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I had VLC working fine in 11.2

When I upgraded I then tried to use your installation instructions and face-value installation... e.g.

I used 'One-Click Install' from the KDE web-browser for 11.4

That did not work ( error specifics listed at bottom of this message )

I then downloaded the full source and that did not work. I had various errors when using FFMPEG dependency.

I googled VERY MUCH over the past 3 days... I am a programmer but not very experienced with LINUX setups.

Here are my errors starting VLC which I was not able to solve via any of { (1) "One-Click Install" (2) RPM installation (3) complete UNINSTALL followed by #1 and #2 prior (4) re-attempt to reinstall as root user versus regular user etc (5) downloading of full source code resulted in compile errors and even when I disabled most features the binary gave same error etc }


vlc -vvv
VLC media player 1.1.10 The Luggage (revision exported)
[0x6090c0] main libvlc debug: VLC media player - 1.1.10 The Luggage
[0x6090c0] main libvlc debug: Copyright © 1996-2011 the VideoLAN team
[0x6090c0] main libvlc debug: revision exported
[0x6090c0] main libvlc debug: configured with ./configure '--prefix=/usr/local' '--enable-run-as-root' '--disable-optimizations' '--disable-dvbpsi' '--disable-dv' '--disable-dvb' '--disable-nls' '--disable-mozilla' '--disable-postproc' '--disable-dbus' '--disable-mad' '--disable-swscale' '--disable-fribidi' '--disable-lua' '--disable-qt4' '--disable-skins2' '--enable-x264' '--disable-goom' '--disable-osso_screensaver' '--without-x' '--disable-xcb' '--disable-xvideo' '--disable-xosd' '--disable-opengl' '--disable-glx'
[0x6090c0] main libvlc debug: translation test: code is "C"
[0x6090c0] main libvlc debug: checking plugin modules
[0x6090c0] main libvlc debug: loading plugins cache file /usr/local/lib/vlc/plugins/plugins-04081e-f8.dat
[0x6090c0] main libvlc debug: recursively browsing `/usr/local/lib/vlc/plugins'
[0x6090c0] main libvlc debug: saving plugins cache /usr/local/lib/vlc/plugins/plugins-04081e-f8.dat
[0x6090c0] main libvlc debug: module bank initialized (7 modules)
[0x6090c0] main libvlc debug: opening config file (/home/argon/.config/vlc/vlcrc)
[0x6090c0] main libvlc debug: CPU has capabilities MMX 3DNow! MMXEXT SSE SSE2 FPU
[0x6090c0] main libvlc debug: looking for memcpy module: 0 candidates
[0x6090c0] main libvlc debug: no memcpy module matched "any"
[0x63c390] main input debug: Creating an input for 'Media Library'
[0x63c390] main input debug: Input is a meta file: disabling unneeded options
[0x63c390] main input debug: using timeshift granularity of 50 MiB
[0x63c390] main input debug: using timeshift path '/tmp'
[0x63c390] main input debug: `file/xspf-open:///home/argon/.local/share/vlc/ml.xspf' gives access `file' demux `xspf-open' path `/home/argon/.local/share/vlc/ml.xspf'
[0x63c390] main input debug: creating demux: access='file' demux='xspf-open' path='/home/argon/.local/share/vlc/ml.xspf'
