things to try:
1. rename the directory where vlc stores it's settings and such, run as normal user:

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mv ~/.config/vlc ~/.config/vlc-old

2. check if you have the AAC decoder library installed:

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rpm -qa | grep faad | sort

Also as this is a new installation, best also install task-codec-audio and task-codec-video meta packages.
And please, pretty please take note of what you need to install and write it down so you don't have to ask again for next installation.

Now I don't know which repository I need for Clementine, and Digikam to get them to install (Clementine) or working (Digikam). Or should I make those separate postings?

Both are from core release. You can search for packages via

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urpmf -f --name -m part_of_packagename

and it will also show you the full version and the repo in which it is located.
And yes, those should get a separate thread.

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┌─[doktor5000@Mageia5]─[17:39:01]─[~]
└──╼ urpmf -f --name -m 'clementine|^digikam'
clementine-1.2.3-5.mga5.x86_64:Core Release
digikam-4.8.0-1.mga5.x86_64:Core Release
clementine-1.2.3-5.mga5.i586:Core 32bit Release
digikam-4.8.0-1.mga5.i586:Core 32bit Release

[Myles]

Thanks Doktor. Info below.

Two things to try:
1. rename the directory where vlc stores it's settings and such, run as normal user:

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mv ~/.config/vlc ~/.config/vlc-old

Did this, ran VLC and selected a previously viewed .mp4 file - had audio but no video, got the "cannot play .h264"message.

2. check if you have the AAC decoder library installed:

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rpm -qa | grep faad | sort

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[root@Bilbo myles]# rpm -qa | grep faad | sort
gstreamer0.10-faad-0.10.23-14.1.mga4.tainted
lib64faad2-2.7-7.mga4.tainted
libfaad2-2.7-7.mga4.tainted
[root@Bilbo myles]#

Also as this is a new installation, best also install task-codec-audio and task-codec-video meta packages.

Which do I install, the normal ones or the ones from "tainted"?

And please, pretty please take note of what you need to install and write it down so you don't have to ask again for next installation.

Doktor, I know I frustrate you, and I really appreciate your very learned help, but I do have a document that I use for post-installation. I will update the file to reflect what you have outlined and save the info in this thread.

I think these problems with VLC occurred in the second re-install, probably because I installed VLC before I had selected my repositories (i.e. no tainted) - thus it failed to play previously played files, and also why it failed after installing it from the DVD in this third re-instal (as you said, it needs tainted to work properly - which I have done in every previous case!) This time I tripped myself up!

Also thanks for the info on finding out what packages come from which repository.

[doktor5000]

Did this, ran VLC and selected a previously viewed .mp4 file - had audio but no video, got the "cannot play .h264"message.

h264 is something different then aac. Please show the output of

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rpm -qa | grep -E "av(codec|filter|format)" | sort

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[root@Bilbo myles]# rpm -qa | grep faad | sort
gstreamer0.10-faad-0.10.23-14.1.mga4.tainted
lib64faad2-2.7-7.mga4.tainted
libfaad2-2.7-7.mga4.tainted
[root@Bilbo myles]#

You have libfaad installed - but again in i586 and x86_64 version, what's the matter with that?

Also as this is a new installation, best also install task-codec-audio and task-codec-video meta packages.

Which do I install, the normal ones or the ones from "tainted"?

Are you seriously asking this? And if you would install via urpmi, the ones from tainted would always be preferred, for easier usage.

I think these problems with VLC occurred in the second re-install, probably because I installed VLC before I had selected my repositories (i.e. no tainted) - thus it failed to play previously played files, and also why it failed after installing it from the DVD in this third re-instal (as you said, it needs tainted to work properly - which I have done in every previous case!) This time I tripped myself up!

It doesn't matter which standard repositories you enable when, and when you apply updates. You're making this more complex than it is.

Also thanks for the info on finding out what packages come from which repository.

You may want to check our software management MAQeia for more information on software and package management.

