Arch Linux

Same problem here.

An interesting point : running vlc as an unprivileged user yields the same result than described there. But running it as root brings the familiar wxWidget interface ! In order to rule out a possible configuration glitch, I removed the libskins2_plugin.so library. As a user, vlc now refuses to start (since the only available gui plugin is now libwxwidgets_plugin.so), but it still works perfectly as root !

So this is definitely some weird permission related problem.

Finally, as already reported, recompiling vlc from abs and installing it fixed the bug.

please describe the issue a bit more exactly. i'm no vlc user but cannot see anything not working here. what exactly is not working for you with the current pkg?

There are 2 GUI plugins in vlc : one based on wxWidgets and one called 'skins2'. BUT, the skins2 GUI plugin depends on the wx one to provide some dialogs, like the preferences one (a pretty shitty design if you ask me).

For somewhat reason, the wx plugin refuses to load. VLC switches to the skins2 one, but it's only partially functional : no preferences ...

Now it gets even fishier : I can't reproduce this behavior anymore !! I uninstalled my compiled vlc package, pacman -S vlc, ... and no bug anymore. The wx interface appears. So once you installed a custom built vlc, 'official' packages work after that. But before I installed the custom built package, uninstalling and installing vlc didn't help.

hm. i removed ~/.vlc and reinstalled the current vlc pkg from the repos and it starts well with the wxWidgets. i can switch to Skin2 and see a menu when right clicking on the border where also the options are available.

so can i close it as "works for me"?

Removing and reinstalling VLC results in the same issue here. Removing .vlc and trying again gives more errors:

$ vlc
VLC media player 0.8.6c Janus
[00000278] main dialogs provider error: no dialogs provider module matched "any"
[00000277] skins2 interface error: no suitable dialogs provider found (hint: compile the wxWidgets plugin, and make sure it is loaded properly)
Couldn't gzopen /home/fredrik/.vlc/skins2/default.vlt
[00000277] main interface error: no suitable access module for `/home/fredrik/.vlc/skins2/default.vlt'
[00000277] skins2 interface error: failed to open /home/fredrik/.vlc/skins2/default.vlt for reading
[00000277] skins2 interface error: failed to parse /home/fredrik/.vlc/skins2/default.vlt
Couldn't gzopen share/skins2/default.vlt
[00000277] main interface error: no suitable access module for `share/skins2/default.vlt'
[00000277] skins2 interface error: failed to open share/skins2/default.vlt for reading
[00000277] skins2 interface error: failed to parse share/skins2/default.vlt
[00000277] skins2 interface: skin: VLC 0.8.5 Default Skin author: aLtgLasS

Restarting VLC gives the original error messages since a new .vlc has now been created.

Using the custom built package (with no changes whatsoever to the PKGBUILD) and starting VLC gives the working wxWidgets skin, even if I remove .vlc before starting it.

I just checked the permissions for the files in /usr/lib/vlc/gui/ for both packages and they're the same:

$ ls /usr/lib/vlc/gui/ -l
total 3184
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1253660 26 jun 12.19 libskins2_plugin.so
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1992503 26 jun 12.19 libwxwidgets_plugin.so