Hello all,

When I first boot to Linux/Ubuntu and insert a DVD, VLC will start and play it just fine. But when I remove the DVD and re-insert it, VLC does nothing. If I click on the VLC icon on the dock it just pulsates but won't run on screen. I have noticed too, that I have a VLC icon in the taskbar even when VLC isn't running. Sometimes I can close VLC from there and sometimes not.

I re-installed VLC and THIS time it asked me what to do when it sees a DVD and I chose to make it the default player. I thought that had solved it, but it didn't. I can only play a DVD one time then I have to reboot it. I have tried the OPEN DISC command to no avail.

I have noticed too that if I can get VLC to start again, it opens with a blank window and a cone, which I expect. But what I think is odd is the name of the DVD I just played is still in the VLC menu bar at the top of the VLC screen. It's as if the player is keeping the previously played title in memory somewhere.

When I put an audio CD into my drive VLC popped open and said : Your input can't be opened:
VLC is unable to open the MRL 'cdda:///dev/cdrom'. Check the log for details.

To me that makes it seem like the drive can't be located, but if I use RhythmBox the CD plays fine.

I have also installed these files: libdvdread4 libdvdnav4 and ran the command:
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh but to no avail.

Fwiw I am NOT an experienced Linux user, but I always wanted to try it out so I made a triple boot machine to accommodate it. Sorry I am not familiar with 99% of the terminal commands, but I am trying to learn as I go.

I'd like to be able to edit music files and photos like I do in Win 7 or even the verboten XP.

Thank you all in advance!

Ifeyegnuhow

Does the icon in the systray show up immediately after you boot in or only after you use vlc for the first time?

That is telling you that vlc is not able to read the disk. Probably because it's trying to open it as a dvd.



How do you normally shut vlc down after using it?
Do you use the window decorations or ctrl+Q to shut it down?

Does vlc play other media files when you click on them in Nautilus?

Hi glue,
If I have some terminology wrong please excuse my ignorance, I've been a 'captive' of MS Windows since version 3.0!!

The icon I see for VLC is in the upper right corner of my desktop next to where the icons are for the date and network connection. It only appears when I run VLC, not on boot up. I cannot use any of the features in the drop down menu it provides, IE: I can't even quit VLC from there.

I don't normally use the ctrl+Q to close it I use the orange icon in the taskbar /menubar?, in the upper left corner of the window that VLC resides in, that is an orange "X" ( I believe ) I'm in Win 7 now so can't confirm that.

Sorry glue I don't know what Nautilus is, I do know I am using the default Unity desktop and whatever programs were on the ISO file I used to make the install DVD.

I only went to VLC because it works so well for me in the Windows environment, thought it would do the same here in Ubuntu.

Thank you for your interest in helping me, I look forward to hearing any suggestions from you or anyone else in the forum! Apologies again for not being conversant with all the Linux terms just yet.

I find that my 2 drives are listed as sr0 and sr1 but choosing one or the other makes no difference, vlc only plays the file once then it's dead. I installed smplayer to try that and it didn't play at all! So currently both of these players have been removed from the OS, out of frustration I guess

Ifeyegnuhow

Nautilus is your file manager under Unity. Unity is a DE that works on top of Gnome. Nautilus is the Gnome file manager. Ubuntu is developing some other atrocity to replace it I think. Could be you are using that if it has been deployed.

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Hiya widget,

I searched for Nautilus right after I read the other reply and found a number of replies in forums that said it was a sub, uh yeah... lol.

thanks for the information, I don't know enough yet to know if Nautilus is a bad thing or not!

Cheers

You have to have a file manager. Nautilus works.

If you open the file manager, what ever it is you can click on help and there will be an about option. Click on it and it should tell you what is installed.

Or open a terminal and use;
Will tell you if it is installed and some other information.

Duly noted.
The taskbar would be the line where currently active windows put their icon. The systray is the smaller bit of that line that can show apps that are running in the background. vlc will usually show an icon in both. Clicking on the icon in the systray will switch an app between running in the background and running visibly on the desktop. (some apps may respond differently though.)


That tells me that vlc is not responding correctly to a 'quit' command. I can't tell, however, whether this is due to a bug in the vlc build you've installed or a bug in Ubuntu.

Was vlc installed from the Ubuntu repository or did you download a .deb file and install it that way?

If an application does not respond when you try to quit normally, you may need to 'kill' it from the command line.
To do this, try;
(vlc can be replaced with the name of any other application that's causing issues.)

In my experience, vlc is the best, stand-alone, media player in any environment. Xbmc is better in some ways, but it's simply not intended as a stand-alone app.

P.S: Nautilus has it's good points and it's bad. It has the most features of any Gnu/Linux file manager, but this also makes it rather 'bloated.' And Nautilus prettymuch 'is' the Gnome desktop environment as it provides many of the desktop features of Gnome.
I personally prefer a less bulky file manager and use a minimalist distro without a full desktop.

1 members found this post helpful.

Hello glue and thanks,

The vlc version I got was from the repository not a .deb file if that helps.

Regards,

Ifeyegnuhow

widget,
I get this from the command you sent:

apt-cache policy nautilus

fred@THISDARNUBUNTU:~$ apt-cache policy nautilus
nautilus:
Installed: 1:3.10.1-0ubuntu9
Candidate: 1:3.10.1-0ubuntu9.1
Version table:
1:3.10.1-0ubuntu9.1 0
500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-updates/main amd64 Packages
*** 1:3.10.1-0ubuntu9 0
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
1:3.10.1-0ubuntu8 0
500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/main amd64 Packages

But if I use the top icon in the dock >>Search your computer and online sources, I get no mention of Nautilus at all. I do get some captures of a File Manager like in Windows.
There's no icon for that either in the list of installed programs, nor do I get an offer to install it.