[doktor5000]

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[root@Bilbo myles]# rpm -qa | grep -E "av(codec|filter|format)" | sort
lib64avcodec55-2.0.6-1.mga4.tainted
lib64avfilter3-2.0.6-1.mga4.tainted
lib64avformat55-2.0.6-1.mga4.tainted
[root@Bilbo myles]#

[doktor5000]

Looks good. Please start vlc via

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vlc --no-plugins-cache --verbose 2

and open one of the videos that doesn't play, then post the output here.

Also please show the output of

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vlc --version --verbose 2

[Myles]

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vlc --no-plugins-cache --verbose 2

selected a previously viewed .mp4 file - had audio but no video, got the "cannot play .h264"message.

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[myles@Bilbo ~]$ vlc --version --verbose 2
VLC media player 2.1.6 Rincewind (revision 2.1.6-0-gea01d28)
[0x25b3118] main libvlc debug: VLC media player - 2.1.6 Rincewind
[0x25b3118] main libvlc debug: Copyright © 1996-2015 the VideoLAN team
[0x25b3118] main libvlc debug: revision 2.1.6-0-gea01d28
[0x25b3118] main libvlc debug: configured with ./configure  '--build=x86_64-mageia-linux-gnu' '--prefix=/usr' '--exec-prefix=/usr' '--bindir=/usr/bin' '--sbindir=/usr/sbin' '--sysconfdir=/etc' '--datadir=/usr/share' '--includedir=/usr/include' '--libdir=/usr/lib64' '--libexecdir=/usr/libexec' '--localstatedir=/var' '--sharedstatedir=/usr/com' '--mandir=/usr/share/man' '--infodir=/usr/share/info' '--x-includes=/usr/include' '--x-libraries=/usr/lib64' '--disable-dependency-tracking' '--disable-sse' '--enable-bonjour' '--enable-smbclient' '--enable-ncurses' '--enable-lirc' '--enable-xvideo' '--enable-directfb' '--enable-aa' '--enable-sdl' '--enable-mad' '--enable-vorbis' '--enable-ogg' '--enable-theora' '--enable-speex' '--enable-flac' '--enable-mkv' '--enable-dv1394' '--enable-dvbpsi' '--enable-shout' '--enable-pulse' '--enable-jack' '--enable-alsa' '--enable-libmpeg2' '--enable-faad' '--enable-dca' '--enable-live555' '--enable-v4l2' '--enable-gnutls' '--disable-rpath' '--enable-vcdx' '--enable-libcddb' '--enable-x264' '--enable-twolame' '--with-pic' 'build_alias=x86_64-mageia-linux-gnu' 'CFLAGS=-O2 -g -pipe -Wformat -Werror=format-security -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -fPIC' 'LDFLAGS= -Wl,--as-needed -Wl,--no-undefined -Wl,-z,relro -Wl,-O1 -Wl,--build-id -Wl,--enable-new-dtags' 'CPPFLAGS= -DOJI -DMOZ_X11 -I/usr/include/ebml -I/usr/include/speex' 'CXXFLAGS=-O2 -g -pipe -Wformat -Werror=format-security -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -fPIC' 'PKG_CONFIG_PATH=%{_PKG_CONFIG_PATH}:/usr/lib64/pkgconfig:/usr/share/pkgconfig' 'LUAC=/usr/bin/luac5.1'
[0x25b3118] main libvlc debug: searching plug-in modules
[0x25b3118] main libvlc debug: loading plugins cache file /usr/lib64/vlc/plugins/plugins.dat
[0x25b3118] main libvlc debug: recursively browsing `/usr/lib64/vlc/plugins'
[0x25b3118] main libvlc warning: cannot load module `/usr/lib64/vlc/plugins/access/libaccess_avio_plugin.so' (libvo-aacenc.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)
[0x25b3118] main libvlc warning: cannot load module `/usr/lib64/vlc/plugins/demux/libavformat_plugin.so' (libvo-aacenc.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)
[0x25b3118] main libvlc warning: cannot load module `/usr/lib64/vlc/plugins/codec/libavcodec_plugin.so' (libvo-aacenc.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)
[0x25b3118] main libvlc debug: saving plugins cache /usr/lib64/vlc/plugins/plugins.dat
[0x25b3118] main libvlc debug: plug-ins loaded: 370 modules
[0x25b3118] main libvlc debug: opening config file (/home/myles/.config/vlc/vlcrc)
[0x25b3118] main libvlc debug: translation test: code is "en_GB"
VLC version 2.1.6 Rincewind (2.1.6-0-gea01d28)
Compiled by iurt on ecosse.mageia.org (Feb 27 2015 19:36:06)
Compiler: gcc version 4.8.2 (GCC)
This program comes with NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
You may redistribute it under the terms of the GNU General Public Licence;
see the file named COPYING for details.
Written by the VideoLAN team; see the AUTHORS file.
[myles@Bilbo ~]$

