I installed mplayer in my MDV-free-2007. When I start mplayer an error message pop up "Cannot prepare subtitle font". And it will keep blinking when you play any video or movie. What can I do?

I do not have 2007 but 2006 but the way forward could be this

open mplayer with out a file running.....click on preferences the tool icon or if you have mp maximised...right hand click if you are a right hander and choose preferences.....choose tab OSD select none......if that fails then click on tab font but choose a new font

2) you probably have xsession errors in your home directory as a hidden file.....or check /var/log/messages for any font paths not found

Thank you aus9.
I follow your advice but can't get any result. Whenever I adjust the font, immediately it pops up the error message "cannot prepare subtitle font" and it hang there.

I am testing mdk 32 bit GPL edition 2007 as we speak.

are you using a gui end to mplayer called kmplayer?
this appears to have replaced the gui in 2006 verion called gmplayer.

tell us what you are doing and when I get a chance I will duplicate your efforts.

(2) In the meantime.....you have a hidden file in
home/your name/called .xsession errors....do you have any font errors in that file?

3) your fonts should be installed here
/usr/share/fonts?

check if the one you are trying to select actually has installed please

Once again thank you aus9. I install mplayer with urpmi both mplayer and mplayer-gui.
1. The programs are mplayer-1.0-1.pre8.13mdv2007.0 and mplayer-gui-1.0-1.pre8.13mdv2007.0.
2. I check my .xsession-errors and can't find any font error.
3. My fonts are in /usr/share/fonts but I don't know which to use. I tried all and still have the same problem.
4. My system is Gnome and in Simplified Chinese.

ok lets backtrack

can you select NONE ...what was the result?

2) I loaded mpalyer - gui

since you are writing in english one hopes yours is better than my Mandarin or whatever......lets do a test of the same movie at a web site.

if you have broadband....3Mb
http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/saylinux.htm

choose none....works for me


ahhh. are you downloading a movie or playing a copyright real movie , a dvd?

Thanks for your help aus9.

I downloaded the file and try but still the same.
The program just show the error message.
Maybe mdv20007 have change the setting for Simplified Chinese setup.
I install xmms too, this program display all unreadable font character. These
two program work fine in mdv2006.

aus9
I check the file .xsession-errors again and found the following messages:

