FS#49496 - [vlc] 2.2.3-3 has no support for MIDI playback needs --enable-fluidsynth at compile time

Attached to Project: Arch Linux
Opened by Luke (Gaming4JC) - Saturday, 28 May 2016, 13:12 GMT
Last edited by Buggy McBugFace (bugbot) - Saturday, 25 November 2023, 20:24 GMT
Task Type Feature Request
Category Packages: Extra
Status Closed
Assigned To David Runge (dvzrv)
Levente Polyak (anthraxx)
Architecture All
Severity Medium
Priority Normal
Reported Version
Due in Version Undecided
Due Date Undecided
Percent Complete 100%
Votes 5
Private No

Details

Description: It is impossible to play MIDI in our packaged VLC player, as --enable-fluidsynth is not compiled and fluidsynth is no longer an optional dependency. (Per https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MIDI#VLC this should work, but no longer does)


Also Note: Per IRC I found an old bug from 2013 ( FS#34453 ) and requested to re-open it since the symptoms are the same, however I was told to just open a new bug report by the project manager.


Additional info:
* package version(s): 2.2.3-3
* config and/or log files etc.: http://pastebin.ca/3611546


Steps to reproduce:
1) Install FluidSynth
2) Install VLC
3) No fluidsynth plugin in VLC media player, even though fluidsynth works fine from command line.
This task depends upon

Closed by  Buggy McBugFace (bugbot)
Saturday, 25 November 2023, 20:24 GMT
Reason for closing:  Moved
Additional comments about closing:  https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/p ackaging/packages/vlc/issues/3
Comment by Doug Newgard (Scimmia) - Saturday, 28 May 2016, 13:43 GMT
This changed here: https://git.archlinux.org/svntogit/packages.git/commit/trunk?h=packages/vlc&id=1baa2bf71ce06820f1db18d8fa175b08644b6d5f

Unfortunately, there's non explanation of why in the git logs.
Comment by Allen (ase1590) - Friday, 09 February 2018, 14:12 GMT
In a bug report, it was removed due to security concerns.

VLC 3.0, which is due to be released either today or this week, re-incorporates the MIDI playback feature.

see: https://www.videolan.org/developers/vlc-branch/NEWS
Comment by Marius (Martchus) - Wednesday, 29 August 2018, 20:24 GMT
VLC 3 has been packaged for a while now but the FluidSynth plugin is still missing.

I suppose that's the bug report Allen refers to: https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/9486
According to the comment at the bottom "It's back in 3.0". So we should bring it back to the Arch Linux package, too.

If there are still security concerns, moving the plugin to a split package would be an option (so at least nobody gets it by default).

BTW: I've recently updated my nightly build to include the plugin (https://github.com/Martchus/PKGBUILDs/commit/1c39df6581ab9be93dd5e9425a8e8f7860853aef). So I can confirm that at least in the nightly version it works fine and there's nothing more todo than adding the make/optional dependencies.
Comment by Kunda (Kunda) - Friday, 11 January 2019, 11:40 GMT
This issue should be solved in VLC 3.x
https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/17468
Comment by Loïc (lkern) - Thursday, 08 April 2021, 09:53 GMT
Dear Maintainer,

This feature request was opened nearly 5 years ago. At that time, there had been upstream changes to remove fluidsynth based midi playback from the MS-Windows builds. It has been reinstated since then.

The fluidsynth based midi playback was and is a feature included in the linux sources. It was and is a packaged feature offered by many respectable distros in terms of security assessments (e.g. debian, fedora, ..).

Could it be time to include this feature in the Arch package ? Attached is a suggestion to make this an optional depends.

Alternatively, could it be time to close the bug as "wont fix", if there are compelling reasons for that ?

Comment by Loïc (lkern) - Thursday, 08 April 2021, 10:12 GMT
My apologies, fedora does not ship vlc (entirely, not only the fluidsynth part), it is only available through rpmfusion.
Comment by Luis Bourgard (unnilquadium) - Wednesday, 21 April 2021, 08:35 GMT
As a workaround you can install vlc-plugin-fluidsynth-bin from the aur:
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/vlc-plugin-fluidsynth-bin/
Comment by Buggy McBugFace (bugbot) - Tuesday, 08 August 2023, 19:11 GMT
This is an automated comment as this bug is open for more then 2 years. Please reply if you still experience this bug otherwise this issue will be closed after 1 month.

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