This worked flawlessly for months. I had an automatic software update yesterday, not sure what all was updated. Now, when I run vlc, I get various forms of “main decoder error” messages depending upon the type of video. For video files with sound, the sound will still play, but the video is just a black screen.
I get the errors running “vlc” from the command terminal.
[0000ffff34c04f70] main decoder error: Codec `mp4v’ (MPEG-4 Video) is not supported.
Searching for the error message doesn’t seem to produce much. Any ideas on how to get VLC back up and running? It is frustrating because it worked well before.
I have reinstalled VLC. If I run it without doing the libomxil step, it just core-dumps when I try to play a video.
If I perform the command “sudo mv /usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/vlc/plugins/codec/libomxil_plugin.so /usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/vlc/plugins/codec/libomxil_plugin.so.old”, it doesn’t core dump, but it can’t decode video.
I used TimeShift to move back to late May. After that, VLC works again (using the same two line install, apt based, then moving the libomxil_plugin.so file.
After a ubuntu 20.04 software update (which affects gstreamer and maybe other SW), it kills VLC again in the same manner. Hopefully I will be able to figure out which software update kills VLC and block it.
That is the same version I am running (again) now successfully. There is some update in the Ubuntu Software Updater that breaks it. I have used TimeShift to go back to the working state, and then updated with the suggested updates and broken it repeatedly. It also breaks if I apply the updates first, and then install VLC (for the “first” time on the system) afterward. Not sure exactly what the conflict is, but there are some gstreamer updates that get applied.
For now, VLC is working again, and gstreamer is working again, so I will just hold off on those updates until I can figure out the conflict.