Using Fedora Workstation, I have installed the rpm fusion packages, which as far as I understand should be all that’s needed for mp4 files to be playable.
However, when I double-click on a file in the file manager, nothing happens. If I press Space to preview it, I get the error message “Failed to initialize OpenGL with Gtk”. On Kdenlive, mp4 clips get a small warning sign but no explicit error message.
The weirdest part is, I swear I opened an mp4 file just after post-installation (after installing rpm fusion). I tried going through that again but it says the packaged are already installed. So I have no idea what went wrong or what I can do to fix it.
I feel a bit dumb, I’m using this forum almost every day it seems like. I appreciate your patience!
I will try to help you help yourself. First of all please try to at least give a brief summary of your system (gpu, cpu, ram, motherboard, storage) because the answer might wildly differ based on what GPU brand you have for example.
Secondly, is your problem related to .mp4 files or the encoder that is used? Because mp4 is just the container and it should mostly be irrelevant. What causes the issue should be the encoder that is used, like h264, h265, av1 etc. So my question is, do videos work perfectly when they are in, let’s say, .mkv container or does the problem still persist regardless of what container it is in? That way we can know if it is a container issue or an encoder issue.
It is also required that the fedora-cisco-openh264 repo be enabled (fedora enables that by default). An update following initial installation should replace the distributed noopenh264 package with the openh264 package as long as that repo is able to be accessed.
Have you performed an update since the initial installation.?
I use the command line with sudo dnf upgrade.
Hi! GPU is NVIDIA 4060, cpu is AMD Ryzen 7 7435HS (16 cores), RAM is 16 GB, storage I have 70 GB available. Motherboard I’m not sure where to find this, but maybe it’s ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. ASUS TUF Gaming A15 FA507NVR_FA507NVR?
Looking at the file properties, codecs are H.264 and AAC. I converted one of them to mkv (still H.264) and the issue persisted.
Thanks for the link! I had already swapped ffmpeg but I did the other two (install @multimedia and libva-nvidia-driver). After a reboot, the video player opens, but only with a message saying the codec H.264 is missing. I can click the install button and I get a notification saying it’s installing, but it doesn’t seem to actually do it. After waiting a couple of minutes, I tried opening it again and the same message appeared. I click the try anyway button, didn’t work, and now the behavior is back to what it was (I try to open the file → it doesn’t open it).
Yes, I’ve had a couple of system updates since installation. I updated again for good measure now, and after reboot the issue persists (although now I get the install codec button as described in one of my previous comments… it just doesn’t seem to perform the operation. Hard to tell though, since there’s no progress bar in the video player GUI).
I was referring to GNOME’s default player (apparently Showtime? Just “Video Player” in GNOME though), but videos also don’t play in Kdenlive and in Nautilus’ file preview feature. I just installed VLC through flathub and the videos are playing, so that’s good news, but it’s still an issue because I need videos to work elsewhere too (such as Kdenlive).
Whoops, you’re right, sorry I got confused with all the numbers. I’ve installed them (dnf install x264 x265), checked that they appeared in the command you sent, rebooted the system, nothing’s changed.
Looking back at things, when I ran sudo dnf install @multimedia --setopt="install_weak_deps=False" --exclude=PackageKit-gstreamer-plugin, the response said everything had installed correctly, but I kept getting errors like this in red:
Status code: 404 for http://rpmfusion.ip-connect.vn.ua/free/fedora/updates/44/x86_64/g/gstreamer1-plugins-bad-freeworld-1.28.5-1.fc44.x86_64.rpm (IP: 91.236.251.38) - http://rpmfusion.ip-connect.vn.ua/free/fedora/updates/44/x86_64/g/gstreamer1-plugins-bad-freeworld-1.28.5-1.fc44.x86_64.rpm
I assumed the system just used some sort of fallback since it reported everything had been installed. But just in case this has something to do with it.
Out of curiosity are you able to play anything if you install mpv? sudo dnf install mpv
Does mpv -v filename.mp4 provide any useful output for debugging?
mpv works fine too… Given that mpv and vlc both work, I’m starting to see that maybe some apps either don’t “see” the proper codecs, or mpv and vlc come bundled with them?
I guess I can ask in a kdenlive-focused community then, since that’s the remaining sticking point for me now.
I have an old iMac with only Nvidia graphics, but mostly running nouveau. After installing the extra rpmfusion packages the journal had messages about missing Nvidea firmware files. In the paste I was copying firmware from macOS, but now you can find older Nvidia firmware from a Debian repository. Could be helpful to check your journal for firmware issues.