VLC suddenly won't play video

[SideshowMel]

I've used VLC media player successfully for weeks now, and all of a sudden, it will play sound from a video file but not the video itself. I have tried several video files, even ones which VLC played just the other day. The only change I've made in that time is to create a new user, log in as that user, and try to play the media file. Now I can't even get it to work in my user login where it worked before. I tried going to Video > Video Track > Track 1 and it still didn't come up.

I've searched the forums, and the only remotely related suggestion was to reset prefs and clear cache. I've tried that and it doesn't work.

The files in question are .avi's which played just fine a few days ago and play just fine in Xine and in VLC under WindowsXP.

One other weird thing is that each time a file in question is opened, the "Video > Video Track" menu has "Disabled" bulleted by default. Obviously, I've tried selecting the "Track 1" bullet, but the video still doesn't appear. I've also tried going into the prefs and changing the Output Modules and I've made sure "Enable Video" is checked in the General Video prefs. Each time I try to play the file, the "Video Track" goes back to "disabled." Each time I select "Track 1" but still no video. Again, the soundtracks to the avi files play fine.

Fedora Core 6:
# uname -r
2.6.20-1.2944.fc6
VLC media player 0.8.6b (wxWidgets interface)

I installed this using the Yum Extender, and it used the Livna repository .rpm file. Also, I have already tried removing vlc and vlc-devel from the Yum Extender, rebooting, and installing from Yum Extender again... still the same problem.

Any ideas on where to begin to troubleshoot the problem? Thanks.

[w6bi]

I see this one one of my two Fedora Core 6 workstations (the one that doesn't work). (see my post) The one that does work properly has the radio button for Track 1 checked.

Orv

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Reset your preferences.

rm -rf ~/.vlc

[SideshowMel]

Oh i cleared cache in the .vlc folder under my home dir. I didn't know there was a ~/.vlc cache folder. I will try that tonight.

[SideshowMel]

I tried that and the problem still happens.

[ninjagumby]

I can confirm this issue. I updated vlc with yum today on fedora 6 and now get:

no suitable decoder module for fourcc `XVID'.

audio only, no video.

[SideshowMel]

OK, I've done some things to try to correct this:
I removed vlc completely, then tried to reinstall it using yum. It installs the livna repo every time. So, I tried removing it completely again and I DL'd the FreshRPMs rpm file and ran it. It worked, but the problem is that it is only 0.8.5a. So, whenever I log in the icon comes up telling me that updated packages are available. If I run those updates, the same problem recurs. So currently I'm just using the freshrpms version of 0.8.5a. How do I:

-fix this permanently by removing all traces of both the livna and freshrpms installs so I can then get regular updates

-or-

-temporarily remove the vlc update from the update list so it doesn't pop up every day?

(the first option would be preferable). Thanks.

[Maupertus]

I'm running Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy and have exactly the same problem.
A complete removal and reinstallation doesn't work and as the post above doesn't apply in my situation, I was wondering if anybody knows what to do.

[colo]

I confirm the same problem here. Gutsy AMD64.

[xenocrates]

Running Fedora 8 on x86_64 and I'm having a similar issue.
VLC had been working fine and then just recently it will crash when attempting to open any video file.
One time it actually ejected me out of my xsession and left me at terminal login prompt, while in the background you could hear the audio for the video file playing.
Couldn't get back into my xsession from there, but maybe I just don't know enough about linux session switching; ended up rebooting.
I'll have to try that FreshRPM version.