Phonon VLC Backend crashes KDE system settings

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| Installing phonon-backend-vlc 0.8.0-2.4.1 crashes system settings.
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KDE Version 4.14.9

Any idea how to fix this?

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2

yes don’t do that :stuck_out_tongue:

3

phonon-backend-vlc on 13.2 is build against an old version of vlc and crashes phonon
if you want to use phonon with vlc upgrade to LEAP or TW
or better just use phonon-backend-gstreamer

here’s the changelog of phonon-backend-vlc 0.82 for LEAP you can see that 0.81 fixed vlc 2.2 support
https://build.opensuse.org/package/view_file/openSUSE:Leap:42.1/phonon-backend-vlc/phonon-backend-vlc.changes?expand=1
you can open a bugreport and ask for an updated build for 13.2
https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/

4

Thanks for pointing to bugzilla!

Many thanks for having a look into the problem!

5

you installed a Factory ie TW package on 13.2, you might have been better off with a LEAP build.
Anyhow that might work but I still think you’re better off with phonnon-backend-gstreamer and a full vendor change to packman

6

I am considering an update to LEAP and already installed it on one of my boxes.

Anyhow that might work but I still think you’re better off with phonon-backend-gstreamer and a full vendor change to packman
I performed this full change to packman and got some 36 packages changed, many of them related to gstreamer. But digikam still showed a black window instead of playing the video. Now both backends are installed simultaneously and preview is working perfectly. I’ll consider a change if encountering more problems.

7

I did notice a couple of digicam updates on LEAP but I’m not sure why phonon with gstreamer doesn’t work for you, a few weeks ago there was a broken gstreamer package on packman but that was fixed, maybe the gstreamer cache got corrupt you can delete it’s old cache and re-try

rm -r ~/.cache/gstreamer-1.0/

I don’t have phonon’s vlc backend installed but I do believe you can have multiple backaends installed and switch between them in phonon’s settings window

8

I’m on LEAP and the only phonon based apps I use are dragon player and amarok and they both work fine with phonon-backend-gstreamer.
maybe you should do another

zypper dup --from <packman repo alias>
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Deleted cache, deinstalled phonon-backend-vlc-0.8.2-1.2.i586, logged out and logged in again. Digikam now has a working preview of videos with phonon-backend-gstreamer!

I don’t have phonon’s vlc backend installed but I do believe you can have multiple backends installed and switch between them in phonon’s settings window
This worked for me several years until phonon-backend-vlc was broken.

10

This worked for me several years until phonon-backend-vlc was broken.

it’s still broken on 13.2 and I’m not sure why they don’t publish a fixed rpm, from what I understood reading bugzilla 13.2 officially came with vlc 2.1 and that’s why they didn’t upgrade phonon-backend-vlc, but they updated vlc to 2.2 so they should update the phonon backend.

11

We cannot, and it is not broken at all.

openSUSE 13.2 ships with VLC 2.1.x, and so the shipped phonon-backend-vlc is built against this VLC 2.1.x.
And that works.
It only crashes if you install a different VLC version from elsewhere.

The only way we (openSUSE) could provide a phonon-backend-vlc that works with VLC 2.2 for 13.2 would be to actually release VLC 2.2 as official update for 13.2. But that is a new feature version, and out of scope for the KDE team anyway.

Switch back to openSUSE’s VLC and the crashes will be gone.

I do understand that this is no solution to the “problem”, because openSUSE doesn’t ship restricted codecs.
But it’s Packman that only provides the codecs for the latest VLC version (and that VLC version itself), they would need to provide an updated phonon-backend-vlc as well.
They did in the past, but for some reason they dropped it when it would have become necessary for 13.2 (after VLC 2.2 was released).
A request has been made to ask them to provide it again, but so far no answer:
http://lists.links2linux.de/pipermail/packman/2016-March/014266.html

The obvious (and only) solution for now is to uninstall phonon-backend-vlc. You won’t miss anything except for a few bugs and limitations that the vlc backend has… :wink:

And just to note: phonon-backend-vlc is not (and never was) installed by default.

12

I know but the multimedia:libs version of vlc that opensuse provides is 2.2.2 so you can release an updated version of phonon-backend-vlc in the multimedia:libs repo :slight_smile:

13

Of course. I know that.

But still, vlc 2.2 is a feature update, a major new version, so no option as bugfix update for 13.2 for that reason.
And it’s also no option to release an official update for phonon-backend-vlc built against some random 3rd party repo, even if it is the devel repo for Factory/Tumbleweed…

And again, phonon-backend-vlc as shipped in 13.2 does work fine with the vlc shipped in 13.2.