VLC opens two instances concurrently [Solved]

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VLC has started opening two instances simultaneously; audio plays but video is not visible in either instance with the exception that the right-hand instance displays a video thumbnail when the trackpad pointer hover over it. Purging VLC from 'Discover', from Synaptic and from CLI before reinstalling VLC have all failed to cure this issue. Searching has not revealed any prior instances of this behavior that I could find. This one has me stumped! I would welcome ideas on how to diagnose and cure this issue. TIA

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System:    Kernel: 5.10.0-21-amd64 [5.10.162-1] x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.1 
           parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-5.10.0-21-amd64 
           root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet splash 
           Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.20.5 wm: kwin_x11 vt: 7 dm: SDDM 
           Distro: MX-21.3_KDE_x64 Wildflower October 20  2021 
           base: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye) 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: System76 product: Serval Professional v: serp7 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: System76 model: Serval Professional v: serp7 serial: <filter> 
           BIOS: American Megatrends v: 4.6.4 date: 08/09/2011 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 12.9 Wh (100.0%) condition: 12.9/77.0 Wh (16.7%) volts: 14.8 
           min: 14.8 model: Clevo CO. X51 type: Li-ion serial: N/A status: Full 
CPU:       Info: Quad Core model: Intel Core i7-2860QM bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Sandy Bridge 
           family: 6 model-id: 2A (42) stepping: 7 microcode: 2F cache: L2: 8 MiB 
           flags: avx lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 39911 
           Speed: 851 MHz min/max: 800/3600 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 851 2: 875 3: 820 4: 853 
           5: 930 6: 929 7: 864 8: 839 
           Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled 
           Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable 
           Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable 
           Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
           Type: mmio_stale_data status: Unknown: No mitigations 
           Type: retbleed status: Not affected 
           Type: spec_store_bypass 
           mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
           Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
           Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Retpolines, IBPB: conditional, IBRS_FW, STIBP: 
           conditional, RSB filling, PBRSB-eIBRS: Not affected 
           Type: srbds status: Not affected 
           Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:  Device-1: NVIDIA GF116M [GeForce GT 560M] vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK driver: nvidia v: 390.157 
           bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:1251 class-ID: 0300 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.14 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: loaded: nvidia 
           unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,nouveau,vesa alternate: nv display-ID: :0 screens: 1 
           Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 143 s-size: 341x191mm (13.4x7.5") 
           s-diag: 391mm (15.4") 
           Monitor-1: LVDS-0 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 142 size: 344x193mm (13.5x7.6") 
           diag: 394mm (15.5") 
           OpenGL: renderer: GeForce GTX 560M/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 390.157 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel 6 Series/C200 Series Family High Definition Audio vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK 
           driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 chip-ID: 8086:1c20 class-ID: 0403 
           Device-2: NVIDIA GF116 High Definition Audio vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK driver: snd_hda_intel 
           v: kernel bus-ID: 01:00.1 chip-ID: 10de:0bee class-ID: 0403 
           Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.10.0-21-amd64 running: yes 
           Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 14.2 running: yes 
Network:   Device-1: JMicron JMC250 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK driver: jme 
           v: 1.0.8 port: d000 bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 197b:0250 class-ID: 0200 
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Intel Wireless 7260 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel modules: wl port: d000 
           bus-ID: 04:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:08b1 class-ID: 0280 
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 7.73 TiB used: 4.25 TiB (55.0%) 
           SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required. 
           ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Seagate model: ST95005620AS size: 465.76 GiB 
           block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 3.0 Gb/s type: HDD rpm: 7200 
           serial: <filter> rev: SD28 scheme: MBR 
           ID-2: /dev/sdb maj-min: 8:16 type: USB vendor: JMicron Tech model: Generic 
           size: 7.28 TiB block-size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B type: N/A serial: <filter> 
           rev: 8201 scheme: GPT 
Partition: ID-1: / raw-size: 41.14 GiB size: 40.19 GiB (97.71%) used: 12.6 GiB (31.4%) fs: ext4 
           dev: /dev/dm-0 maj-min: 253:0 mapped: root.fsm 
           ID-2: /boot raw-size: 512 MiB size: 487.2 MiB (95.16%) used: 188.8 MiB (38.8%) fs: ext4 
           dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1 
           ID-3: /home raw-size: 416.09 GiB size: 408.48 GiB (98.17%) used: 39.31 GiB (9.6%) 
           fs: ext4 dev: /dev/dm-1 maj-min: 253:1 mapped: 1.home.fsm 
Swap:      Kernel: swappiness: 15 (default 60) cache-pressure: 100 (default) 
           ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 7.98 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 
           dev: /dev/dm-2 maj-min: 253:2 mapped: swap 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 56.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: nvidia temp: 66 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:     Packages: note: see --pkg apt: 2679 lib: 1527 flatpak: 0 
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye main contrib non-free
           2: deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bullseye-security main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list 
           1: deb http://mirrors.rit.edu/mxlinux/mx-packages/mx/repo/ bullseye main non-free
           2: deb http://mirrors.rit.edu/mxlinux/mx-packages/mx/repo/ bullseye ahs
Info:      Processes: 289 Uptime: 1h 0m wakeups: 2 Memory: 31.34 GiB used: 1.77 GiB (5.7%) 
           Init: SysVinit v: 2.96 runlevel: 5 default: 5 tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 10.2.1 
           alt: 10 Client: shell wrapper v: 5.1.4-release inxi: 3.3.06 
Boot Mode: BIOS (legacy, CSM, MBR)

