Ubuntu 9.04, VLC 1.0.2 stpped displaying video

[OttifantSir]

Had VLC playing an .avi-file, with several lined up in the playlist. However, it played them randomly, so I closed VLC (as this has happened before, and a restrt of VLC usually does the trick). Upon restart, I went to a playlist I made with 0.9.9 (Playlists won't save with 1.0.0-1.0.2), right-clicked and clicked Open in VLC (as .xspf-playlists when double-clicked want to open in gedit instead of VLC). I got audio and an error message saying "No suitable decoder module:
VLC does not support the audio or video format "XVID". Unfortunately there is no way for you to fix this."

I just watched it 30 seconds ago! Rebooted and tried again, same error message. Tried purging 1.0.2 and install 0.9.9, but the problem persists. On ALL video-files and codecs.

I have a laptop with 9.04 and VLC 1.0.2, and it plays the same files beautifully. Both machines access the same files through network and NFS mounted at bootup.

Edit: I forgot to say that Totem also won' play the files anymore. It either says "GStreamer encountered a general stream error.", or "Internal error in datastream". So, it would seem that GStremer has some of the blame. But what? And why did it happen in the blink of an eye?

Edit 2: Miro won't work either. It gives no error, just quits when I try to play a video.

Both machines are updated daily, and since I didn't update anything prior to this happening, I wonder what the problem is?

Any info you need? Please give me the commands needed to gather that information, and I will post it. I LOVE VLC, but this is something very strange.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

looks like you broke your ffmpeg installation or something along those lines.

[OttifantSir]

But how can I have broken my ffmpeg-installation? WinFF, which needs ffmpeg to do anything but display a GUI, works perfect. At the moment, the only mediaplayer that works on that box is Gnome MPlayer. MPlayer alone is worthless I've found, as it'll only display video in original size or 16:9 format regardless.

Back to topic: How do I fix this? And anyone got an explanation on how this could have happened? I just closed down VLC and re-opened it with an XSPF-playlist, and then all was lost.

[mandyfan]

t how can I have broken my ffmpeg-installation? WinFF, which needs ffmpeg to do anything but display a GUI, works perfect. At the moment, the only mediaplayer that works on that box is Gnome MPlayer. MPlayer alone is worthless I've found, as it'll only display video in original size or 16:9 format regardless.

Back to topic: How do I fix this? And anyone got an explanation on how this could have happened? I just closed down VLC and re-opened it with an XSPF-playlist, and then all was lost.

[mc2man]

It's pretty hard not to get xvid decoding (mpeg4) with vlc or anything else, it's not a restricted format so the run of the mill libavcodec available in 9.04 should suffice if you have a packaged vlc install

If your running vlc 1.0.2 in jaunty then you probably added a ppa, do you have any other ppa's enabled in your sources?
( an openshot ppa with it's poorly done ffmpeg libs would probably break vlc

What version of ffmpeg and libavcodecXX are installed ?

(Playlists won't save with 1.0.0-1.0.2)

ck. here, may get it going for you ( switch qt4 gui
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=67709

[OttifantSir]

This solved my problem, and it was as you suggested, Open Shot PPA that broke my system: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1281367