Important notice for Debian/Ubuntu users

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

A significant number of VLC users on Debian and Ubuntu appear to be hit by bugs in the unofficial so-called Debian Multimedia repository (debian-multimedia.org).

This unofficial package repository is well known to introduce incompatibilities in the FFMPEG libraries. This causes VLC media player and possibly some other multimedia software to stop working, as the FFMPEG binary interface is silently broken. The members of the VideoLAN project as well as the official Debian Multimedia maintainers[1] strongly advise that you do not use the Debian Multimedia repository under any circumstances. Before you report problems with VLC on Debian or Ubuntu, make sure you have not installed any package from that repository.

If it is too late, you can follow the simple clean-up procedure:

• Remove any Debian-Multimedia.org entries from the APT sources list via your package manager, or from the command line:

  Code: Select all

  sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list
• Update the package list, e.g.:

  Code: Select all

  sudo apt-get update
• Remove any libavutil package. This will also temporarily remove VLC, MPlayer, etc if they are installed. For example:

  Code: Select all

  sudo apt-get remove libavutil*
• Reinstall VLC and other packages you are interested in, from the official Debian repositories, e.g.

  Code: Select all

  sudo apt-get install vlc

If you choose to keep the faulty packages and repository, then FFMPEG will not work properly, and hence neither will VLC. In that case, there is really no point in looking for help on this forum.

Thank you for your attention

[1] http://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia ... mon_issues

[rober1s]

By this do you mean the ubuntu "multiverse" repository?

A significant number of VLC users on Debian and Ubuntu appear to be hit by bugs in the unofficial so-called Debian Multimedia repository.

[xtophe]

no. He means debian-multimedia.org

[rober1s]

Thanks.

no. He means debian-multimedia.org

[Greendq]

Yes, but official Debian repositories (nor Ubuntu, as I guess) has no latest vlc package.
So, I must build all packages myself, isn`t it?

[xtophe]

They both have vlc 1.0.4 and should have 1.0.5 soon. So i don't see your problem

[moviemaniac]

Just asking: What exactly are the problems one can run into? I have enabled the repo yesterday as a new source for ffmpeg for my custom builds of VLC-git. Everything works as it should. I guess the breakages and bugs occur when ffmpeg from this repo is used with the VLC version supplied by Ubuntu?

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

At least some codecs break. Other display wrong colors.

[moviemaniac]

Thanks, I'll remember that when I run into some breakage. But I have to say I tried at least 100 different video clips today with many different codec combinations and couldn't find any problems.

[Jarxes]

Ummm...
I'm using Ubuntu Studio 64bit, and the only problem I'm having is playback of TS files/containers. Could my issue be related to this broken multimedia repository?

[jmanners]

Also be aware that the VLC PPA repo by Christoph Korn has exactly the same problems. He started to offer broken replacements for core system libraries.

The repo has now been withdrawn. Mr Korn has walked away and left all his victims high and dry with broken systems and not a hint of remorse or an apology.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Also be aware that the VLC PPA repo by Christoph Korn has exactly the same problems. He started to offer broken replacements for core system libraries.

The repo has now been withdrawn. Mr Korn has walked away and left all his victims high and dry with broken systems and not a hint of remorse or an apology.

This isn't our responsability.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Well, third party VLC should really link all non-system libraries statically, just like the Windows and MacOS versions do. Sure it's "ugly" and occupies more disk space, but it does not break. Unfortunately, it's not so straightforward and people are lazy.

[gianted]

By this do you mean the ubuntu "multiverse" repository?

A significant number of VLC users on Debian and Ubuntu appear to be hit by bugs in the unofficial so-called Debian Multimedia repository.

Hello I'm a (K)Ubuntu user and I hope that using "medibuntu" repositories I will not become a "banned" member from this forum...

[MarianeNewby]

I also use this medibuntu but I got my vlc by typing :
sudo apt-get install vlc
so I hope it's alright...

Could someone please confirm this?

Mariane

[elesouef]

Is this situation still the same as of now (7 Dec. 2010) ?

What is the best way to have VLC working as expected in Debian Squeeze ?

Thanks for your answers.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Just don't ever use non-Debian repositories and you'll be fine.

[h-j-m]

With VLC I occasionally observe some ugly block artefacts so that's what made me look up this forum. Having Debian installed at my computer, this post immediately got my attention. I do have packages from the multimedia repository installed and in my view the issue given here does not match my observations. If the ffmpeg implementation from that repository was broken and that would be causing problems then undoubtedly the same problems that I observe with VLC should occur with ffplay (command line player, part of ffmpeg) as well, but that is not the case. A lot of times I have put this to the test, whenever VLC showed such block artefacts reliably and repeatedly I was unable to get the same results with ffplay. With ffplay the same videos just played fine. One other issue makes it quite unlikely in my view that the accusations stated here are factual and that is the fact that the guy who set up and runs the multimedia repository happens to be the Debian ffmpeg maintainer.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Aha, no. The problem is, those FFmpeg packages are incompatible with the Debian ones. But they are of course compatible within the Debian Multimedia repositories, including ffplay and mplayer.

[JeepFreak]

Does this problem still exist? And by "Debian Multimedia Repository", you do not mean the "Medibuntu Repository", correct? I know others wanted to clarify that as well, but I didn't notice a response.
Thank you!
Billy

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

"Debian Multimedia" means the so-called "Debian Multimedia". I do not know any other name for that.

[Emerson Prado]

The members of the VideoLAN project as well as the official Debian Multimedia maintainers[1] strongly advise that you do not use the Debian Multimedia repository under any circumstances.

Hi,
I'm using Linux Mint Debian Edition, which is derived from Debian Testing. I can't tell exactly which packages are affected by this problem, nor which ones can be drawn from Debian Multimedia to Mint repositories, so I'm not sure if I can be affected or not. Is there a way I can check?
BTW, my /etc/apt/sources.list contains this line:
deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/multimedia testing main non-free
Thanks,
Emerson

[rvkbob]

Thank you for taking the time to help. I'm trying out my first pure Debian system and have run into a stumbling block with vlc. Here's what happens to me.

apt-get install vlc
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
vlc : Depends: vlc-nox (= 1.1.3-1squeeze6) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libvlccore4 (>= 1.1.0) but it is not going to be installed
Recommends: vlc-plugin-notify (= 1.1.3-1squeeze6) but it is not going to be installed
Recommends: vlc-plugin-pulse (= 1.1.3-1squeeze6) but it is not going to be installed
E: Broken packages

Can you help me fix this mess?

Thanks.

[replica9000]

So I was having an issue with some of my mkv's not being accelerated. Replaced DMO's VLC with official packages and problem seems to be solved. I originally started using DMO for w32/w64 codecs. This was recommended back in the days of Sarge. Is this not the case anymore? Do official Debian Repo's contain the necessary codecs for common video formats?

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

It depends on the video format.