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Error codes from running VLC from CLI:

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[00007f81b80044f0] egl_x11 gl error: cannot select OpenGL API
uint DBusMenuExporterDBus::GetLayout(int, int, const QStringList&, DBusMenuLayoutItem&): Condition failed: menu
[00007f81b80044f0] gl gl: Initialized libplacebo v2.72.0 (API v72)
[00007f81b9376ff0] chain filter error: Too high level of recursion (3)
[00007f81b8025da0] main filter error: Failed to create video converter
[00007f81bc066850] main video output error: Failed to compensate for the format changes, removing all filters
[00007f81b80044f0] gl gl: Initialized libplacebo v2.72.0 (API v72)
[00007f81ccc14b80] avcodec decoder: Using NVIDIA VDPAU Driver Shared Library  390.157  Wed Oct 12 09:14:27 UTC 2022 for hardware decoding
[h264 @ 0x7f81ccc16b00] Failed setup for format vdpau: hwaccel initialisation returned error.
[00007f81ccc14b80] avcodec decoder error: existing hardware acceleration cannot be reused
[00007f81b80044f0] gl gl: Initialized libplacebo v2.72.0 (API v72)
[00007f81b842c7b0] chain filter error: Too high level of recursion (3)
[00007f81b9383ab0] main filter error: Failed to create video converter
[00007f81bc066850] main video output error: Failed to compensate for the format changes, removing all filters
[00007f81b80044f0] gl gl: Initialized libplacebo v2.72.0 (API v72)
uint DBusMenuExporterDBus::GetLayout(int, int, const QStringList&, DBusMenuLayoutItem&): Condition failed: menu
uint DBusMenuExporterDBus::GetLayout(int, int, const QStringList&, DBusMenuLayoutItem&): Condition failed: menu
QObject::~QObject: Timers cannot be stopped from another thread

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I thought VLC'S problem might possibly have to do with the Nvidia driver, so I purged Nvidia, rebooted and went back to Nouveau. VLC still exhibits the same behavior with the default driver.

When VLC starts, it displays a tab in the lower taskbar. If I open Dolphin to select a video file, Dolphin displays a tab to the right of VLC'c tab on the lower taskbar. When I select a video file for VLC to open, Dolphin's tab in the lower taskbar disappears and a second tab for VLC appears in the place of Dolphin's tab. If I close either VLC tab, the video ceases to play (audio only plays, not video). Is it possible this is a Dolphin issue?

[AltTabDelete]

Interestingly, MPlayer (just installed) doesn't seem to have any problems playing my video files. I begin to suspect VLC or its dependencies have gotten misaligned in recent updates.

[dolphin_oracle]

I suppose that's possible. I can't duplicate it though. dolphin can do video previews via the phonon4qt5-backend-vlc stuff, maybe there is some conflict. I guess you could try replacing phonon4qt5-backend-vlc with phonon4qt5-backend-gstreamer and see if that helps.

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@dolphin_oracle
The only unusual occurrence I can think of before VLC started misbehaving is that in switching back and forth between notebooks, I inadvertently used

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nvidia-run-mx vlc

and/or

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nvidia-run-mx openshot-qt

(I can't recall exactly) which seemed to work at the time. This is on my non-Optimus notebook.

I don't suppose that could have screwed up anything could it? I tried VLC with the previous kernel when it started misbehaving, but no difference.

[dolphin_oracle]

doubtful those would do anything either. all nvidia-run-mx does is load some environment variables then launch the app. nothing fancy

[AltTabDelete]

@dolphin_oracle

I guess you could try replacing phonon4qt5-backend-vlc with phonon4qt5-backend-gstreamer and see if that helps.

Well that was interesting; doing that sent me back to TTY4; removing phonon4qt5-backend-gstreamer and replacing it with phonon4qt5-backend-vlc resulted in an error message that “the current theme cannot be loaded due to the errors below: file:///usr/share/sddn/themes/monochrome/Main.qml:29:1: module “org.kde.plasma.extras” is not installed” and so on until the list runs off the page. Any suggestions? Or am I looking at reinstalling?

[AltTabDelete]

OK, reinstalled kde-plasma-desktop so I've got a GUI back. I think I lost a lot of mx's customizations in the process, though.

[dolphin_oracle]

you can check the apt-history, but depending on what order you did things in, its possible a whole lot of KDE packages were removed.