VLC 2.2.1 “Terry Pratchett”

largeVLCThe first incremental update for the VLC 2.2 series is available now. The version 2.2.1. fixes a lot of bugs; numerous crashes (FLAC, SPC), codec issues (VP9, Atrac3, AAC), regressions and several issues (Resume, MP4 chapters, MKV over network). And it addresses some security issues too which makes this a recommended updgrade.

The source release was several days ago but the VideoLAN team has waited with the official announcement in order to double-check that this release does not contain unwelcome surprises.

In memory of Terry Pratchett, the famous writer of fantasy books who passed away recently, this release has been dedicated to him. VLC 2.2.1 has been nicknamed “Terry Pratchett (Weatherwax)“.

Where to find my latest VLC packages:

Rsync access is offered by the mirror server: rsync://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/people/alien/restricted_slackbuilds/vlc/ .

For BluRay support, read a previous article for hints about the aacs keys that you’ll need.

Note  I compiled the packages on Slackware 14.1 which is the cause of one bug in the package if you use it on Slackware-current: the ProjectM visualisation plugin does not work because of a libGLEW library version error. I have not yet been able to find a fix for it, but the impact is fairly minor so I let it pass.

My usual warning about patents: versions that can not only DEcode but also ENcode mp3 and aac audio can be found in my alternative repository where I keep the packages containing code that might violate stupid US software patents.

Have fun! Eric

28 thoughts on “VLC 2.2.1 “Terry Pratchett”





  1. If you want a non open source way to get commercial blu-rays to work without worrying about aacs keys being up to date is to use and install MakeMKV (free whilst in beta) and symlink its libmmbd.so file (which emulates libaacs and libbdplus) so that VLC uses that instead and then your BDs will play fine.

    /usr/lib or /usr/lib64

    ln -s libmmbd.so.0 libaacs.so.0
    ln -s libmmbd.so.0 libbdplus.so.0


  2. You guys do not know about Discipline.

    Everything @ everywhere…
    every1 has thier own wiki, repos, pkgs…

    No even a bug report for slackware.com!

    Shame!


  3. Hi Bob,

    VLC media player 2.2.1 Terry Pratchett (Weatherwax) (revision 2.2.1-0-ga425c42)
    Segmentation fault

    Slackware Currrent (update 26/04/2015)

    You know what can be, thanks:D



  4. It all looks like Greek to me, but it can’t find a large number of files. The one I see mentioned the most is,
    libgcrypt.so.11 and also libGLU.so.1.


  5. Ran strace vlc and it ran for over a 1,000 lines. Basically, it, i.e., VLC, can’t find just about any file you can think of that might be associated with it.



  6. cwizardone, please try to read the strace output for what it is. It is a useful tool in the hands of the experienced user but it will show attempts to find libraries in all locations – and that generates many false positives. Don’t just yell “can’t find just about any file you can think of” because you also need to check for that line where the “missing” file is actually found. Explicit error texts are the only thing I can work with.

    Also, try a different approach: see what the dynamic linker is trying to open and perhaps there’s unresolved dependencies visible in this output:
    $ LD_DEBUG=files vlc


  7. Like I said, it might as well be written in ancient Greek. If these commands, i.e., LD_DEBUG=files vlc, generate a log file, tell me where to find it and I can send the logs to you.


  8. Rodrigo, it’s sufficient to re-create the vlc package using Eric slackbuild and the obtained one works perfectly


  9. Hello alienbob,

    VLC is affected too by the latest Slackware update. Some modules fail to load because of version change of libgcrypt and icu. I guess that a recompilation would solve the issues.

    Regards


  10. Hi manciuleas

    Yes a recompilation will fix that.
    But since these few broken modules are not too important to me I will not recompile vlc for -current.


  11. Tired to compile VLC with your build and script (restricted), but it ground to a halt each time.
    Then I tried various versions and found that VLC 2.1.4, built for Slackware64-14.0, works just fine in current.
    Unfortunately, trying older versions of WINE didn’t meet with the same success.


  12. Thank you very much for rebuilding VLC for -current!
    Greatly appreciated! 🙂
    The good news, it works! 😀
    But…but.. but when installing, it issued this error,

    “…Executing install script for vlc-2.2.1-x86_64-2alien.txz.
    Could not parse file “usr/share/applications/winecfg.desktop”: Key file contains unsupported encoding ‘”UTF-8″‘
    Generating VLC plugins cache data…
    Package vlc-2.2.1-x86_64-2alien.txz installed.”

    Not sure what WINE has to do with it, but maybe I should install your WINE package vs. the latest from SourceForge?

    Thanks, again!


  13. OK.
    Removed the WINE package and latest VLC package.

    I’m guessing the upgrades of 4 May (actually, late the 3rd in Minnesota) and your multilib upgrades of the same date, made the difference, as I was able to install and run your last WINE package and install, without error, your latest VLC package for -current.

    Thanks, again!



  14. Hello,

    on -current, I’m seeing this when typing about:plugins in firefox:

    LoadPlugin: failed to initialize shared library /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins/libvlcplugin.so [libicule.so.51: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory]

    Do I need to recompile vlc to fix this? I think this is due to being compiled on 14.1 which uses an older version of icu4c.

    lems


  15. Hi lems

    That file comes from the npapi-vlc package. And it seems I forgot to update the BUILD number apparently, when I compiled vlc and npapi-vlc for slackware-current.
    Please re-install the npapi-vlc package after downloading it from a mirror and the library error will be gone.



  16. Hi,
    Do I need install all dependencies as described on slackbuilds?

    a52dec, faad2, fluidsynth, speex, twolame, lua, portaudio, gsm, libass, libavc1394, libdca, libdvbpsi, libdvdcss, libdvdnav, libkate, libminizip, libmpeg2, libshout, libsidplay2, libssh2, libupnp, libvpx, dirac, rtmpdump, schroedinger, vcdimager, avahi, gnome-vfs, faac, musepack-tools, opus, gst1-plugins-base, chromaprint, libmodplug, jack-audio-connection-kit, x265, libdc1394, projectM, zvbi, vsxu, libtar, libva, freerdp, libmatroska, live555, opencv


  17. Hi “K”. You could just as well have called yourself “anonymous”.
    Do not make the mistake of thinking that my VLC package is the same as the vlc.SlackBuild script at slackbuilds.org.
    Either you use the script on slackbuilds,org AND you additionally install every one of the dependencies you mention; OR you use my VLC package and you do not have to worry about dependencies because they are all already built right into my package. No need for separate packages. This is called “statically linking the support libraries into the package”.



  18. What’s there to check? That script built all the VLC packages you can download from my repository.
    If you are unable to compile it yourself, just download and install my package.


  19. Sorry for bothering .

    After the construction of the package by vlc.Slackbuild, I noticed that he did not create the directory “/ bin” within the package.

    http://i.imgur.com/vdXPFeF.png

    That’s what I tried to explain in my previous post.

    Ready package, which you mentioned, works correctly.

    Sorry for the “bad English” I am learning the language.

    Congratulations for your work .

    Thanks for listening.


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