An update of Handbrake yesterday started installing a bunch of .i586 files. I tried to reverse this, but after doing so Dolphin stopped showing previews of video files (.mkv, etc).
Due to some other odd behaviors I reinstalled Tumbleweed (KDE) this morning. Initially upon reinstallation Dolphin would not even show icons of folders, but switching themes around seemed to cure this. However, I still get no previews of any video files in any format. Previews of other types of files like photos works.
Any ideas about what went wrong or what I can do to fix it?
I assume you have reinstalled keeping your home folder / partition? The dolphin settings are in
~/.config/dolphinrc
You can try to modify it or simply delete it. Then a new one will be created. I just tried this be simply renaming it - and back again.
You can also set the preview behaviour in Dolphin. Probably you know this. I even have a button in the symbol bar for this by default. But I’m on Leap 15.2.
The one thing that I hadn’t tried was deleting the ~/.config/dolphinrc file. I did this but the problem persists.
I don’t think the problem resides in my home folder. I tried creating a new user but still no video file previews. Even when I open a dolphin instance as root there are previews of everything except video files.
Of course, I don’t know what could have persisted after a complete reinstall (I did preserve my home partition.) In the dolphin settings menu under “Previews”, Video Files (ffmpegthumbs) is checked.
I’m wondering if this is due to some update. I might try installing an older version of Tumbleweed, or maybe Leap just to check it.
Maybe it’s related to an issue with cache or temp folders? I think dolphin must use some space to cache the previews - I just can’t find where. Maybe it can’t access that folder? Just a guess…
Edit:
It can’t be ~/.cache/dolphin. I don’t have anything significant there - and you said it’s system wide issue.
Well, I’m not necessarily suggesting a cause-and-effect relationship here, but I installed Leap 15.2 replacing my old Tumbleweed installation, again preserving my /home partition, and everything went back to normal.
I think the problem started when I accepted an update of Handbrake in my previous Tumbleweed installation. Not only did dolphin start acting up, but Handbrake stopped working too. It would error-out when trying to process an .mp4 file.
At some point, probably today, I’ll try installing Tumbleweed on another partition, again incorporating my preexisting /home partition.
I’ll report the results back here in case anyone is interested.
In case zypper doesn’t fin a better alternative, it can present vendor/arch changes as problems for you to decide. Vendor changes are rarely needed after the first install. Arch changes happen sometimes involving “no-arch”, but never x86-64 -> i586.