ubuntu-8.10-alternate-i386 LTS multimedia players recently died

[Carl Friis-Hansen]

steve wrote:
> David Christensen wrote:
>> I have a ubuntu-8.10-alternate-i386 machine running LTS.  I've noticed 
>> that the video and sound players have recently died.  If I try to play a 
>> sound or video file, the players start, do nothing, and then turn gray 
>> after 5-10 seconds.  When I try to close them, I get a dialog:
>>
>>      The window "<name>" is not responding.
>>
>>      Forcing this application to quit will cause you to lose any unsaved
>>      changes.
>>
>>                                                    Cancel    Force Quit
>>
>> I'm not sure exactly when the problems started, but some possibilities 
>> come to mind:
>>
>> 1.  I installed the Dragon video player, because the default video 
>> player didn't work correctly on certain MPEG clips (very jerky playback, 
>> large portions skipped).  Dragon was smoother, but the colors were very 
>> strange.  When I then tried the default player, the jerkiness was still 
>> there, as was the color problem.  So, I rebooted and ignored it for a 
>> few days.  Now video playback is dead.
>>
>> 2. I uninstalled Dragon, but the problems persist.
>>
>> 3.  I've installed updates, when notified that they were available.
>>
>>
>> Are there log files I can look at for clues?  Are there any other 
>> troubleshooting means?
>>
>>
>> TIA,
>>
>> David
> 
> you may have answered your own question, all the problems started when
> you installed dragon player.  so if its removed, a dependency of it may
> still be around that was brought in when you installed dragon player?
> or you enabled some odd repository recently, ran updates and a newer
> version of some codec was installed that isnt compatible with the
> video/audio player.  either way, some intervention happened, Im running
> up to date lts too, no problems with medibuntu codecs here?

I assume you are talking dragonplayer from universe/kde repository?
My suggestion is simple: why don't you check wahat is installed in 
connection with totem and reinstall totem, totem-plugins, totem-mozilla, 
  etc. (if that is the default player in 8.10).

You are bound to have error messages in
tail /var/log/messages
tail /var/log/dmesg
tail /var/log/syslog
right after the problem occurs.

Please note that you are *not* running LTS as you state above. 8.04 is 
LTS and well tested. If I were in your shoes, I would have chosen 8.04 
and maybe in 6 months time, upgrade to 8.10.

It appears you used the alternate cd when you installed 8.10. That 
suggests to me that you are running a computer with somewhat limited 
resources in terms of RAM and CPU. There are limits to what you can 
expect from, let's say 400MHz and 256K. Secondly, the Xubuntu es better 
suited for low spec computers. You might fix this install and get your 
nice, but jumpy pictures back, but not much more than that.

Why did you choose dragonplayer?  Most people with Ubuntu desktop 
installs the VLC player.
If you want help to find a suitable approach, then give us info about 
your hardware.

All the best
-- 
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       | Carl Friis-Hansen               | Fiskeryd Nybygget |
       | http://computingconfidence.com/ | 341 91  Ljungby   |
       | Phone: +46 (0)372 15033         | Sweden            |
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