[0x639d20] main demux debug: looking for access_demux module: 1 candidate
[0x639d20] main demux debug: no access_demux module matching "file" could be loaded
[0x639d20] main demux debug: TIMER module_need() : 18.862 ms - Total 18.862 ms / 1 intvls (Avg 18.862 ms)
[0x63c390] main input debug: creating access 'file' path='/home/argon/.local/share/vlc/ml.xspf'
[0x639c00] main access debug: looking for access module: 0 candidates
[0x639c00] main access debug: no access module matched "file"
[0x639c00] main access debug: TIMER module_need() : 0.047 ms - Total 0.047 ms / 1 intvls (Avg 0.047 ms)
[0x63c390] main input error: open of `file/xspf-open:///home/argon/.local/share/vlc/ml.xspf' failed: (null)
[0x63c390] main input error: Your input can't be opened
[0x63c390] main input error: VLC is unable to open the MRL 'file/xspf-open:///home/argon/.local/share/vlc/ml.xspf'. Check the log for details.
[0x63c390] main input debug: TIMER input launching for 'Media Library' : 19.836 ms - Total 19.836 ms / 1 intvls (Avg 19.836 ms)
[0x634ef0] main interface debug: looking for interface module: 0 candidates
[0x634ef0] main interface debug: no interface module matched "hotkeys,none"
[0x634ef0] main interface debug: TIMER module_need() : 0.039 ms - Total 0.039 ms / 1 intvls (Avg 0.039 ms)
[0x634ef0] main interface error: no suitable interface module
[0x6090c0] main libvlc error: option http-user-agent does not exist
[0x63c570] main interface debug: looking for interface module: 0 candidates
[0x63c570] main interface debug: no interface module matched "signals"
[0x63c570] main interface debug: TIMER module_need() : 0.039 ms - Total 0.039 ms / 1 intvls (Avg 0.039 ms)
[0x63c570] main interface error: no suitable interface module
[0x6090c0] main libvlc error: interface "signals" initialization failed
[0x6392b0] main interface debug: looking for interface module: 0 candidates
[0x6392b0] main interface debug: no interface module matched "globalhotkeys,none"
[0x6392b0] main interface debug: TIMER module_need() : 0.036 ms - Total 0.036 ms / 1 intvls (Avg 0.036 ms)
[0x6392b0] main interface error: no suitable interface module
[0x6090c0] main libvlc error: interface "globalhotkeys,none" initialization failed
[0x6090c0] main libvlc: Running vlc with the default interface. Use 'cvlc' to use vlc without interface.
[0x634ef0] main interface debug: looking for interface module: 0 candidates
[0x634ef0] main interface debug: no interface module matched "any"
[0x634ef0] main interface debug: TIMER module_need() : 0.034 ms - Total 0.034 ms / 1 intvls (Avg 0.034 ms)
[0x634ef0] main interface error: no suitable interface module
[0x6090c0] main libvlc error: interface "default" initialization failed
[0x6090c0] main libvlc debug: deactivating the playlist
[0x6090c0] main libvlc debug: removing all services discovery tasks
[0x6090c0] main libvlc debug: removing all interfaces
[0x63de20] main playlist debug: destroying
[0x6090c0] main libvlc debug: TIMER ML Load : Total 19.985 ms / 1 intvls (Avg 19.985 ms)
[0x6090c0] main libvlc debug: removing stats