I do have another icon in the dock called "Files" but if I do an "about" for that one it tells me it's called "Files 3.10.1" lol.

I'll just have to be content to know that Nautilus is installed but I can't find an icon anywhere that references it.

Thanks

"Files" is Nautilus.
Spend enough time with Gnu/Linux distros and you'll eventually 'know' these things without even remembering how you came to know them. :P


I'm busy downloading Ubuntu 14.04 now and as soon as I've installed it I will attempt to re-create the issues you're having. Maybe if I can see it for myself I can help you resolve it.

Since you installed vlc from the repositories, I'm stymied as to why it doesn't 'just-work' the way it's meant to.

Hello glue,

I appreciate the time and interest that I have gotten thus far in this great forum!

Installing a version of Ubuntu to try and duplicate MY problem, is more than anyone could ask for, I am in your debt already!!

I don't know if the fact that I have 2 DVD drives is messing with vlc, I do know that one is sr0 and the other is sr1. I have always used the same drive for every test, so I don't confuse the issue further.
However doing a cd /dev ls -la gives a huge list of items, it does point to sr0 as one of my drives, but later on it shows drives at sg1 & sg2 then further down it shows sr0 and sr1 again, making it look like I have 5 cdrom's! I hesitate to post the whole list but if it will help matters I can surely do it, it takes up a lot of real estate due to the length of the file not the size in kb.

Don't want to cause trouble with the forum by doing so.Let me know what I can do here to help you.

Cheers and thanks again to you, widget and anyone else who might be reading all this but hasn't jumped in!

Well, the good news is that I've confirmed the bug.
The bad news is that there is definitely a bug when running vlc under Ubuntu 14.04

You now have two options;
1.) Report the bug via launchpad, Ubuntu's bug tracking system.
2.) Choose a different distro that doesn't conflict with vlc.

If you want a full desktop, I suggest you try Debian Stable (The current stable version is Wheezy)
I prefer Crunchbang though, which comes with vlc installed as it's default media player.

There seems to a conflict between vlc and some component of Ubuntu both fighting for control of the optical drive. I suspect that it's something to do with Unity that's causing this issue.

This shouldn't happen in an lts release. These kind of issues are usually resolved during the beta trials and I'm surprised that this one slipped through.

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glue,

Thank you for your detective work on this niggling problem.

I am surprised that a bug can last this long without being reported,vlc is very popular as is Ubuntu.

1/ How did you find that a bug was causing the conflict?
2/ Are we sure that it's not caused by my machine having 2 optical drives?
3/ How to report it via the launchpad?
4/ I can always abandon vlc. I just thought it would be nice to be able to play a dvd once in awhile, it's not all that important Mostly I work with music files and photograph editing, I simply wanted to try one thing at a time and see how it compared to doing the same task in Win 7.
5/ You'd think that the vlc forum would have posts about this but they don't seem to, that puzzles me as well.

I installed Ubuntu after much trepidation, to see how I'd get on with it, to find out now that it needs to be removed/replaced is a shocker!

If I was to install another desktop other than Unity would that solve it?

Right now I am on the fence as to what to do with it, given your evaluation of the situation. I'm sure that installing another distro is a major pain and not as simple as simply overwriting Ubuntu.

Thanks again, let me think about my options!

Will you please read this posting in the videolan forum and see if that is the cause of my trouble?

https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=70719

Cheers

I only have one optical drive and I'm having the same issue as you are. Installing vlc onto a fresh install that's up to date eliminates the possibility that the conflict is caused by any additional software or changed configurations. This is the stock, standard vlc from the repositories with nothing modified or altered, so it's a bug rather than a messed up system.

Actually, that's a good question.
The url is https://bugs.launchpad.net/ but maybe you should see if anyone at Ask Ubuntu knows a way to fix this first.
That's up to you. I'm rather partial to vlc and would try a different distro rather than give it up but everyone has their preferences.
Ubuntu 14.04 is barely a month or two old. And not many people run multiple DVDs through their pc as a rule. Ubuntu as it is now is not really something I'd like to tinker with and it's possible that most Ubuntu users just use the default media player.
The vlc forum would not be the correct place for this either as a strongly suspect the problem is in that launcher app that pops up when I insert a disk the first time. It should exit after handing off to vlc, but I don't think it does.

There's a good chance that using a different desktop would solve this issue. But do keep in mind that some of the other options out there have unresolved issues of their own.
Do try some of the others though but keep in mind that Most of what makes Ubuntu, 'Ubuntu' is wrapped up in Unity now.

Yes, installing a new distro can be a major pain. That's true for any distro.

The repository changed to deb-multimedia and someone hijacked to old domain name. I don't think there is even a repository there now.
Anyway, I didn't change any repositories and I still had that problem.

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I will try and ask in that link you sent me, I wrongly thought 14.04 had been around longer than that.

Sounds like the way Internet Explorer was entwined with Windoze...

Fwiw I followed the instructions at the link I sent you and all it did was remove my sound from working in vlc! <sigh>

It might not be a bad idea to just blow out Ubuntu and start fresh if I can't get anyone to help with the problem like you did. I agree, I hardly if ever watch a DVD on my computer but I was doing it to see what would and wouldn't work.obviously right now clearly, this doesn't.

Regards, I'll keep you posted as to what I decide.