VLC doesn't register itself as a DVD player

[Murat Gunes]

Binary package hint: vlc

In Hardy, VLC cannot be chosen as a DVD player in Edit / Preferences / Media in Nautilus even though it's installed. This is most likely a VLC packaging bug.

[mystictim (timgillibrand-yahoo)]

It looks like VLC on Hardy is looking for defaults.list in the wrong place. Following the hint in https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gconf-editor/+bug/203877/comments/20 to modify the user copy of defaults.list and the information from http://library.gnome.org/admin/system-admin-guide/stable/mimetypes-registering.html.en I uninstalled vlc and then looked in my user's ~/.local/share/applications for defaults.list This wasn't present so I copied the original defaults.list from /etc/gnome/defaults.list into this directory. I then installed vlc. Now by going to Nautilus > Edit>Preferences>Media>DVD Video l was able to select VLC. When I put a DVD into the computer VLC starts up but unfortunately it then crashed. Following a tip about changing %U to %m in the .desktop entry for vlc I copied /usr/share/applications/vlc.desktop to user's ~/.local/share/applications/vlc.desktop. Then in VLC media player> Properties>Launcher>Command changed vlc %U to vlc %m. Now I can put a DVD into the machine and it will start up in VLC.

[mystictim (timgillibrand-yahoo)]

Sorry please ignore previous post it's not a problem with the location of defaults.list which should be left alone.
The problem appears to be that nautilus can't find the vlc.desktop entry. If this proves to be the case then there are two possible solutions either Nautilus needs to look in /usr/share/applications/ for .desktop entries or applications need to add a copy of their .desktop entries to ~/.local/share/applications
A simple work around to get VLC to appear as an option in Nautilus > Edit>Preferences>Media>DVD Video you only need to copy the vlc.desktop entry into your ./local/share/applications folder by
<code>$cp /usr/share/applications/vlc.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/vlc.desktop</code>
The copy appears in Nautilus as the entry VLC media player you need to change %U to %m in VLC media player>Properties>Launcher>Command to get DVD's to play automatically. You can now go into Nautilus and select VLC. DVD's should now start automatically when you put them in your computer.

[Henry Gomersall (hgomersall)]

Nautilus is a moronic place to put these preferences. This is something that, from the user's perspective, is a system level decision. This means the decision about how to handle a type of media should *not* be set within the file manager. A CD isn't even a disc of files! Not to mention the appalling discoverability problem that has been created.

[Murat Gunes (mgunes)]

That's beyond the scope of this bug. Please report it as a bug in the upstream bug tracker or discuss it in the appropriate mailing list with the developers of the software. There's no way to revert the current scheme of things for the Hardy release, but we can ship popular applications in Universe in proper working state with the current scheme.

[Andrew Starr-Bochicchio (andrewsomething)]

Could this fix is as simple as having VLC register the MIME type: x-content/video-dvd?

VLC is already registering other video MIME types correctly. For instance, if you right click on a .avi file you have the option of opening it with VLC.

[manny (estelar57)]

i need this working, i want my vlc waaaaa !

[Murat Gunes (mgunes)]

> Could this fix is as simple as having VLC register the MIME type: x-content/video-dvd?

Probably, yes, that just needs to be added to the .desktop file.

[Murat Gunes (mgunes)]

Marking as a duplicate of bug #191475, which as a VLC task.