MPlayer gobbling memory without even being started

rodent · 09-20-2009, 04:32 AM

Hello,

I have Ubuntu 8.04. Not proud, but what can you do....

Anyways, today I've rebooted my system (it seems to get a little sticky after being run straight for over a week), and after logging in & launching Firefox & Azureus I discovered my CPU was almost at its max, both cores.... Looked into System Monitor and discovered good old MPlayer was taking about half of the system CPU. Now, I didn't really remember starting the little pest, and it hadn't really been on any of my good sides EVER, so I proceeded to kill the process and uninstall the culprit (not necessarily in that order).

Swift justice.

Now, I understand this thread will not make me any less ignorant in Linux, but I am consumed by curiosity - can anyone shed light on why was MPlayer starting itself on my system without being asked?

Thanks,
R.

GrapefruiTgirl · 09-20-2009, 10:03 PM

Any possibility that it was started by a web browser? Like maybe you (and your browser) encountered some content on the 'net, and the browser (or the OS) activated MPlayer to play the content?

Even if you didn't physically, deliberately TELL it to play something, maybe it encountered the content, and via a plugin or whatever, it started an MPlayer process?

Also, any chance your session manager may have started it up when you logged in, because you left it running on a *previous* session?

Best of luck,
Sasha!

rodent · 09-22-2009, 03:53 AM

Hi Sasha,

I thought that might have been it. In any case, MPlayer has done little but crash on my system (I think it might have even caused system instability once, though I'm not sure) and I do believe that VLC is the lesser of all possible evils, so I'll stick with that.

Another question, if I may: when I first installed Ubuntu I could view flash movies (YouTube), though the quality of the rendering was not too hot. So I tried upgrading it, followed some instructions on the Ubuntu forums, ending up unable to run flash movies at all in any web browser - something went wrong during installation - and pretty clueless as to how to fix this.

Thanks,
R.

GrapefruiTgirl · 09-22-2009, 08:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rodent

Another question, if I may:

Of course :)

Quote:

when I first installed Ubuntu I could view flash movies (YouTube), though the quality of the rendering was not too hot. So I tried upgrading it, followed some instructions on the Ubuntu forums, ending up unable to run flash movies at all in any web browser - something went wrong during installation - and pretty clueless as to how to fix this.

Thanks,
R.

Hmm.. The very first thing I'd look at is your browser's about:plugins page. Make sure the flash plugin is listed and enabled.
You should see something like this, and make sure that the path to the filename is correct for your system:

Code:

Shockwave Flash

    File name: /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so
    Shockwave Flash 10.0 r32

MIME Type 	                Description 	     Suffixes  Enabled
application/x-shockwave-flash 	Shockwave Flash 	swf 	Yes
application/futuresplash 	FutureSplash Player 	spl 	Yes

If it is, next make sure that your adblocker or noscript extensions are not blocking the flash content, or the youtube page.

You can go to this page to test your flash: http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/welcome/
Though when I go there, only the second image works for me; I'm not sure why (I guess I have the PLUGIN, but not the PLAYER??), but I don't like flash anyhow so I haven't investigated much ;) but even so, youtube works for me just fine, if I allow the page in NoScript + adblock.

Not sure where to go next, but I'll think about it :)

Sasha

rodent · 09-22-2009, 11:39 AM

Hi,

Mine shows:

Code:

Shockwave Flash

    File name: libgnashplugin.so
    Shockwave Flash 8.0 r99. Gnash 0.8.2, the GNU Flash Player. Copyright © 2006, 2007, 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
    Gnash comes with NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. You may redistribute copies of Gnash under the terms of the GNU General Public License. For more information about Gnash, see http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash. Compatible Shockwave Flash 8.0 r99.

MIME Type 				Description 		Suffixes 	Enabled
application/x-shockwave-flash 		Shockwave Flash 	swf 		Yes

On the page you've linked to I can see the second animation, but not the first. The first shows a "Click here to download plugin" message, and when I do that a window opens and after a swift check it tells me that no suitable plugins were found.

I have adblock but I do not use noscript.

Again - Flash worked for me, though not nearly as well as it had been on my windows system (if it hadn't been for VLC, buggy as it may be, video in Ubuntu would have been a disaster for me). Then I tried to upgrade it. Don't remember what I did exactly, but installation failed, and now I can't see any flash movies on the Internet.

R.

GrapefruiTgirl · 09-22-2009, 11:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rodent

Hi,

Mine shows:

Code:

Shockwave Flash

    File name: libgnashplugin.so
    Shockwave Flash 8.0 r99. Gnash 0.8.2, the GNU Flash Player. Copyright © 2006, 2007, 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Not really familiar with that GNU Flash implementation. Maybe previously you had the Adobe version, and your upgrade changed it to this one?

Can you UN-upgrade the upgrades you did, and see if Flash works again, and if so, check your plugins page again and see what it reads?

Quote:

On the page you've linked to I can see the second animation, but not the first. The first shows a "Click here to download plugin" message, and when I do that a window opens and after a swift check it tells me that no suitable plugins were found.

Yep, exact same procedure for me. I require an install of a Slackware-package of the flash plugin lib; the automatic install thing is likely for Windows users mainly.

Quote:

I have adblock but I do not use noscript.

If you see the square play window, then AdBlock is probably not blocking the flash movies..

Quote:

Again - Flash worked for me, though not nearly as well as it had been on my windows system (if it hadn't been for VLC, buggy as it may be, video in Ubuntu would have been a disaster for me). Then I tried to upgrade it. Don't remember what I did exactly, but installation failed, and now I can't see any flash movies on the Internet.

R.

As mentioned, can you undo the upgrades and try again?

Sasha

rodent · 09-27-2009, 01:50 PM

Hi Sasha,

I need to explain: the past few months have been a period of much learning for me, and I feel my horizons are broadening. For one - I really know now why I've hated Windows in all it's artificial flavours all these years. Now I hate it with deeper understanding. That's one good thing. However, I am gonna have to forgo the fixing of the problem I've started this thread for. I've BUed all my data and intend to unpartition & format all and install anew, ans a little wiser than the last time.

So my next question here will probably bee about boot loaders.

Thank you very much for trying to help, as usual,
: )
R.

GrapefruiTgirl · 09-27-2009, 06:31 PM

No worries, we'll be around to help as best we can, whatever the problem

Best of success,

Sasha

rodent · 10-06-2009, 08:54 PM

Thanks : )