Bug: SMPlayer hangs/freezes with .mkv (#878000)

**drawkcab** · October 25th, 2011

So SMPlayer is freezing whenever I use it to play HD .mkv files via vdpau. (see below) Unlike the bug report, however, I am using Gnome shell.

Is anyone else experiencing this bug? Has anyone found a workaround?

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...er/+bug/878000

Release: KUbuntu 11.10
smplayer version: 0.6.9-4

Smplayer is basically unusable in the new ubuntu release. When I try to play anything with it, it hangs and its GUI does not respond to any events (mouse click/move, keyboard commands). It can be only killed. However, it seems that mplayer itself is working, i.e. it plays the movie, but this process is out of any control, I can only wait until the end of the movie. Mplayer also works normally when starting it independently from the command line. When the movie is ended, mplayer stops playing, but smplayer continues to hang until killed.

**drawkcab** · October 26th, 2011

Wow. I can't believe no one else is having this problem. I've reinstalled 11.10 to get the exact same problem. Letting smplayer run eventually freezes the entire desktop!!

**beew** · October 26th, 2011

I have no idea what happens, but it seems that SMplayer has stopped developing at some point,--I stand corrected if I am wrong on this,-- you may want to try umplayer and see if you have better luck, it is a fork of Smplayer so it is very similar except it has more features.

http://www.webupd8.org/2011/04/umpla...d8-ubuntu.html

BTW, how do you know it is a SMplayer problem and not a problem in the mplayer backend? Have you tested with other mplayer front ends like gnome-mplayer or using mplayer with the command line to make sure that it is not a mplayer problem?

**drawkcab** · October 26th, 2011

Originally Posted by beew

I have no idea what happens, but it seems that SMplayer has stopped developing at some point,--I stand corrected if I am wrong on this,-- you may want to try umplayer and see if you have better luck, it is a fork of Smplayer so it is very similar except it has more features.

http://www.webupd8.org/2011/04/umpla...d8-ubuntu.html

Thanks for the suggestion. I already gave up on Oneiric and reinstalled Natty on my HTPC. Even so, I'll keep working on the problem on my laptop.

Originally Posted by beew

BTW, how do you know it is a SMplayer problem and not a problem in the mplayer backend? Have you tested with other mplayer front ends like gnome-mplayer or using mplayer with the command line to make sure that it is not a mplayer problem?

I honestly don't know because I've never been able to get mplayer to play HD .mkv without the smplayer front end. Here's what I know:

Standard def runs fine on both.
Smplayer worked fine with HD .mkv in Natty.
Smplayer worked fine with HD .mkv in Oneiric last week before the major update.

The thing that leads me to suspect smplayer is the fact that 1. the movies plays 2. the gui freezes until, finally 3. the desktop freezes.

If umplayer works in Oneiric, then I'll not think about it too much and just move forward.