Latest VLC will not play midi files

English Multimedia
1

System is openSUSE 12.3, KDE, 32-bit, VLC 2.0.8a-165 (24Sep build) from Packman. VLC was correctly playing midi files using fluidsynth and soundfonts. After some recent updates, VLC does not play them, giving the error message

No suitable decoder module:
VLC does not support the audio or video format "MIDI". Unfortunately there is no way for you to fix this.

With this latest version, setting preferences (all) -> audio codecs, fluidsynth is no longer listed as an option, even though it is installed. I tried switching to 2.0.8a-52.2 (21Sep build) from VLC repository, but results were the same.
For a VLC 10Sep build from Packman in openSUSE 13.1 beta1, fluidsynth shows as an audio codec option, and midi files play correctly like they used to in 12.3.
Anyone else seeing this behavior?
Thanks,
Howard

2

fluidsynth support has been removed because it caused crashes on Tumbleweed and Factory.
From the package’s changelog:

Sat Sep 21 13:08:45 UTC 2013 - dimstar@opensuse.org

  • Drop fluidsynt-devel BuildRequires: the fluid plugin is known to
    introduce a lot crashes at no gain from functionality PoV.
3

Now that the openSUSE version of VLC is packaged to eliminate the ability to play midi files, what is the alternative? I like the ability to choose soundfonts as VLC used to do.
Thanks,
Howard

4

Hm, I don’t really know. I never really played many midi files…
Fluidsynth itself maybe? :wink:

KMid (available in the KDE:Extra repo) is a KDE-based MIDI player with support for fluidsynth and timidity.

And Audacious (a fork of the old XMMS, available on Packman) has a fluidsynth plugin as well (audacious-plugins-input-fluidsynth).

5

wolfi323,
Thanks for the suggestions. I used Fluidsynth itself to play midi files previously, but it is CLI only, and kind of klunky for playing. KMid does indeed use Fluidsynth and soundfonts, but the output had problems. Audacious also uses Fluidsynth and soundfonts, and is playing files just fine right now. It seems to be a suitable replacement for VLC for midi.
Best regards,
Howard

6

And for other music files as well… :wink:

I always preferred players like XMMS, Amarok or Audacious to general media players (VLC, Xine, MPlayer) for playing music.