[jiml8]

You and I are running the exact same version of VLC. Our outputs from "vlc --version --verbose 2" are the same, except that I do not have the warnings:

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[0x25b3118] main libvlc warning: cannot load module `/usr/lib64/vlc/plugins/access/libaccess_avio_plugin.so' (libvo-aacenc.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)
[0x25b3118] main libvlc warning: cannot load module `/usr/lib64/vlc/plugins/demux/libavformat_plugin.so' (libvo-aacenc.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)
[0x25b3118] main libvlc warning: cannot load module `/usr/lib64/vlc/plugins/codec/libavcodec_plugin.so' (libvo-aacenc.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)

You are missing those codecs, and they DO exist in Mageia though offhand I can't tell you the packages. Find them, and your problems will be gone.

[doktor5000]

Actually only one library seems to be missing, but that one is required by the core ffmpeg libraries that vlc uses, so not sure how you got in a state where you are missing that.
You can check for yourself via urpmq --whatrequires lib64avcodec56 if you'd like to see which programs all require that ffmpeg library.

┌─[doktor5000@Mageia5]─[22:52:04]─[~]
└──╼ locate libvo-aacenc.so.0
/usr/lib64/libvo-aacenc.so.0
/usr/lib64/libvo-aacenc.so.0.0.3
┌─[doktor5000@Mageia5]─[22:52:14]─[~]
└──╼ rpm -qf /usr/lib64/libvo-aacenc.so.0
lib64vo-aacenc0-0.1.2-5.mga5.tainted
┌─[doktor5000@Mageia5]─[22:52:19]─[~]
└──╼ urpmq --whatrequires lib64vo-aacenc0
gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad
gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad
lib64avcodec56
lib64vo-aacenc-devel
lib64vo-aacenc0

So installing lib64vo-aacenc0 should fix your issue.

[Myles]

Okay, working now. This also fixed the problem with Digikam and Clemetine as they are both working again now.

Thankyou Doktor for your patience and help. I will save the info in this thread and update my post-install doco.

[doktor5000]

There should be not much to update, post-installation should usually be something like this, which takes 2 minutes at most.
As an example I'm using ftp.snt.utwente.nl as mirror. Feel free to use another one that's near you and up-to-date according to http://mirrors.mageia.org/status

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urpmi.removemedia -a urpmi.addmedia --distrib --wget 'ftp://ftp.snt.utwente.nl/pub/os/linux/mageia/distrib/$RELEASE/$ARCH'

to also enable nonfree and tainted repositories, do afterwards

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urpmi.update --no-ignore "Tainted Release" && urpmi.update --no-ignore "Tainted Updates" && urpmi.update --no-ignore "Nonfree Release" && urpmi.update --no-ignore "Nonfree Updates" && urpmi.update -av

then install all the packages you want including vlc and task-codec-audio task-codec-video and probably some vlc plugins like vlc-plugin-gnutls vlc-plugin-lua vlc-plugin-flac vlc-plugin-libass vlc-plugin-libnotify
and afterwards do a urpmi --auto-update when tainted and nonfree is enabled.