7 modules is awfully few. You most not have installed correctly.

I tried various things.

SUSE 11.4 "One-Click Install" run with Konqueror went without reporting any errors and said it was installed properly.

Then I tried RPM installation. That reported no errors either.

Then I tried unstalling all vlc items via "Install/Remove Software" and retried each of the above independently... that also never resulted in any good run of VLC.

Then I moved on to downloading the source-code and trying to make the binaries from the source-code... that has not compiled properly (hence other thread).

In short, VLC claims to be installable but it is not in fact installable, via "One-Click Install."

In fact, I went to the relatively extreme measure of downloading the whole ISO for SUSE 11.4 to ensure that none of my prior updating had broken anything. So, I sat around while the DVD-boot "updated" my whole system... and retried everything above, still no success.

Now, remember, it worked fine in SUSE 11.2

For the compiling, as a 'somewhat' separate issue, I have some other thread here. In short, I compile and get various errors. Presently trying to solve one of them by using -fPIC for position-independent code adjusting to possible 32-bit versus 64-bit disparity between FFMPEG and VLC etc, etc, etc.... All without a single instance where VLC even so much as loaded any portion of a GUI or any sort of window, or even said it was ok on the command-line.

REASONS THIS IS TERRIBLE : (1) SUSE seems cool and I have been preaching it a little while (2) NO ONE IN THE NORMAL WORLD (no one who is not a programmer) would ever bother messing around like this and certainly no one who has real work to do professionally has enough time to sit around and try and make SUSE work properly with something like VLC (3) VideoLAN is very awesome so it's very frustrating and terrible to see how it would claim to someone that it will work without any explaining to any ordinary user (hey steal more people from mickeysoft in other words, this sort of thing is NOT helping you steal more people from mickeysoft and it's also making SUSE look really bad because of the 'branded' quote suse-one-step-install button

p.s. The following has nothing to do with the replies made thus-far. It's a general comment on why linux in general is absolutely not winning with The People. Well, except me, since I'm a numbnuts who is going to beat my head against the wall with linux until I can make it productive in my little world.
So, here goes:
Not that anyone cares, but, I wanted to point out another thing (I am switching to linux despite this)
Another thing that's really killing linux in the face of the horrid microsuck, is that all these people in linux forums act as though DUH WHY DON'T YOU KNOW THIS DUH and they're always presuming that any failure you experience is YOUR fault. This happens even when it's something sophisticated, as in overly-sophisticated. When linux-people react to you having some problem, like forgetting a weird compiler switch or something, which should have been './configure'd for you in the first place. So then you get all these totally retarded suggestions from half-asses who blurt out some totally incorrect answer they didn't even bother to test (as if they're maybe completely drunk when replying)

Ubuntu and Debian have a 'vlc' package that comes directly from the distro and works just fine.

It is not Linux, but SUSE that is "absolutely not winning with The People".

Remy, can you explain to me how your answer is helpful to this user ? You're a very experienced and skilled developer, but you do not know the openSUSE distribution.

LSTOIC : each distribution has its own instructions when migrating from one version to another. You have to follow precisely : http://fr.opensuse.org/SDB:System_upgrade
What you say let's me thinking you have incorrectly performed an upgrade (you missed to manually migrate your repositories references in yast control center which still point on 11.2).
videolan offers a SUSE yast repository at http://download.videolan.org/pub/vlc/SuSE/11.4/ (matching 11.4 version), so one click install is not useful and even harmful for inexperienced people (you may lose dependencies).
Please, replace all your old 11.2 repositories references, perform repositories refreshing followed by an update and let me know what is going on.

My answer is helpful! Now the user knows that this issue only affects some distributions, not the better ones: Debian, Gentoo, Slackware, Ubuntu, etc, of which at least Ubuntu is user-friendly.

There are only two ways to make (mostly) foolproof VLC packages:

• provide VLC and all of its useful dependencies in the distribution, or
• link VLC statically against anything not in the distribution.

With neither of these, you have to rely on third party repositories. No matter how well (or sometimes, very badly) those repositories are maintained, a number of users will get into RPM hell, mismatched run-time package versions causing VLC bugs, unsolvable dependencies due to errors in repositories configuration or conflicting software, etc:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependency_hell

The packaging policies of SUSE and Fedora allow neither VLC dependencies (e.g. FFmpeg) nor static linking. They have their reasons. But until the -third party- VLC RPM packagers will accept that they need to violate the packaging policies and link VLC statically, complaints like the one in this thread will carry on here and in other venues. And users will continue to think that Linux is not user-friendly or that VLC is, or whatever their scapegoat they poke is.

Well I have to agree that an openSUSE distribution upgrade is quiet a new way of upgrade and lead most of the time in some packages uninstalling, if yast dependency solver has not left the road.
Sometimes this process screw up because there are to many packages to take into account, which are not part of the distribution core. I knew openSUSE have suffered heavily from circular dependencies,
but I thought it was a past situation. Apparently, some situations still lead to the case.

Ultimately, it boils down to the centralized design and thinking underpinning RPM. If you have a single entity managing (even loosely) all repositories and packages in them, it can be made to work. The more parties you have the more likely you will get inconsistencies. The main distribution does not test upgrades with third party "unofficial" repositories. This is to be expected a sit has no direct contorl over them. So bugs are bound to occur.
Debian packages are not fundamentally better nor worse than RPM in that regard. But Debian and Ubuntu tend to include almost everything in their repositories. This greatly reduces the risk for screwups and also helps with fixing the screwups when they do occur anyway.

The obvious way to solve this involves creating official community repositories (similar to Ubuntu universe) and doign best effort QA on them. The less optimal way is to link third party software statically to reduce the potential for all the forms of dependency hell. But personally, I gave up arguing with the VLC RPM packagers about this.