okular version in repository is too old, and fails with embedded movies

[jds]

The okular version in the repositories is version 1.3.3,
but the current version is 1.7. The version in the repos is
more than a year old, and had known bugs at the time that
it was adopted there (apparently to the frustration of the
maintainers of okular). And this version, does not have
even the capabilities of the older version that was in the
repos for Ubuntu 16.04, at least as regards movies. It is
a bit frustrating to have a functionality that worked
beautifully for years, that then goes away, and there is no
apparent concern on anybody's part.

If you want one that is current and works with embedded movies,
you could try the snap package. This version is a bit more
recent (1.6.6), but somehow is even worse, since it just crashes
if you try to run an embedded movie. You might want to compile it.
That was fun. It required installing a bunch of stuff, being
careful not to ruin my existing library. Waited several hours
to compile, and then find out it didn't work for some reason.
I gave up after wasting more than a whole day.

Could I somehow just go back to an old version that works?

Here are some details:

Description: Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS
Release: 18.04
okular:
  Installed: 4:17.12.3-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 4:17.12.3-0ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 4:17.12.3-0ubuntu1 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It seems that your bug report is not filed about a specific source package though, rather it is just filed against Ubuntu in general. It is important that bug reports be filed about source packages so that people interested in the package can find the bugs about it. You can find some hints about determining what package your bug might be about at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. You might also ask for help in the #ubuntu-bugs irc channel on Freenode.

To change the source package that this bug is filed about visit https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1816196/+editstatus and add the package name in the text box next to the word Package.

[This is an automated message. I apologize if it reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[jds (jay-schieber)]

My post says pretty clearly what package is the problem. But it also says
that the problem arises from a choice made by Ubuntu in which version to
include.

On Fri, Feb 15, 2019, 6:30 PM Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot <
<email address hidden> wrote:

> Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make
> Ubuntu better. It seems that your bug report is not filed about a
> specific source package though, rather it is just filed against Ubuntu
> in general. It is important that bug reports be filed about source
> packages so that people interested in the package can find the bugs
> about it. You can find some hints about determining what package your
> bug might be about at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage.
> You might also ask for help in the #ubuntu-bugs irc channel on Freenode.
>
> To change the source package that this bug is filed about visit
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1816196/+editstatus and add the
> package name in the text box next to the word Package.
>
> [This is an automated message. I apologize if it reached you
> inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]
>
> ** Tags added: bot-comment
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1816196
>
> Title:
> okular version in repository is too old, and fails with embedded
> movies
>
> Status in Ubuntu:
> New
>
> Bug description:
> The okular version in the repositories is version 1.3.3,
> but the current version is 1.7. The version in the repos is
> more than a year old, and had known bugs at the time that
> it was adopted there (apparently to the frustration of the
> maintainers of okular). And this version, does not have
> even the capabilities of the older version that was in the
> repos for Ubuntu 16.04, at least as regards movies. It is
> a bit frustrating to have a functionality that worked
> beautifully for years, that then goes away, and there is no
> apparent concern on anybody's part.
>
> If you want one that is current and works with embedded movies,
> you could try the snap package. This version is a bit more
> recent (1.6.6), but somehow is even worse, since it just crashes
> if you try to run an embedded movie. You might want to compile it.
> That was fun. It required installing a bunch of stuff, being
> careful not to ruin my existing library. Waited several hours
> to compile, and then find out it didn't work for some reason.
> I gave up after wasting more than a whole day.
>
> Could I somehow just go back to an old version that works?
>
> Here are some details:
>
> Description: Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS
> Release: 18.04
> okular:
> Installed: 4:17.12.3-0ubuntu1
> Candidate: 4:17.12.3-0ubuntu1
> Version table:
> *** 4:17.12.3-0ubuntu1 500
> 500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/universe amd64
> Packages
> 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1816196/+subscriptions
>

[vbargsten (vbargsten)]

There have been similar problems, which have been recently fixed as described here:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=393478 and duplicates

Ubuntu should update to a newer version of okular to get the problems fixed.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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