vlc requires manual installation of the package "vlc-plugin-pulse"

[Christian Göbel]

Binary package hint: vlc

Testing the alpha5 for Ubuntu, Jaunty (plus recent updates) on my 3 year old laptop
(centrino platform) I discovered the following problem:

I installed VLC via the gnome menu: applications - add/remove.

I expected that the installation of VLC would lead to a good standard configuration for Ubuntu
without sound problems.

Instead I had a bad sound experience (e.g. watching a film). The sound was crackling strongly.

Searching the Ubuntu forums I found a hint that the vlc-plugin-puls - package is required.
I installed the package and my sound problems have been resolved.

In order to fix the problem I suggest to PUT the package VLC-PLUGIN-PULSE as a DEPENDENCY for Ubuntu, since pulse-audio
is used anyway by Ubuntu.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Keep in mind that not every user who installs vlc runs GNOME (or has PulseAudio enabled by default).

[Christian Göbel (christiangoebel)]

Thanks a lot for the comment.

In my bug report I was referring to a default installation of Ubuntu. Package hint: vlc (ubuntu)
Ubuntu is using Pulse audio by default - so I was suggestion to add a dependency to vlc-plugin-puls for this case (and only this case).

Couldn't the dependency be conditional on the used audio system / desktop system?
Something along the lines:

if audio-system = pulsaudio then dependency for vlc is vlc-plugin-puls
if audio-system = whatever then dependy for vlc is vlc-plugin-whatever

From a users perspective (on Ubuntu) the situation is the following, at the moment:
- it is easy to install vlc via the add/remove application
- but vlc is virtually un-usable for playing films/music, right after the installation
- there is no hint that additional action is required (I really thought that vlc has bad sound, at the first moment)

I am not a developer of any kind and therefore I don't know what would be the best way to fix this bad user-experience.

[Christian Göbel (christiangoebel)]

@ Daniel T Chen
Since the bug importance of this bug has been set to be "wishlist", does this indicate that the described issue is not considered to be a bug?
Or should this indicate that this bug cannot be fixed?
From the point of view of a user, a video/sound player with unusable sound after a default installation is clearly a bug/undesirable.

[Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3)]

In karmic the audio is choppy even with pulseaudio output selected

[Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3)]

Anyway you can select "default" audio output plugin, and it works correctly

[Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3)]

(sometimes)

[Christian Göbel (christiangoebel)]

In Ubuntu 9.10 the reported problem with respect to the dependencies has been resolved.
When installing VLC via the "Ubuntu Software Center" the required package "vlc-plugin-pulse" is automatically installed.
Therefore I will close the bug. If there are remaining problems with sound this should probably reported in a new bug report.
Thanks a lot for fixing this issue!

[ber (ber1)]

I run into this problem as well.

I installed VLC through the Ubuntu Software Center in Ubuntu 9.10 (clean install) but unfortunately this resulted in a broken VLC (crackling sounds). I also double checked if the vlc-plugin-pulse was installed through apt-get (command line) and it was. I tried changing the settings in VLC -> Tools -> Preferences -> Show All Settings -> Audio -> Output Modules but nothing works.

I also had this in the past on Ubuntu 7.10, 8.04 and 8.10 but not on 9.04 (same laptop with no hardware changes, most times I did a new/clean install of Ubuntu). I am using a standard Acer Travel Mater 6292.

Any suggestions how to solve this problem would be really appreciated as since the upgrade a few weeks ago I can not listen to a single video file anymore.

[Christian Göbel (christiangoebel)]

@ber, @nocolo: The issue you report seems to be a different issue then the one in the bug report.
Now, I changed the name of the bug in order to make this more visible. I hope that it is clear that the original issue is fixed. On my system vlc works without any problems, now.
Since you seem to suffer from a different issue with vlc, I recommend to open a new bug for your problem.