[helix-maintainers] helix-player test report

[Thomas Maurer]

Hi Zack,

Thanks for your report. I try to solve the packaging problems and
forward the rest to the helix-player-dev lists.

Am Son, den 25.07.2004 schrieb Zack Cerza um 22:29:
> The first thing I noticed was that there was no KDE menu entry for Helix. The 
> second thing I noticed was that there was no 'helix' or 'helix-player' binary 
> in /usr/bin/. I only found 'hxplay' by using 'dpkg -L helix-player' and 
> knowing what to look for. You should probably symlink /usr/bin/hxplay to 
> something more similar to the actual package name.

/usr/bin/hxplay is already a symlink to /usr/lib/helix/player/hxplay. I
didn't choose the name of the binary, but your suggestion makes sense.
I'll change the link to helix-player [and helix-{producer,server} like
the pkg-names]. KDE menu entry will follow. Can you write me where
exactly I have to place it? [Not a KDE user anymore]

> On switching to fullscreen mode, bad things can happen. But not the same bad 
> things every time. Sometimes the video stops while the audio moves along 
> normally. Sometimes the screen turns all black while the audio continues. 
> Sometimes the video continues while the audio stops. I can usually just 
> return to windowed mode when any of these errors occur. But sometimes the 
> screen turns all black and the audio "stops" - except for an occasional 
> crackling sound not unlike what old records on a turntable produce - and all 
> I can do is run xkill from a run dialog and click on the broken video window. 
> When that happens, I get errors like this in the terminal I ran it from:
> 
> The program 'hxplay.bin' received an X WindowSystem error.
> This probably reflects a bug in the program.
> The error was 'BadDrawable (invalid Pixmap or Window parameter)'.
>   (Details: serial 4336 error_code 9 request_code 142 minor_code 19)
> <snipped part telling me to try --sync>
> 
> And again with --sync:
> <snipped what was the same>
>   (Details: serial 10570 error_code 9 request_code 142 minor_code 19)
> 
> I don't know how to "break on the gdk_x_error() function" or I would provide a 
> backtrace.
> 
> Oddly, I have much better luck reproducing these problems when using kwin as a 
> window manager as opposed to openbox. These are the setups I've tested:
> KDE 3.3b1 (using kwin 3.3b1)
> openbox 3.2 inside Xnest inside KDE 3.3b1
> kwin 3.3b1 inside Xnest inside KDE 3.3b1
> The two kwin setups perform pretty much the same.
> 
> Here are a couple more issues:
> On the first run of hxplay, I see this: 
> http://greenfs.mine.nu/files/screenshots/helix-01-relnotes.png - something 
> seems missing.
> These next two issues only occur with the first setup (vanilla KDE session).
> When I run 'hxplay foo.ogg' where foo.ogg is a vorbis/theora file, I see this: 
> http://greenfs.mine.nu/files/screenshots/helix-02-openfile.png - definitely 
> not right.
> When I run 'hxplay --sync foo.ogg' I see this: 
> http://greenfs.mine.nu/files/screenshots/helix-03-openfile.png - not right 
> either. But different. Go figure.
> 
> In the end, Helix has enough problems to keep me from using it at the moment. 
> Some of this is upstream, and some is packaging. I'll stay up to date on your 
> packages, though. I wrote this up in a completely unorganized fashion, so 
> It's probably out of order and missing information in spots. If you need me 
> to be more clear about anything, let me know.

Perhaps the player developers will contact you if they can't reproduce
your problems.

Thomas