MPlayer 1.0rc1-4.1.1 (C) 2000-2006 MPlayer Team
CPU: AMD Duron(tm) Processor (Family: 6, Model: 3, Stepping: 0)
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 0 SSE2: 0
Compiled with runtime CPU detection.
98 audio & 216 video codecs
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control.
Ž°¿Ú¹ÜÀíÆ÷Ÿ¯žæ£ºŽ°¿Ú 0x2400019 (MPlayer) ÉèÖÃÁËÒ»žö MWM ÌáÊŸ£¬±íÃ÷ËüÊDz»¿ÉžÄ±äŽóСµÄ£¬µ«ÉèÖÃ×îС³ßŽçΪ 1 x 1£¬×îŽó³ßŽçΪ 440 x 120£»ÕâûÓÐÈκÎÒâÒå¡£
Selected font is not scalable. Using ppem=15.
FT_Set_Pixel_Sizes failed.
Glyph for char 0xa6|U+00A6|Š not found.
Glyph for char 0xac|U+00AC|¬ not found.
Glyph for char 0xad|U+00AD|* not found.
Glyph for char 0xb2|U+00B2|² not found.
Glyph for char 0xb3|U+00B3|³ not found.
Glyph for char 0xb4|U+00B4|Ž not found.
Glyph for char 0xb5|U+00B5|µ not found.
Glyph for char 0xb6|U+00B6|¶ not found.
Glyph for char 0xb8|U+00B8|ž not found.
Glyph for char 0xb9|U+00B9|¹ not found.
Glyph for char 0xba|U+00BA|º not found.
Glyph for char 0xbc|U+00BC|Πnot found.
Glyph for char 0xbd|U+00BD|œ not found.
Glyph for char 0xbe|U+00BE|Ÿ not found.
Glyph for char 0xbf|U+00BF|¿ not found.
Glyph for char 0xc0|U+00C0|À not found.
Glyph for char 0xc1|U+00C1|Á not found.
Glyph for char 0xc2|U+00C2|Â not found.
Glyph for char 0xc3|U+00C3|Ã not found.
Glyph for char 0xc4|U+00C4|Ä not found.
Glyph for char 0xc5|U+00C5|Å not found.
Glyph for char 0xc6|U+00C6|Æ not found.
Glyph for char 0xc7|U+00C7|Ç not found.
Glyph for char 0xc8|U+00C8|È not found.
Glyph for char 0xc9|U+00C9|É not found.
Glyph for char 0xca|U+00CA|Ê not found.
Glyph for char 0xcb|U+00CB|Ë not found.
Glyph for char 0xcc|U+00CC|Ì not found.
Glyph for char 0xcd|U+00CD|Í not found.
Glyph for char 0xce|U+00CE|Î not found.
Glyph for char 0xcf|U+00CF|Ï not found.
Glyph for char 0xd0|U+00D0|Ð not found.
Glyph for char 0xd1|U+00D1|Ñ not found.
Glyph for char 0xd2|U+00D2|Ò not found.
Glyph for char 0xd3|U+00D3|Ó not found.
Glyph for char 0xd4|U+00D4|Ô not found.
Glyph for char 0xd5|U+00D5|Õ not found.
Glyph for char 0xd6|U+00D6|Ö not found.
Glyph for char 0xd8|U+00D8|Ø not found.
Glyph for char 0xd9|U+00D9|Ù not found.
Glyph for char 0xda|U+00DA|Ú not found.
Glyph for char 0xdb|U+00DB|Û not found.
Glyph for char 0xdc|U+00DC|Ü not found.
Glyph for char 0xdd|U+00DD|Ý not found.
Glyph for char 0xde|U+00DE|Þ not found.
Glyph for char 0xdf|U+00DF|ß not found.
Glyph for char 0xe2|U+00E2|â not found.
Glyph for char 0xe3|U+00E3|ã not found.
Glyph for char 0xe4|U+00E4|ä not found.
Glyph for char 0xe5|U+00E5|å not found.
Glyph for char 0xe6|U+00E6|æ not found.
Glyph for char 0xe7|U+00E7|ç not found.
Glyph for char 0xeb|U+00EB|ë not found.
Glyph for char 0xee|U+00EE|î not found.
Glyph for char 0xef|U+00EF|ï not found.
Glyph for char 0xf0|U+00F0|ð not found.
Glyph for char 0xf1|U+00F1|ñ not found.
Glyph for char 0xf4|U+00F4|ô not found.
Glyph for char 0xf5|U+00F5|õ not found.
Glyph for char 0xf6|U+00F6|ö not found.
Glyph for char 0xf8|U+00F8|ø not found.
Glyph for char 0xfb|U+00FB|û not found.
Glyph for char 0xfd|U+00FD|ý not found.
Glyph for char 0xfe|U+00FE|þ not found.
Glyph for char 0xff|U+00FF|ÿ not found.
** Message: drive = 0
** Message: volume = 0
Wrong bounding box, width <= 0 !
Cannot prepare subtitle font.
** Message: drive = 0
** Message: volume = 0
** Message: drive = 0
** Message: volume = 0

Exiting... (Quit)
** Message: drive = 0
** Message: volume = 0
** Message: drive = 0
** Message: volume = 0
** Message: drive = 0
** Message: volume = 0

thats good now we have a error message to work on.

i loaded chinese fonts and then when I clicked on config in mplayer-gui/fonts

I chose to browse the folder icon to the right

path was

/usr/share/fonts/ttf/chinese/ukai.ttf....or uming.ttf

please see if these work and make sure they are installed pls

aus9 thank you for you help. I change locale to English the program works fine, but change back to Chinese, problem start again. So I decide to use Mandriva 2006 again. It is less problem. The only setback is update latest software.

Thank you asu9.

it's not the problem of locale setting at all.
in mdv 2007', the default setting on 'fontconfig' of mplayer.conf in /etc/mplayer/ is yes. however the documentation tells us :
'If MPlayer was compiled with fontconfig support, the above methods won't work, instead -font expects a fontconfig font name and defaults to the sans-serif font. ...'
(http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/fonts-osd.html)
so it's quite possiblely just the problem of this default setting.

in my own experience,at first i also got lots of following warning:
Selected font is not scalable. Using ppem=15.
FT_Set_Pixel_Sizes failed.
Wrong bounding box, width <= 0 !
Cannot prepare subtitle font.
even if i had specified the font in the .conf file or in command line.
when i disable the setting of 'fontconfig=yes' in the .conf ,there is no more 'using ppem=15' warning at all.

so hope u can join us again.

try another media player ?

http://www.usinglinux.org/multimedia/

Thank you.

Both of you are very kind and helpful. I really appreciate your help. I am using Mandriva 2006 now, because Mandriva 2007 will use up all my memory and swap. Mandriva 2006 everything works fine.