VLC causes massive disk usage when accessing settings

[actionparsnip]

As it says. Mouse is unusable and CTRL+ALT+F1 is unresponsive.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: vlc 2.0.1-4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.4.0-3.7-generic 3.4.0
Uname: Linux 3.4.0-3-generic i686
ApportVersion: 2.1-0ubuntu1
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu May 24 00:21:33 2012
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: vlc
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Rémi Denis-Courmont (rdenis)]

Can't reproduce the problem.

[actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666)]

I copied the ~/.config/vlc folder from Precise to Quantal and it works fine.

[actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666)]

I made a new default ~/.config/vlc from quantal. The one from Precise is vlc_old so I ran:

diff ./vlc ./vlc_old > result.txt

which resulted in:

diff ./vlc/vlc-qt-interface.conf ./vlc_old/vlc-qt-interface.conf
3,4c3,4
< geometry=@ByteArray(\x1\xd9\xd0\xcb\0\x1\0\0\0\0\x1p\0\0\0\xca\0\0\x3\xc7\0\0\x2m\0\0\x1p\0\0\0\xca\0\0\x3\xc7\0\0\x2m\0\0\0\0\0\0)
< filedialog-path=/home/andy
---
> geometry=@ByteArray(\x1\xd9\xd0\xcb\0\x1\0\0\0\0\x2S\0\0\x1\x1\0\0\x4\t\0\0\x1M\0\0\x2S\0\0\x1\x1\0\0\x4\t\0\0\x1M\0\0\0\0\0\0)
> filedialog-path=/home/andy/Downloads/Comedy/Bottom/Bottom Series 3
7,8c7,8
< pos=@Point(0 0)
< screen=@Rect(0 0 0 0)
---
> pos=@Point(240 648)
> screen=@Rect(0 0 1280 720)
15c15
< bgSize=@Size(600 0)
---
> bgSize=@Size(439 25)
16a17,19
>
> [RecentsMRL]
> list=file:///home/andy/Downloads/Comedy/Bottom/Bottom%20Series%203/Bottom%20-%20Series%203%20-%20Episode%206%20-%20Carnival.avi, file:///home/andy/Downloads/Comedy/Bottom/Bottom%20Series%203/Bottom%20-%20Series%203%20-%20Episode%205%20-%20Finger.avi, file:///home/andy/Downloads/Comedy/Bottom/Bottom%20Series%203/Bottom%20-%20Series%203%20-%20Episode%204%20-%20Dough.avi, file:///home/andy/Downloads/Comedy/Bottom/Bottom%20Series%203/Bottom%20-%20Series%203%20-%20Episode%203%20-%20Break.avi, file:///home/andy/Downloads/Comedy/Bottom/Bottom%20Series%203/Bottom%20-%20Series%203%20-%20Episode%202%20-%20Terror.avi, file:///home/andy/Downloads/Comedy/Bottom/Bottom%20Series%203/Bottom%20-%20Series%203%20-%20Episode%201%20-%20Hole.avi, file:///home/andy/Downloads/Comedy/Bottom/Bottom%20Series%203/Bottom%20-%20Fluff%20-%20Series%203.avi, file:///home/andy/Downloads/30%20Rock%20Season%204/30.Rock.S04E13.HDTV.XviD-LOL.avi, file:///home/andy/Downloads/30%20Rock%20Season%204/30.Rock.S04E12.HDTV.XviD-LOL.avi, file:///home/andy/Downloads/30%20Rock%20Season%204/30.Rock.S04E11.HDTV.XviD-2HD.avi
diff ./vlc/vlcrc ./vlc_old/vlcrc
126c126
< qt-privacy-ask=0
---
> #qt-privacy-ask=1
3456c3456
< #volume=256
---
> volume=237
3960c3960
< album-art=2
---
> #album-art=0
4002c4002
< #extraintf=
---
> extraintf=http:oldrc
4005c4005
< #control=
---
> control=dbus

[actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666)]

The Precise system has the web interface enabled but that's it

[Rémi Denis-Courmont (rdenis)]

Aha... Which of the following command exhibit the bug then?

# vlc --ignore-config
# vlc --ignore-config --intf http
# vlc --ignore-config --intf oldrc
# vlc --ignore-config --extraintf http
# vlc --ignore-config --extraintf oldrc
# vlc --ignore-config --control dbus

[actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666)]

The copied data makes it work is my point. The default config generated when the ~/.config/vlc folder is missing causes the issue, so the commands won't make much difference. I can run them if you desire.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont (rdenis)]

There are a number of differences in the vlcrc. I'd like to know which one causes the problem...

[actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666)]

That's my point, the cofig WITH the interface enabled works as expected. If you allow VLC to make a default profile then the issue occurs.

[Doug McMahon (mc3man)]

Rémi Denis-Courmont (rdenis) wrote >
Can't reproduce the problem.

The reporter didn't say but if 'settings' means 'all' (advanced), then one would get a 'lockup' , though not disk, it would take most of the ram & swap if there was one trying to open the window
This would then be attributed to the qt-x11 issue, not vlc

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Leuke (leuke)]

Opening vlc settings under Unity or Gnome Shell gives me the same result, and the whole system becomes unresponsive.
On the other hand, under gnome classic that window still can't open, but the system keeps running and this is what I can see as output from a terminal:

(vlc:2267): Gtk-CRITICAL **: IA__gtk_widget_style_get: assertion `GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed
           repeated 59 times

QNativeImage: Unable to attach to shared memory segment.

X Error: BadDrawable (invalid Pixmap or Window parameter) 9
  Major opcode: 62 (X_CopyArea)

[Leuke (leuke)]

This bug seems to be strictly related to #1005677, the workaround proposed there (setting LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0) works for me.