<sect1 id="howto-troubleshooting"> <title>Troubleshooting</title> <sect2 id="howto-troubleshooting-support"> <title>Getting support</title> <para>There are several ways to get help with &kplayer;. If you want to ask a question, the <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=244388">user forum</ulink> is the best place to post it, since other users will be able to see it, as well as the developer who is of course subscribed to receive e-mail when a message is posted there. The user forum is also a good place to post about a problem that you are not sure is a bug.</para> <para>Bugs should be reported through the <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=532182&group_id=71710">bug tracking system</ulink>, following the instructions in the <link linkend="howto-bug-reporting">Bug reporting micro-HOWTO</link>. Bugs reported using the <guimenuitem>Report a bug</guimenuitem> option on the <guimenu>Help</guimenu> menu are still accepted, but are less helpful.</para> <para>Also there are special sections at the <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/kplayer/">&kplayer; project</ulink> on SourceForge for <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=532183&group_id=71710">support requests</ulink>, <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=532185&group_id=71710">feature requests</ulink> and <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=71710&atid=532184">code patches</ulink>.</para> </sect2> <sect2 id="howto-troubleshooting-problems"> <title>Common problems</title> <sect3> <title>Most commands on the menu and on the toolbar are missing</title> <para>The <filename>kplayerui.rc</filename> file was misplaced during installation, and &kplayer; cannot find it. If you installed using a binary package, complain to the package maintainer. When compiling from source, be sure to follow the instructions in the <link linkend="howto-compilation">Compilation micro-HOWTO</link>, especially the part about <command>kde-config</command>. Before starting, run</para> <para><userinput><command>kde-config</command> <option>--prefix</option></userinput></para> <para>from the command line to make sure that it returns the &kde; prefix path.</para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>After a &kplayer; upgrade new features are missing</title> <para>You may have a file called <filename>kplayerui.rc</filename> in <filename>~/.kde/share/apps/kplayer</filename>. Removing it will get you the new menus, but it will also reset any keyboard shortcuts you may have changed in the <link linkend="configuration-shortcuts">Key Bindings dialog</link>.</para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>&kplayer; is not showing up on the <guisubmenu>Multimedia</guisubmenu> submenu of the &kmenu;</title> <para>The <filename>kplayer.desktop</filename> file needs to be installed in the correct place, under either <filename>share/applnk/Multimedia</filename> or <filename>share/applications/kde</filename> in the global &kde; directory.</para> <para>There also may be a file called <filename>kde-kplayer.desktop</filename> in <filename>~/.local/share/applications</filename>. Removing it will get the <guisubmenu>Multimedia</guisubmenu> menu updated automatically again when you install or uninstall &kplayer;, but it will also reset changes you made to &kplayer; associations with media types on the <guilabel>File Associations</guilabel> page in &konqueror; configuration dialog or in &kcontrolcenter;.</para> <para>The <guilabel>Contents</guilabel> tab in &khelpcenter; should also list &kplayer; in the <guilabel>Multimedia</guilabel> section under <guilabel>Application Manuals</guilabel>.</para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>Could not start &mplayer;</title> <para>If you get this error when trying to play a file, you need to install &mplayer; before you can use &kplayer;. This error can also happen if the name of your &mplayer; executable is not <command>mplayer</command> or it is not in the current path. In that case go to the <link linkend="settings-advanced">Advanced</link> page in <guilabel>&kplayer; Settings</guilabel> and give the executable name or the full path in the <guilabel>Executable path</guilabel> field.</para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>configure: error: Can't find X includes</title> <para>That means that you are missing the X include files, which normally come with the X development package. So look for a package in your distribution that has files like X.h and XEvent.h. For example, on Debian it is called <literal>xlibs-dev</literal>.</para> <para>Similarly, if <command>configure</command> complains about missing Qt files, you need to find and install the Qt development package. If you look in the <filename>config.log</filename>, it will probably tell you the exact name of the file it couldn't find, somewhere near the bottom. The <filename>config.log</filename> file is quite verbose, so you would have to scroll a few pages up from the bottom to find the place where it reports the error.