VLC Video Player keeps crashing

[Goatmilk]

Thanks, done that. No change in Celluloid, and VLC just started on a new DVD as of 11:17.

Let's see how long it runs.

 

[Goatmilk]

Wow. 7 minutes... as at 11:24 VLC quit again.


edit: I'm running a mp4 now to make sure that those files really run fine. Maybe they don't, and I just never noticed because the YouTube-How-tos are usually not very long.

So it's Longmire now.

 

[ron.alan]

After installing VLC, I run:

sudo apt install libdvd-pkg

sudo dpkg-reconfigure libdvd-pkg .

I got that straight off of VLC's website. Never had a problem.
https://www.videolan.org/developers/libdvdcss.html

 

[Goatmilk]

Thanks, Ron, I've tried this. The DVD lasted for 17 minutes...

On the good side, the mp4 file ran just fine - for all of its 45 or so minutes, no glitch, no crash, nothing. So maybe it's the optical drive? After all, it's just a puny little thing at the side of a very flat looking laptop, nothing like the normal sized box that is in the big computer.

I hope I get the big one back in a week or so, and if my plan works - running Linux in it on a second hard drive - I might try DVDs with Linux VLC again. Unless, of course, someone has another idea what I could try.

Until then, I might watch my Longmire videos again...

(Note to self: next time if I want to watch a video strictly for testing hardware and learning Linux purposes, I'd better choose something like "Latin Grammar - a philosophical approach" or "The History of Cultivating Chamomile" or some such. Not Longmire....)

 

[osprey]

With the installation of libdvd-pkg, the codecs for most dvds are available. The dvd's play for a time, so it's not likely a codec issue. The errors in the log in post #8 are as follows:

On the 10th of October there's an error at 17.51:
2025-10-10T17:51:07.578296+02:00 Max plasmashell[2782]: [0000556e3d7bb820] vlcpulse audio output error: digital pass-through stream connection failure: Input/Output error

The same error at 18:20 and 18:23

At 18:46 is a another error:
2025-10-10T18:46:20.133547+02:00 Max kernel: [ 3910.809013] vlc[5305]: segfault at 7f1edc388 ip 00007f1f37535111 sp 00007f1f37517d30 error 4 in libskins2_plugin.so[7f1f3752b000+a7000] likely on CPU 2 (core 0, socket 0)

18:48 is a repeat of the earlier error at 17:51.

19:25 is a repeat of the segfault error that occurred at 18:46.

The vlcpulse error is about audio problems. You could go into vlc Tools and then Preferences and select the Audio tab and select a specific option instead of "Automatic" such Pulse, Pipewire or Alsa depending on whether Pulseaudio or Pipewire are your sound servers. Determine whichever sound server you have is running with a command such as:

systemctl --user status pipewire.service
systemctl --user status pulseaudio.service

If it's not running, start it. I expect it's running though whatever it is.

Another option is the disable hardware acceleration in vlc. Go to Tools, Preferences, Input/Codecs and disable Hardware-accelerated decoding, or select a different option such as VDPAU. These things are quite experimental and time consuming when having to check out each different option, but may produce an optimal outcome.

The libskins2 segfault is often attributed to graphics drivers or hardware acceleration. The above suggestions are usually made for this issue as well.

Personally I use mpv and abandoned vlc some years ago when it was less reliable than it's supposed to be today, but I never returned to vlc though the above suggestions are from my notes which helped me at different times.

 

[Condobloke]

I use a video player every day, without fail.

I have noticed recently the reliability of vlc no=t being what it was....

Celluloid has proven to be a quick fix, reliable and with no 'fall overs'

It does not appear to have some of the 'fine tuning' capabilities of vlc, however.

 

[Goatmilk]

@osprey

Thanks for your reply. As for the hardware acceleration, I'd disabled it already.

Checking for pulseaudio, it wasn't found ("Unit pulseaudio.service could not be found.")


Pipewire, however, is another story...

$ systemctl --user status pipewire.service
● pipewire.service - PipeWire Multimedia Service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pipewire.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Sun 2025-10-12 06:12:26 CEST; 11h ago
TriggeredBy: ● pipewire.socket
   Main PID: 1797 (pipewire)
      Tasks: 3 (limit: 18906)
     Memory: 9.2M
        CPU: 1min 18.540s
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/[email protected]/session.slice/pipewire.service
             └─1797 /usr/bin/pipewire

Oct 12 06:12:26 Max systemd[1775]: Started pipewire.service - PipeWire Multimedia Service.
Oct 12 06:12:26 Max pipewire[1797]: mod.rt: RTKit error: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown
Oct 12 06:12:26 Max pipewire[1797]: mod.rt: RTKit does not give us MaxRealtimePriority, using 1
Oct 12 06:12:26 Max pipewire[1797]: mod.rt: RTKit error: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown
Oct 12 06:12:26 Max pipewire[1797]: mod.rt: RTKit does not give us MinNiceLevel, using 0
Oct 12 06:12:26 Max pipewire[1797]: mod.rt: RTKit error: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown
Oct 12 06:12:26 Max pipewire[1797]: mod.rt: RTKit does not give us RTTimeUSecMax, using -1
Oct 12 06:12:26 Max pipewire[1797]: mod.jackdbus-detect: Failed to receive jackdbus reply: org.freedesktop.DB>

There it stopped without hopping to the usual "owl@Max:~", until I pressed 'enter' several times. So it doesn't seem to be entirely healthy...

Went to MX Package Installer to see if maybe something was missing. Oh boy...

(see attachments - I wasn't sure if I should've plastered the screenshots into the post.)

Looked at VLC in the audio settings, and it didn't even have an option for the pipewire stuff.

The only options are:
Automatic
Pulseaudio audio output
Alsa audio output
File audio output
Audio memory output
Dummy audio output
disable

However, mp4 work absolutely fine, as did flv files. Haven't tested much else. If pipewire would be a mess, that wouldn't be the case - or would it?

I'm clueless.


edit: So good to have the forum back!