Hi,
I am using OpenSuse 11.3 (KDE) and my primary IM client has been Pidgin.
I used to have Pidgin 2.6 installed on 11.2 and things were fine. However, since I have upgraded to OpenSuse 11.3 and Pidgin 2.7, things are not going well.
The most important concern that I have is about the voice and video chat facilities for Google Talk that used to work fine previously. Whenever I try to initiate a voice or video chat with another google talk user, I get the following warning:-
http://i35.tinypic.com/2h3u43q.jpg
Additionally, I used the debug window to find the error messages but I could not pin point the actual error:-
(00:04:00) util: Writing file blist.xml to directory /home/ash/.purple
(00:04:00) util: Writing file /home/ash/.purple/blist.xml
(00:04:00) util: Writing file prefs.xml to directory /home/ash/.purple
(00:04:00) util: Writing file /home/ash/.purple/prefs.xml
(00:04:07) jabber: setting param stun-ip for stream using auto-discovered IP: 209.85.229.126
(00:04:07) jabber: setting param stun-port for stream using auto-discovered port: 19302
(00:04:07) jabber: setting Google jingle compatibility param
**(00:04:07) media: Error creating session: Could not create the valve element
(00:04:07) backend-fs2: Error creating the session.
(00:04:07) media: Error adding stream.
(00:04:07) media: Error adding stream.**
How can I resolve this issue? Do I need to install any particular packages/dependencies that I may have missed during the installation process? 
Hi, just a quick update… I did some searching on Google and found that one of the possible reasons for pidgin voice/video chat not working could be the absence of the following two plugins:-
gstreamer-0_10-plugins-good
gstreamer-0_10-plugins-bad
I installed those two plugins and I was able to make voice calls on Google Talk. However, a new issue has cropped up. After a restart, things went crazy again. Whenever I am making a call or if I am receiving a call, pidgin just crashes.
I logged in a bug with the Pidgin team (#12517 (Fatal error crashes Pidgin 2.6.6)](http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/12517)), and following was their response:-
This is a problem with your gstreamer / farsight packages.
It looks like you’re using non-standard packages for your OS - that is likely at least part of the problem.
You should also not be running Pidgin (or anything else) as root.
Can somebody tell me what are they trying to convey? I don’t understand which non-standard packages am I using???
Totally clueless… :\
Hi,
Why are you running pidgin as root?
Also, please open a terminal and provide the output of:
zypper lr --d
Take Care,
Ian
Hi,
Thanks for replying…
Firstly, how do I stop running Pidgin as root??? I mean I have installed OpenSuse on my laptop and I am the sole user. But whenever I log into the OS, I do not login as a root… So how come Pidgin is running as root? The only time I ran Pidgin as a root was through the terminal while debugging…
Also, please find the output of zypper lr --d
ash@linux-up5o:~> zypper lr --d
# | Alias | Name | Enabled | Refresh | Priority | Type | URI | Service
---+--------------------------+--------------------------+---------+---------+----------+--------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------
1 | Libdvdcss repository | Libdvdcss repository | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | http://opensuse-guide.org/repo/11.3/ |
2 | NVIDIA Repository | NVIDIA Repository | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | ftp://download.nvidia.com/opensuse/11.3/ |
3 | Packman Repository | Packman Repository | No | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | http://packman.inode.at/suse/11.3/ |
4 | X11:xfce | X11:xfce | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/xfce/openSUSE_11.3/ |
5 | X11:xfce:nilda | X11:xfce:nilda | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/xfce:/nilda/openSUSE_11.3/ |
6 | openSUSE-11.3-Non-Oss | openSUSE-11.3-Non-Oss | Yes | Yes | 99 | yast2 | http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.3/repo/non-oss |
7 | openSUSE-11.3-Oss | openSUSE-11.3-Oss | Yes | Yes | 99 | yast2 | http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.3/repo/oss |
8 | openSUSE:Factory:Contrib | openSUSE:Factory:Contrib | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/openSUSE:/Factory:/Contrib/openSUSE_11.3/ |
9 | packman | packman | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/11.3/ |
10 | repo-debug | openSUSE-11.3-Debug | No | Yes | 99 | NONE | http://download.opensuse.org/debug/distribution/11.3/repo/oss/ |
11 | repo-source | openSUSE-11.3-Source | No | Yes | 99 | NONE | http://download.opensuse.org/source/distribution/11.3/repo/oss/ |
12 | repo-update | openSUSE-11.3-Update | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/update/11.3/ |
13 | server:messaging | server:messaging | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/server:/messaging/openSUSE_11.3/ |
Please let me know what you think…
Thanks,
Ashish
Okay, well the fact that you ran it in root in the terminal made them, and myself think you were running pidgin regularly in root from the terminal. If you’re just launching it from the desktop then you’re not running it as root. Perhaps you should have given the output to them as a nonroot user.
Anyway, I’m guessing they mean that the non-standard packages are the gstreamer packages from Packman. But this is usually what you want because they’re not crippled like the ones that come with openSUSE. So could you please make sure that all of your gstreamer packages are indeed from packman and that some are not the openSUSE versions?
Take Care,
Ian
Hi, thanks for your feedback. Did a bit of tinkering with the packages and Pidgin now works nicely.
Here is what I did…
Since the guys at Pidgin said I was using non-standard packages for my OS, I switched over from the Packman repositories to OpenSuse-11.3-OSS for the gstreamer packages.
Following were the packages that I changed to OpenSuse-11.3-OSS:-
gstreamer-0_10
gstreamer-0_10-libnice
gstreamer-0_10-plugins-bad
gstreamer-0_10-plugins-good
As can be seen below, I have switched over from gstreamer version 0.10.30 (packman) to version 0.10.29 (OpenSuse OSS)
http://i35.tinypic.com/5l8fig.jpg
Tried sending and receiving a voice call from Pidgin to a Google Talk client installed on a Windows machine and vice versa and it worked!!!
Linux never ceases to amaze me… lol!
Thank you Ian for your time and suggestions…
Regards,
Ashish
No problem! Glad you were able to get it working out yourself :). Just one last thing, if you don’t use gstreamer backends for audio (most kde users will be using phonon with xine), then you should be good. But if you do use gstreamer backends for programs like amarok or banshee, you might want to check to make sure those still work. Otherwise, glad to hear it’s working with pidgin.
Take Care,
Ian
Well, yes I am a KDE user and I have Amarok, Xine, Kaffeine and VLC players installed on my system. I have played different file formats on them since the change to gstreamer and luckily there has been no side effect.
My audio and video playback is excellent and I have no complaints.
Thanks,
Ashish