</para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>Cannot play any files</title> <para>Look at the end of the message log to see what errors &mplayer; gives when trying to play the files. Hit <keycombo action="simul">&Ctrl;<keycap>L</keycap></keycombo> if &kplayer; does not show the log automatically.</para> <para>Try playing the files with <command>mplayer</command> from the command line. If &mplayer; can play them, compare the options you used on the command line to the ones &kplayer; passed to &mplayer;. Set the required options in <link linkend="settings">&kplayer; Settings</link>. The most important ones are the <guilabel>Driver</guilabel> options on the <link linkend="settings-video">Video</link> and <link linkend="settings-audio">Audio</link> pages. On the <link linkend="settings-advanced">Advanced page</link> check the <guilabel>Executable path</guilabel> option to make sure &kplayer; will be able to find the &mplayer; executable, and if there are any options that are not found anywhere in the <guilabel>&kplayer; Settings</guilabel> dialog, put them in the <guilabel>Additional command line arguments</guilabel> field.</para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>Cannot play a specific file</title> <para>Look at the end of the message log to see what errors &mplayer; gives when trying to play the file. Hit <keycombo action="simul">&Ctrl;<keycap>L</keycap></keycombo> if &kplayer; does not show the log automatically.</para> <para>Try playing the file with <command>mplayer</command> from the command line. If &mplayer; can play it, but requires special option to play this particular file, put them in the <link linkend="properties">File Properties</link> for that file. Two options that sometimes help &mplayer; when it cannot detect the file type automatically are <option>-vc</option> and <option>-ac</option>, which correspond to the <guilabel>Codec</guilabel> options on the <link linkend="properties-video">Video</link> and <link linkend="properties-audio">Audio</link> pages in <guilabel>File Properties</guilabel>. If there are any options that are not found anywhere in the <guilabel>File Properties</guilabel> dialog, put them in the <guilabel>Additional command line arguments</guilabel> field.</para> <para>If it is a playlist file but it does not have one of the standard playlist file extensions, go to the <link linkend="properties-general">General page</link> in the <guilabel>File Properties</guilabel> and set the <guilabel>Playlist</guilabel> option to <guilabel>yes</guilabel>. In rare cases a file that is not a playlist may have a playlist extension. Then you will need to set the <guilabel>Playlist</guilabel> property to <guilabel>no</guilabel>. For more details see the <link linkend="howto-playlist-files">Playlist files</link> section in the Playlist micro-HOWTO.</para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>Cannot play any video files</title> <para>If &kplayer; only plays audio files but not video files, there may be a problem with the video output. By default &kplayer; uses <link linkend="howto-installation-xvideo">XVideo extension</link> for video output. If the extension is not enabled or is being used by another program like <application>Kino</application>, &kplayer; may not be able to use a different video output. You can either enable the XVideo extension or tell &kplayer; to use another video output. See the <link linkend="howto-configuration">Configuration micro-HOWTO</link> for details.</para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>Video plays fine, but there is no sound</title> <para>Look in the <link linkend="parts-message-log">Message Log</link> to see why &mplayer; cannot play audio. The most common problem is the audio device being locked by another program. In this case the chief suspect is <command>artsd</command>. Try running</para> <para><userinput><command>killall</command> artsd</userinput></para> <para>from the command line. If that helps then the permanent solution is to go to the &kcontrolcenter; and disable &arts;. &arts; and everything based on it is by far the worst part of &kde;. Fortunately it seems there are plans to finally get rid of it in &kde; 4.</para> <para>For more information on audio setup in &kplayer; see the <link linkend="howto-configuration-audio">Configuration micro-HOWTO</link>.