[SOLVED] VLC Does not open after accidental upgrade to 3 from 2.2.7

jfhendfg · 06-09-2018, 11:53 AM

Ok no more recommendations for "just uninstall and reinstall"
because now I'm back to the original error message concerning qPainter.

I'd just like to regress and repeat, I did try this before I came here, multiple ways. I purged everything vlc related via synaptic, then installed the previous version's debs resulting a different error that I can describe if necessary (it shouldn't be)

Then I repeated that first step in synaptic but then tried rebuilding it from the source tarball and it yielded the qpainter error again.

And now I have tried habitual's method which brought back the qpainter method even though that had stopped.

jfhendfg · 06-09-2018, 11:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hydrurga

If you don't mind me saying so, threads on LQ do not belong to any one person, even the thread's OP, and you do not control who or who not posts on them.

My advice is to reinstall, or roll back to the last system backup/image/snapshot you made before you accidentally clicked on that Synaptic option. if you think you have done damage to your system then you probably have.

If, on the other hand, you want to pursue this then the first thing I would check is the status of your packages. It's like a doctor taking your blood pressure - it tells you if everything is really screwed or not.

The first move would be:

Code:

apt check

dpkg --audit

Hey man, it's not like I didn't say please.

Anyway, check is an invalid operation of apt, and dpkg's audit yields no output (as far as I can tell) and that's not my opinion I just plugged it in and tried it. No luck.

hydrurga · 06-09-2018, 12:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jfhendfg

Hey man, it's not like I didn't say please.

Anyway, check is an invalid operation of apt, and dpkg's audit yields no output (as far as I can tell) and that's not my opinion I just plugged it in and tried it. No luck.

If apt check didn't work, try sudo apt-get check. Good news that the dpkg command didn't produce any output - that's how I like it.

If you don't mind running things in parallel with the other advice you're getting (I'm sure you can handle it), the next stage after the apt check would be:

Code:

dpkg -l | grep -v "^ii"

This shows you if you have any packages that are not fully installed.

jfhendfg · 06-09-2018, 12:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hydrurga

If apt check didn't work, try sudo apt-get check. Good news that the dpkg command didn't produce any output - that's how I like it.

If you don't mind running things in parallel with the other advice you're getting (I'm sure you can handle it), the next stage after the apt check would be:

Code:

dpkg -l | grep -v "^ii"

This shows you if you have any packages that are not fully installed.

No output from apt-get's check either, presuming that is also good news.

However here's a whopper of results from the second command line

Code:

 Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name                                  Version                                     Architecture Description
+++-=====================================-===========================================-============-================================================================================================
rc  apg                                   2.2.3.dfsg.1-4+b1                           i386         Automated Password Generator - Standalone version
rc  cracklib-runtime                      2.9.2-5                                     i386         runtime support for password checker library cracklib2
rc  dleyna-server                         0.4.0-1.1                                   i386         DBus service to interact with DLNA Digital Media Servers
rc  gnome-control-center-data             1:3.22.2-3                                  all          configuration applets for GNOME - data files
rc  gnome-settings-daemon                 3.22.2-2+deb9u2                             i386         daemon handling the GNOME session settings
rc  iio-sensor-proxy                      2.0-4                                       i386         IIO sensors to D-Bus proxy
rc  jack-tools                            20131226-1+b1                               i386         various JACK tools: dl, record, scope, osc, plumbing, udp, play, transport
rc  jackd2                                1.9.10+20150825git1ed50c92~dfsg-5           i386         JACK Audio Connection Kit (server and example clients)
rc  javascript-common                     11                                          all          Base support for JavaScript library packages
rc  libdleyna-core-1.0-3:i386             0.4.0-1                                     i386         Utility functions for higher level dLeyna components
rc  libebml4:i386                         1.3.1-dmo2                                  i386         Access library for the EBML format (shared library)
rc  libgvc6                               2.38.0-17                                   i386         rich set of graph drawing tools - gvc library
rc  libmatroska6:i386                     1.4.2-dmo3                                  i386         Extensible open standard audio/video container format (shared library)
rc  libmediaart-2.0-0:i386                1.9.0-2                                     i386         media art extraction and cache management library
rc  libnss-myhostname:i386                232-25+deb9u3                               i386         nss module providing fallback resolution for the current hostname
rc  libpwquality-common                   1.3.0-1                                     all          library for password quality checking and generation (data files)
rc  librcc0                               0.2.12-0.1                                  i386         Library for autoconvert codepages
rc  librcd0                               0.1.13-3                                    i386         Library for autodection charset of Russian text
rc  libreoffice-gtk                       1:5.2.7-1                                   all          transitional package to upgrade to libreoffice-gtk2/-systray
rc  libtag1-rusxmms:i386                  1.8-dmo1                                    i386         audio meta-data library - RusXMMS flavour
rc  libtag1-vanilla:i386                  1.9.1-2.1                                   i386         audio meta-data library - vanilla flavour
rc  libvlc-dev:i386                       3.0.2-0+deb9u1                              i386         development files for libvlc
rc  libvlc5:i386                          3.0.2-0+deb9u1                              i386         multimedia player and streamer library
rc  libvlccore8:i386                      2.2.7-1~deb9u1                              i386         base library for VLC and its modules
rc  linux-image-4.9.0-6-686               4.9.88-1+deb9u1                             i386         Linux 4.9 for older PCs
rc  linux-image-4.9.0-6-686-pae           4.9.88-1+deb9u1                             i386         Linux 4.9 for modern PCs
rc  nautilus                              3.22.3-1+deb9u1                             i386         file manager and graphical shell for GNOME
rc  patchage                              1.0.0~dfsg0-0.1+b5                          i386         modular patch bay for Jack audio and Alsa Midi
rc  phonon:i386                           4:4.9.0-4                                   i386         multimedia framework from KDE using Qt 4 - metapackage
rc  realmd                                0.16.3-1                                    i386         DBus service for configuring kerberos and other online identities
rc  retroarch                             1.3.6+dfsg1-1                               i386         Simple frontend for the libretro library
rc  rygel                                 0.32.1-3                                    i386         GNOME UPnP/DLNA services
rc  steam                                 1.0.0.54-2                                  i386         Valve's Steam digital software delivery system
rc  unetbootin                            575-1                                       i386         installer of Linux/BSD distributions to a partition or USB drive
rc  vlc                                   3.0.2-0+deb9u1                              i386         multimedia player and streamer
rc  vlc-plugin-base:i386                  3.0.2-0+deb9u1                              i386         multimedia player and streamer (base plugins)
rc  vlc-plugin-notify:i386                3.0.2-0+deb9u1                              i386         LibNotify plugin for VLC
rc  vlc-plugin-qt:i386                    3.0.2-0+deb9u1                              i386         multimedia player and streamer (Qt plugin)
rc  vlc-plugin-samba:i386                 3.0.2-0+deb9u1                              i386         Samba plugin for VLC
rc  vlc-plugin-skins2:i386                3.0.2-0+deb9u1                              i386         multimedia player and streamer (Skins2 plugin)
rc  vlc-plugin-video-output:i386          3.0.2-0+deb9u1                              i386         multimedia player and streamer (video output plugins)
rc  vlc-plugin-video-splitter:i386        3.0.2-0+deb9u1                              i386         multimedia player and streamer (video splitter plugins)
rc  vlc-plugin-visualization:i386         3.0.2-0+deb9u1                              i386         multimedia player and streamer (visualization plugins)
rc  xcb                                   2.4-4.3                                     i386         Pigeon holes for your cut and paste selections
rc  xfce4-notes                           1.8.1-1                                     i386         Notes application for the Xfce4 desktop

jfhendfg · 06-09-2018, 12:33 PM

A good bit of those are vlc deps. I remember seeing them/installing them from .deb files, specifically xcb.

Also, and this is the one that scares me, that linux image package is also dependent/connected with VLC3

hydrurga · 06-09-2018, 12:38 PM

Yes, no error/warning output from apt-get check is good news.

Nothing to worry about with those "rc"'s - they are residual configurations left over because packages were removed, not purged. You can purge them with:

Code:

sudo apt-get purge $(dpkg -l | awk '/^rc/ {print $2}')

However, I have to say that there are some packages that are listed there that I wouldn't expect you normally to have removed in the first place (nautilus, gnome-settings-daemon etc.).

Anyway, once you've removed those residual configurations, if you throw a:

Code:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

at your system with no errors or warnings then your package blood pressure appears normal.

jfhendfg · 06-09-2018, 12:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hydrurga

Yes, no error/warning output from apt-get check is good news.

Nothing to worry about with those "rc"'s - they are residual configurations left over because packages were removed, not purged. You can purge them with:

Code:

sudo apt-get purge $(dpkg -l | awk '/^rc/ {print $2}')

However, I have to say that there are some packages that are listed there that I wouldn't expect you normally to have removed in the first place (nautilus, gnome-settings-daemon etc.).

Anyway, once you've removed those residual configurations, if you throw a:

Code:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

at your system with no errors or warnings then your package blood pressure appears normal.

Thanks man. Yeahh my internal janitorial duties have been lacking lately.

