Recent Ubuntu 9.10 updates seem to break mplayer playing FLAC

[Peter Schmidt-Nielsen]

Binary package hint: mplayer

Today I updated my system, and since, I've been unable to play FLAC audio.
Surprising note: Totem still plays FLACs!
I have also since reinstalled mplayer, but doing so fixes nothing.

The packages that got updated:

Commit Log for Tue Apr 20 09:45:43 2010

Upgraded the following packages:
ffmpeg (4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2) to 4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2.1
libavcodec-dev (4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2) to 4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2.1
libavcodec52 (4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2) to 4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2.1
libavdevice52 (4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2) to 4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2.1
libavfilter0 (4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2) to 4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2.1
libavformat-dev (4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2) to 4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2.1
libavformat52 (4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2) to 4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2.1
libavutil-dev (4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2) to 4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2.1
libavutil49 (4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2) to 4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2.1
libpostproc51 (4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2) to 4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2.1
libswscale-dev (4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2) to 4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2.1
libswscale0 (4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2) to 4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2.1

My mplayer version:

peter@magma:~$ apt-cache policy mplayer
mplayer:
  Installed: 2:1.0~rc3+svn20090426-1ubuntu10.1
  Candidate: 2:1.0~rc3+svn20090426-1ubuntu10.1
  Version table:
 *** 2:1.0~rc3+svn20090426-1ubuntu10.1 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com karmic-updates/multiverse Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     2:1.0~rc3+svn20090426-1ubuntu10 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com karmic/multiverse Packages

My attempt to play foo.flac:

peter@magma:~/Music/crappymusic/$ mplayer -msglevel demux=9:global=9:decaudio=9 foo.flac
MPlayer UNKNOWN-4.4.1 (C) 2000-2009 MPlayer Team
get_path('codecs.conf') -> '/home/peter/.mplayer/codecs.conf'
get_path('fonts') -> '/home/peter/.mplayer/fonts'
get_path('input.conf') -> '/home/peter/.mplayer/input.conf'
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control.
get_path('foo.flac.conf') -> '/home/peter/.mplayer/foo.flac.conf'

Playing foo.flac.
get_path('sub/') -> '/home/peter/.mplayer/sub/'
seek to 0x0
seek to 0x0
seek to 0x0
Checking for YUV4MPEG2
seek to 0x0
seek to 0x0
Checking for REAL
seek to 0x0
Checking for SMJPEG
seek to 0x0
seek to 0x0
[mkv] no head found
seek to 0x0
seek to 0x0
seek to 0x0
Ogg demuxer : Bad page sync
seek to 0x0
demux_audio: seeking from 0x1A to start pos 0x0
seek to 0x0
demux_audio: audio data 0x0 - 0x1AEA768
Audio only file format detected.
==========================================================================
Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
dec_audio: Allocating 192000 + 65536 = 257536 bytes for output buffer.
FFmpeg's libavcodec audio codec
[flac @ 0x1fd5090]codec type or id mismatches
Could not open codec.
ADecoder init failed :(
ADecoder init failed :(
Cannot find codec for audio format 0x43614C66.
Read DOCS/HTML/en/codecs.html!
Audio: no sound
Video: no video

Exiting... (End of file)

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Tue Apr 20 23:21:15 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Package: mplayer 2:1.0~rc3+svn20090426-1ubuntu10.1
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-20.58-generic
RelatedPackageVersions:
 libavcodec52 4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2.1
 libavcodec-extra-52 N/A
SourcePackage: mplayer
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-20-generic x86_64
UserConf: # Write your default config options here!
XsessionErrors:
 (gnome-settings-daemon:1849): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
 (polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:1885): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `initialization_value != 0' failed
 (nautilus:1875): Eel-CRITICAL **: eel_preferences_get_boolean: assertion `preferences_is_initialized ()' failed
 (firefox:2389): GLib-WARNING **: g_set_prgname() called multiple times
system: distro = Ubuntu, architecture = x86_64, kernel = 2.6.31-20-generic

[gene (eugenios)]

Same here:

/media/MyBook/music/Haydn/cd10$ mplayer 12_Quartet_No._31_in_B_minor_Op._33_No._1_IV._Finale.flac
MPlayer SVN-r29237-4.4.1 (C) 2000-2009 MPlayer Team
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control.

Playing 12_Quartet_No._31_in_B_minor_Op._33_No._1_IV._Finale.flac.
Audio only file format detected.
==========================================================================
Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
[flac @ 0x92379e0]codec type or id mismatches
Could not open codec.
ADecoder init failed :(
ADecoder init failed :(
Cannot find codec for audio format 0x43614C66.
Read DOCS/HTML/en/codecs.html!
Audio: no sound
Video: no video

Exiting... (End of file)

The last upgrade of ffmpeg libraries breaks mplayer's ability to play some codecs, like flac and ape (monkey audio)
Whereas, audacious, xmms can play both and amarok plays flac.

[gene (eugenios)]

So, Peter, ffmpeg libraries are the culprit, not mplayer itself.

[Peter Schmidt-Nielsen (schmidtnielsenpeter)]

Seems plausible, Gene.

I rolled "back" to: 4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2
From: 4:0.5+svn20090706-2ubuntu2.1

Unfortunately, rolling back ffmpeg does not fix this for me.

However, the names are suspiciously similar, differing only by the ".1" at the end, making me suspect that I didn't *really* roll back to what I had before.

(P.S., the FLAC you attempted to play had a *way* classier path than the one I was trying to play. I renamed mine to foo.flac, because I'm ashamed to listen to the band.)

[Peter Schmidt-Nielsen (schmidtnielsenpeter)]

Oops, wait, was what I rolled back really relevant?
Isn't the package "ffmpeg" just a front-end for the actual libraries, like libavcodec52?

Given the amount of stuff that it seems rolling back libavcodec52 will rip up, I'm too cowardly to do that right yet.