Launching VLC with no gui

[stealthdave]

I'm trying to launch vlc from the command-line from apache as part of an automated streaming web app. It works fine on Linux and Windows, but on Mac OS X, vlc returns the following error message:

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[00000001] main vlc error: option rt-offset does not exist [00000001] main vlc error: option rt-offset does not exist [00000244] main interface: creating vlm [00000244] telnet interface: Using the VLM interface plugin... [00000244] telnet interface: Telnet interface started on port: 4212 INIT_Processeses(), could not establish the default connection to the WindowServer.

Command-line is: /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/VLC -I telnet

Is there a way to suppress the gui so that I don't get this message? VLC will not be displaying any video, just transcoding and streaming.

Thanks,
- Stealth Dave

[macminicooper]

This works for me but double check your path. It should be /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/

Brad

[The DJ]

You need to use VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/clivlc instead.

[Guest]

You need to use VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/clivlc instead.

Makes no difference if I use clivlc or VLC. This is not unexpected, as clivlc is just a symlink to VLC. For whatever reason, VLC wants to launch a gui window on Mac OS X regardless of what interface you tell it to use. I'm using the Mac OS X binaries available on the VideoLAN web site. I changed my command-line to use --intf=telnet, but my results are the same.

- Stealth Dave

[The DJ]

VLC can detect if it was launched from the symlink. So it is different.
And if you are playing videos and other stuff, it still will TRY to open the window of course.

clivlc -I dummy -V dummy (run no interface, show no video)

[stealthdave]

VLC can detect if it was launched from the symlink. So it is different.
And if you are playing videos and other stuff, it still will TRY to open the window of course.

clivlc -I dummy -V dummy (run no interface, show no video)

I've been running some tests, and VLC for OS X seems to require a user that is logged into a gui session. Here's the command-line that I'm running:

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/Applications/Video/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/clivlc -V dummy -I dummy --intf=telnet --telnet-password changeme test.ty ":sout=#transcode{acodec=MP3,vcodec=DIV3,ab=64,vb=256,width=320,height=240,deinterlace}:std{access=mmsh,mux=asfh,url=:8090}" vlc:quit 2> tystreamer.log

test.ty is a TiVo stream (basically mpeg2 with a proprietary container; support was added in 0.8.2), although any source media will do.

If I run the command-line in a Terminal as a normal user that is logged into a gui session, I get this:

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[00000001] main vlc error: option rt-offset does not exist [00000001] main vlc error: option rt-offset does not exist [00000251] main interface: creating vlm [00000251] telnet interface: Using the VLM interface plugin... [00000251] telnet interface: Telnet interface started on port: 4212 [00000262] main private: creating httpd [00000257] stream_out_transcode private error: cannot find encoder [00000257] stream_out_transcode private error: cannot create audio chain [00000308] main packetizer error: cannot create packetizer output [msmpeg4 @ 0x546840]warning, clipping 1 dct coefficients to -127..127 [msmpeg4 @ 0x546840]warning, clipping 1 dct coefficients to -127..127

Process appears to work.

When I run the command through the web server via php OR any user that is not logged into a gui session (such as an ssh session that is not logged in to the desktop), the log returns this:

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[00000001] main vlc error: option rt-offset does not exist [00000001] main vlc error: option rt-offset does not exist [00000244] main interface: creating vlm [00000244] telnet interface: Using the VLM interface plugin... [00000244] telnet interface: Telnet interface started on port: 4212 INIT_Processeses(), could not establish the default connection to the WindowServer.

This was run through an ssh terminal with no X11 forwarding to make sure that it couldn't just start the gui. So regardless of what switches I give it, vlc for OS X wants to start the gui, or at least have access to it. I also attempted to run vlc with only a vlc:quit command; no media loaded:

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% /Applications/Video/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/clivlc -V dummy -I dummy --intf=telnet --telnet-password changeme vlc:quit [00000001] main vlc error: option rt-offset does not exist [00000001] main vlc error: option rt-offset does not exist [00000251] main interface: creating vlm [00000251] telnet interface: Using the VLM interface plugin... [00000251] telnet interface: Telnet interface started on port: 4212 [00000267] dummy demuxer: command `quit' [00000257] dummy access error: unimplemented query in control kCGErrorRangeCheck : Window Server communications from outside of session allowed for root and console user only INIT_Processeses(), could not establish the default connection to the WindowServer.Abort

Thanks,
- Stealth Dave

[The DJ]

I think that's because the application is inside a .app ???

/Applications/Video/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/clivlc -V dummy -I dummy --intf=telnet --telnet-password changeme test.ty ":sout=#transcode{acodec=MP3,vcodec=DIV3,ab=64,vb=256,width=320,height=240,deinterlace}:std{access=mmsh,mux=asfh,url=:8090}" vlc:quit 2> tystreamer.log

should be

/Applications/Video/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/clivlc -V dummy --intf=telnet --telnet-password changeme test.ty :sout=#transcode{acodec=mp3,vcodec=DIV3,ab=64,vb=256,width=320,height=240,deinterlace}:std{access=mmsh,mux=asfh,url=:8090} vlc:quit 2> tystreamer.log

[stealthdave]

Can one compile VLC for Mac OS X without building a .app? I've been trying for the last week or so without much luck, adding "--disable-macosx --prefix=/opt/vlc" to the configure options but without much luck, along with installing all of the extras/contrib applications there. So far I've been unable to successfully install a working VLC this way.

- Stealth Dave