Right on though, I was thinking about trying another update anyway.

I've faced similar precedents with bleeding edge updates before and usually just waiting for the dependency to follow the main updates fixes them. (unless you're running KDE on opensuse, then youre screwed hahaha)

jfhendfg · 06-09-2018, 12:55 PM

OK wait a second, on that purge command to clear the rc files, I noticed it also grabbed that linux image entry, fortunately it stopped me to ask if I was sure about removing something correlating with Steam (which I don't want).

So before I proceed, should I close out the terminal and do something different to prevent bricking, or will everything be OK?

hydrurga · 06-09-2018, 01:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jfhendfg

OK wait a second, on that purge command to clear the rc files, I noticed it also grabbed that linux image entry, fortunately it stopped me to ask if I was sure about removing something correlating with Steam (which I don't want).

So before I proceed, should I close out the terminal and do something different to prevent bricking, or will everything be OK?

It's most probably the vestiges of a previous kernel. Check which one you are running now, with uname -r, and if the listed one is an old one then you're good to go. Remember that the kernel has already been removed, you're just purging the residual configuration.

jfhendfg · 06-09-2018, 01:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hydrurga

It's most probably the vestiges of a previous kernel. Check which one you are running now, with uname -r, and if the listed one is an old one then you're good to go. Remember that the kernel has already been removed, you're just purging the residual configuration.

Ok youre right, looks like I did revert that back to the original kernel I was running before that bleeding edge update (4.9.0-3-686-pae)

PHEW!!

jfhendfg · 06-09-2018, 01:07 PM

Running an upgrade now. While I have you here, got any other handy janitorial commands I can throw in to clean up some unnecessary unwanted stuff?

I can run this entire system in under 10gb which just makes me feel all tingly and fuzzy inside, considering I have an entire 2TB external storage for whatever crap I want (like media files... ok mostly media files lol)

jfhendfg · 06-09-2018, 01:12 PM

VLC is still borked. Qpainter error message.

Say, someone here mentioned that this is a Qt operation mishap. Wouldn't that mean there's a Qt package somewhere that's missing or something?

Also, semi-related, why and how do I have to have stuff from GNOME and KDE(Qt) when I'm running xfce?

I understand that some programs are just written that way and not everything can be written for every DE, buuuut in the past I've noticed that having these dependencies result in other dependencies that are strictly for those programs that usually are only necessary if you're running the aforementioned DE such as GNOME or KDE?

TL;DR: ytf do I have to have GNOME and Qt files to run crap in xfce?

</image of that old image macro with the mcdonalds girl holding her hand up in question>

hydrurga · 06-09-2018, 01:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jfhendfg

Running an upgrade now. While I have you here, got any other handy janitorial commands I can throw in to clean up some unnecessary unwanted stuff?

I can run this entire system in under 10gb which just makes me feel all tingly and fuzzy inside, considering I have an entire 2TB external storage for whatever crap I want (like media files... ok mostly media files lol)

None that I can think of. I'm a firefighter who only uses janitorial commands on an as-required basis in order to tell me if there's a fire I need to fight.

jfhendfg · 06-09-2018, 01:17 PM

Oh and in addition to my last post, if I do absolutely have to have Qt stuff for dependencies in this instance, is there any way we could do this VLC stuff with GNOME files instead of KDE? Or would that be fattier?

I'm just not a fan of KDE, it's such a mess, yes it's pretty if you have the patience of an ox (u c wat i did thar?) but I don't have the patience to make all the gradients in everything match all my themes and then edit all the configuration files to make sure every application is even capable of drawing them

And GNOME is just fat. I like it, but this desktop was built out of the spirit of minimalism.

"BUT WHY DIDN'T YOU BUILD ARCH THEN?" Because I'm a dumb*** that doesn't really know how.

And crunchbang was already out of production when I built this baby //wrists

hydrurga · 06-09-2018, 01:33 PM

Some GUI software is written in qt and some in gtk - if you're using a gtk-based desktop environment, for example, and want to minimise your qt package content then you need to look at the dependencies of any packages you're thinking of installing. I have several qt-based packages on my Mint MATE system which don't have many qt-related dependencies. Occasionally I'll come across a package with a list of qt (and/or kde) dependencies as long as my arm. It doesn't get installed - I'll find a gtk-based alternative. It probably wouldn't do my system much harm but I just don't want things getting out of hand.

Xfce is a gtk-based desktop environment.

Normally, you shouldn't get missing package problems if a package has its dependencies mapped out correctly in its control file.

Perhaps I've missed it, but where is the qpainter error that you're seeing?