Mplayer only works as Root
 

Hi All,

I am am happy FC3 user. In fact I have used all Fedora versions and some of the Red Hat versions before that. I have never had any real trouble with Mplayer.

I am trying out FC4 in a test partition before switching full-time but I still have quite a few problems. One of them is Mplayer.

I installed Mplayer (and GMPlayer etc) using Yum (with the Livna repositories).

Installation went without a hitch. It put the usual icon in the usual menu place. However starting it from the menu results in nothing. If I open a terminal, su to Root and type "gmplayer" it works fine. If I start it from a terminal in my normal user account I get the following:
Any ideas why this is happening?

I have never had to make any changes to startup scripts in the past (I don't even know how to do this).

Thanks

Mark

Did you download skins that are required for the gmplayer?

[skin] file ( /usr/share/mplayer/Skin/default/skin ) not found.
Skin not found (default).

Also, does just simply doing mplayer <media-filename> play the video or media file for your user?

I didn't download skins - but the skin "Blue" is present in the /usr/share/mplayer/Skin/ directory (and that is the standard one that I am happy with). There is indeed no "default" in that directory but I think that the "Blue" skin is the same.

Yes, doing "mplayer <filename> works as a normal user.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Mark

hi there,
and running as root, what message you receive when mplayer tries to get the skin?
does it load from the same directory, i.e.,/usr/share/mplayer/Skin/ ?? could it be a permission problem?
what happens if you set a symbolic link between default and blue in this directory?
regards,
slackie1000

Opening gmplayer as root gives no error message about the skins (but I think I selected the "Blue" skin when I was playing with it).
However, I think that the skins issue is not the real problem.

I have also installed RealPlayer (I use this in particular for audio on the BBC website) again, this has never given me a problem in the past (just install it and link the two file nphelix.so & nphelix.xpt to the "plugins" directory of the browser and hey presto!...)

Now - in FC4 - however I get the following error:
Sound itself is not an issue. I can play music etc. and, if I load MPlayer as root, I can get sound & video just fine - just not as a normal user...

Mark

hi there,
i will try to make general suggestions cause i don't use fedora. ;)
the directory and the file exist?
do you have this file in your system?
if not, install it. if yes, be sure that the path where is this file is in your
run ldconfig again it you change it.
can you try some other video format that is not RealPlay with your non-root user? if it works, we know where the problem is. ;)
regards,
slackie1000

Well RealPlayer seems there OK...
But I don't have libstdc++.so.5, I have so.6 instead...

What does libstdc++ do?
Could I just get a copy of libstdc++.so.5 and put it in that directory?
Should RealPlayer (I installed it from RealPlayerGOLD10.rpm from their website) work with libstdc++.so.6?

And what of MPlayer? Is that a related problem or are these two completely different issues?

Thanks

Mark

hi there,
hummm. ..that is what i wrote before ... :confused:
find another media file - not RealPlayer type - and fire mplayer as non-root user ...
only then, we can isolate the problem: Mplayer or RealPlay.
yes, the library version can be the problem...
if you don't know what it is, take a look at the first hit from google.
regards,
slackie1000

Well I hope that makes more sense to you than it does to me....

Does this have anything to do with the fact that FC4 uses GCC4x not GCC3x? (Although both packages were installed from rpm - not compiled from source...)

Sigh...

I think I will just have to stick with FC3 for a while longer...

Thanks

Mark

hi there,
you are welcome. :cool:
i think that is exactly the point. the gcc/++ compiler and the gcc/++libraries are the blood of your system. if a package - like the rpm that you got - is compiled against another version this can bring a big mess to your system. i don't know specifically in the case of RealPlayer how the dependencies and required libraries are checked but i don't think that their provided rpm is supported in FC4.
hope you can solve your problem with FC3.
just :twocents:
regards,
slackie1000
[edit] i think this can be interesting for you. Mplayer has no mention of gcc4 in their docu. I trust a lot in those guys from mplayer. if you want to use it, i would stick with gcc3 for while.

locate the binary of mplayer by the command "whereis mplayer". after that look forward to the permissions of the binary. after changing the permissions also for the skin location, execute the command "rpm -ql mplayer". this lists all the files and folders that the rpm has installed. check for permissions for all the locations,also for the folders. this will probably solve the issue since it will be a permission problem because root can use it and an ordinary user cannot.
vimal....

Hi Vimal,

Thanks.

What should I change the permissions to so that any user will be able to use it?

But the thing that really puzzles me is the fact that I used Yum to install it. Surely that should take care of all this stuff?

I have to admit that in the past (FC1, FC2 & FC3) I used apt-get and synaptic to install it from different repositories. I used Yum this time because it seems to be "approved" for FC4. Perhaps I should just unistall it and try the apt-get repositories instead?

[Edit] A quick check (I will look harder later) seems to indicate that there is no version of apt-get for Fedora4 [/Edit]

Thanks again

Mark

OK Guys,

I now have this all sorted out.

I uninstalled mplayer (+gmplayer etc) using Yum.

I then downloaded an mplayer rpm for FC4 from rpm.pbone.net which led me into dependency hell. However, one of the dependencies was libstdc++.so.5 so (with some trepidation) I downloaded and installed an rpm which contained that from the same site. I don't know if it has screwed anything else up but installing that allowed RealPlayer to work - so my wife can now listen to the Archers on BBC Radio 4...

Next I fixed the other (several) dependencies and finally installed some skins.

Now it works! (as a user).

Thanks to all for all your help.

I'm just a little bit cross that Yum did not do this for me...

Thanks again

Mark

hi there,
welcome.... :cool:
and that is the most important thing...
have fun..
regards,
slackie1000