</para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>&kplayer; cannot play a file that plays fine with &mplayer;</title> <para>When &kplayer; is in <guilabel>Running</guilabel> or <guilabel>Playing</guilabel> state, run</para> <para><userinput><command>ps</command> <option>auxww</option></userinput></para> <para>from the command line. Compare the command line options that &kplayer; uses to run &mplayer; to what you are using to play the file with &mplayer;. Then start adding missing options one by one until you get the same problem you are getting in &kplayer;. After you find out what option is causing the problem, you can open the <link linkend="settings">configuration dialog</link> in &kplayer; and remove or change that option. If you need to make the change just for that one file, go to the <link linkend="properties">File Properties</link> instead.</para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>Cannot play a DVD, video CD or audio CD</title> <para>Choose <guimenuitem>Open URL</guimenuitem> from <guimenu>File</guimenu> menu. Enter a <acronym>URL</acronym> like <userinput>dvd://1</userinput> or <userinput>vcd://1</userinput>. For more information about playback from various kinds of hardware devices see the <link linkend="howto-devices">Devices micro-HOWTO</link>.</para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>Problems when coming back from full screen mode</title> <para>If you are getting problems when you try to go back to normal window size from full screen mode, for example the window becomes too large or you are seeing endless flickering, you can try unselecting the <guilabel>Resize main window automatically</guilabel> option on the <link linkend="settings-general">General page</link> in <guilabel>&kplayer; Settings</guilabel>. Also read the thread about this problem at the <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1122221&forum_id=244388">&kplayer; user forum</ulink> and watch it for updates.</para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>Radio station takes too long to start playing</title> <para>By default &kplayer; uses one megabyte of cache. When playing low bitrate media like a radio station, it will take a long time to fill it. You can choose a lower <guilabel>Cache size</guilabel> setting on the <guilabel>Advanced</guilabel> page either globally in <link linkend="settings-advanced">&kplayer; Settings</link> or in the individual <link linkend="properties-advanced">File Properties</link>. For more information on playing online media see the <link linkend="howto-streams">Streams micro-HOWTO</link>.</para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>Large video files take too long to start playing</title> <para>You may have set the <guilabel>Cache size</guilabel> option too low in <link linkend="settings-advanced">&kplayer; Settings</link>. The default global setting is one megabyte, which should work fine in most cases. If you need to set it higher or lower for an individual file or stream, you can do so on the <link linkend="properties-advanced">Advanced page</link> in <guilabel>File Properties</guilabel>.</para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>Only video area is shown in &konqueror; or &kmldonkey;</title> <para>If you open a web page with an embedded multimedia object in &konqueror;, only the video area is displayed, with no controls. Same happens when previewing partially downloaded files in &kmldonkey;. It is recommended that you right click the video area and choose the <guimenuitem>Start &kplayer;</guimenuitem> command. Playback will then stop, and the full &kplayer; will open up and start playing the file or <acronym>URL</acronym>.</para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>Contrast and brightness controls do not work</title> <para>You need to enable the <link linkend="howto-installation-xvideo">XVideo extension</link> in your X11 configuration.</para> </sect3> <sect3> <title>Cannot upgrade kdelibs-data because of a conflict</title> <para>In Debian the <literal>kdelibs-data</literal> package contains <filename>rtsp.protocol</filename> file, which &kplayer; replaces with its own version. If later you try to upgrade the <literal>kdelibs-data</literal> package, <command>apt-get</command> will complain about a conflict. This is a bug in <command>apt-get</command>. To work around it, run the following commands:</para> <para><userinput><command>apt-get</command> remove kplayer</userinput></para> <para><userinput><command>apt-get</command> install kdelibs-data</userinput></para> <para><userinput><command>apt-get</command> install kplayer</userinput></para> <para>If you run <userinput><command>apt-get</command> install kdelibs-data</userinput> before <userinput><command>apt-get</command> remove kplayer</userinput>, another <command>apt-get</command> bug will prevent you from removing the <literal>kplayer</literal> package. The workaround is:</para> <para><userinput><command>dpkg</command> <option>-r</option> kplayer</userinput></para> <para><userinput><command>apt-get</command> <option>-f</option> install</userinput></para> <para><userinput><command>apt-get</command> install kplayer</userinput></para> </sect3> </sect2> </sect1>