VLC fullscreen still small

[TonyLancer]

Hi all.

I have a Dell Inspiron 7559. Specifications:
Intel i7 6700HQ
NVIDIA GTX 960M
16GB DDR3 RAM
1TB Westgate HDD
256GB SSD

VLC Version:
VLC media player 2.1.6 Rincewind (revision 2.1.6-0-gea01d28)
VLC version 2.1.6 Rincewind (2.1.6-0-gea01d28)
Compiled by buildd on lgw01-55.buildd (May 3 2016 01:05:31)
Compiler: gcc version 4.8.2 (Ubuntu 4.8.2-19ubuntu1)
This program comes with NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
You may redistribute it under the terms of the GNU General Public License;
see the file named COPYING for details.
Written by the VideoLAN team; see the AUTHORS file.

I run VLC on Ubuntu GNOME 14.04.5 LTS, and I have trouble having the video in fullscreen.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7wYR ... EdaVVhXNTA
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7wYR ... DExMi1ONW8

Even when opening the menu, the video continues to play right in the center(second image).

I would like to know, how do I fix this? I believe this is a bug(or could be a bug).

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Probably a bug in VLC, in Qt, in the window manager and/or in the display drivers. Can't really say which.

Note that, in any case, VLC 2.1 is no longer supported here.

[TonyLancer]

So, what VLC is supported? I don't think I can upgrade to the next VLC version(if there is such a thing), since the version I downloaded came straight from the VLC website(which then directed me to Ubuntu Software Center). Same thing happens when I execute "sudo apt-get install vlc". So does this mean I am stuck?

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

VLC 2.2.x is the only currently maintained branch here.

We cannot provide support for Ubuntu LTS, since we have no influence on Ubuntu updates.

[nonzyro]

@TonyLancer:

...I don't think I can upgrade to the next VLC version(if there is such a thing), since the version I downloaded came straight from the VLC website(which then directed me to Ubuntu Software Center). Same thing happens when I execute "sudo apt-get install vlc"

I know it's a dumb question, but I have to ask... Is there a reason you're not doing a dist-upgrade? It's pretty simple:

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# apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade

That will install the latest stuff, remove anything deprecated and you will likely get access to 2.2.4. If that helps, skip to the end, EPILOGUE, if not continue reading...

So, assuming you have your reasons (there are times we don't want to lose a specific piece of software that will be removed on a dist-upgrade) let's continue.
Now I don't know if this will help because I'm a Debian user (and have little Ubuntu experience), but still, lemme try fix you because Ubuntu comes from Debian and uses the same package manager. Aside from building VLC from source, you have two options.
Option 1: The "proper" Ubuntu way - this will be me poking in the dark.
Option 2: The hack way, use a non-Ubuntu repo - this may not work.

-- OPTION 1 --
Do you have backports in Ubuntu? Try enabling it by editing your APT source.list
As root:

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# nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Now note the friendly name of your distro, something like "hardy", "raring", or whatever. I believe 14 was "trusty" but I'll stand corrected so double-check.
Look for the lines that look like this:

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deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu main restricted universe multiverse deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu main restricted universe multivers

and add the following to the end of the line (make sure there's a single space separating it and, preferably no trailing spaces after it:

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trusty-backports

Save and exit with Ctrl+o and Ctrl+x respectively.
Then run
There may be a line with backports already there that's commented out with #'s. Just delete the #'s in that case. Also, backports *may* already be there or enabled. If that is the case, then see Option 2, otherwise, just run this (still as root):

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# apt-get update # apt-get install vlc

-- OPTION 2 --
Okay, assuming the above method didn't work, we can try this. It is a little bit of a hack, but since Ubuntu is *somewhat* compatible with Debian (and I mean somewhat, it's derived from but has many different things like the kernel and system libraries, not to mention the Ubuntu-specific things). This may still work because of their binary similarities. Therefore, let us try the Debian repositories. Run the following as root:

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apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

This will update your system to the latest versions of everything. This is very important because when we grab from the Debian repos, we do not want to install Debian components for unmet dependencies if they are available for Ubuntu (because we want to limit potential breakage).
Next:

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# echo "deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ jessie main non-free contrib" >> /etc/apt/sources.list

Now we've added Debian's main repo. Be careful because this may break your system so don't jump the gun. Once again

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# apt-get update

To update your package index with debian stuff. Now comes the dangerous part

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# apt-get install vlc -s

The -s option will do a dry run. Check very carefully what will be installed/upgraded. If it lists any packages that will be upgraded *except* vlc and vlc-related packages, then you'll either have to abort or risk breaking something. Your best bet is to research all the upgraded packages (just find out what they are and do) and that will let you know. As for new packages, they won't hurt now, *but* future installations or upgrades may break them so treat them with similar caution. Finally, once you're confident its safe:

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# apt-get install vlc

Once you've installed VLC, I suggest removing the line we echoed into your sources.list. This may cause problems in the future (upgrades/updates/installs may remove VLC and/or components) but at least you'll be able to see if this problem persists. I do not recommend this method at all, I've never tried it even. It's all "on paper" so to speak. Use at your own peril. If the problem persists, at least you know the bug isn't specific to your VLC version.


-- EPILOGUE --
Hopefully some thing I suggested helps. If you get any problems, just please describe *exactly* what you did and post the output from your terminal. These sorts of "hacky" things described in Option 2 can be successful, but you need to be prepared to fix things that may break. The only other option is to reconsider distros (for example Debian has a "testing" branch which is reasonably stable and fairly up to date). There are also the Arch and Arch-family which are bleedingly up to date but suffer from the occassional bug and a bit a a schleppy installation. There's also Fedora (which I'm very unfamiliar with but a friend of mine used to use it and he often had newer versions of software than me). Personally, I highly recommend Debian because even stable has good backports for years and it's highly reliable and much simpler than Ubuntu because it doesn't have settings managers, software centers and all that abstraction between the user and the OS. It more or less works.