OMX Problems

[rmhatch]

I started fooling with my 'Pi last Fall (2013) and the version of OMXplayer that came with my original distro of Raspian had these terrific 'on-screen' status and volume displays. It had a problem that it displayed the movie frame in the middle of the desktop--with the borders of the desktop still visible behind it--but otherwise it worked fine. I found a good fix 4 the border problem online (install xterm, then use 'xterm -fullscreen -fg black -bg black -e omxplayer -o hdmi -r "$file" ' in bash 'play script')--but the OMX that came bundled with the latest Raspi releases freezes up a lot (including when trying to jump fwd or back) and the on-screen display doesn't work. Is there a simple way 2 pull the old version from an archive (short of pulling the code & doing a build?). Also, the help dox mention an option to reference a key-mapping file--but no info on how 2 format such a file(?). Any OMX gurus out there wanna shed some light on these questions? Thanx in advance 4 any info ..

[KenT]

old builds here

http://omxplayer.sconde.net/

before that try sudo apt-get upgrade, there has been a recent update which removes some of the hangs

[gkreidl]

All the information you are asking for can be found here:
https://github.com/popcornmix/omxplayer
(scroll to the bottom of the page)

The desktop can now be hidden with the '-b' option.

[rmhatch]

I tried the upgrade. Had 2 do it 2wice (1ce after 'update'). I run OMX in this app I'm developing--which now doesn't work at all!!! My setup script runs 'iptables' which now bombs because, somehow, the install or update destroyed the 'nat' table (or something). This is really discouraging!!! Comments I've read on this forum suggest that it's a damaged kernel & don't suggest any fixes--short of starting over with a fresh build (which, 4 me, discards about 6 mo of work!). Any advice out there?

[jamesh]

I tried the upgrade. Had 2 do it 2wice (1ce after 'update'). I run OMX in this app I'm developing--which now doesn't work at all!!! My setup script runs 'iptables' which now bombs because, somehow, the install or update destroyed the 'nat' table (or something). This is really discouraging!!! Comments I've read on this forum suggest that it's a damaged kernel & don't suggest any fixes--short of starting over with a fresh build (which, 4 me, discards about 6 mo of work!). Any advice out there?

6 months of work? Backup, reinstall the OS, then reinstate the backup.

[gkreidl]

I tried the upgrade. Had 2 do it 2wice (1ce after 'update'). I run OMX in this app I'm developing--which now doesn't work at all!!! My setup script runs 'iptables' which now bombs because, somehow, the install or update destroyed the 'nat' table (or something). This is really discouraging!!! Comments I've read on this forum suggest that it's a damaged kernel & don't suggest any fixes--short of starting over with a fresh build (which, 4 me, discards about 6 mo of work!). Any advice out there?

Quite a lot of noise. If you worked for six months on a project without backups, you should blame yourself. But there are still a lot of things you can do (including a backup):
Take the iptables part out of your setup script and test it manually so you might get an idea, what's going wrong (and bombs are a Windows thing)
There's is nothing like a "damaged kernel" (new kernel versions may have difficulties with some drivers but usually they are much better), and you can always revert to an older kernel and firmware.
You should check your SD card (fsck on another Linux computer, if possible). Perhaps it got corrupted while updating.
Regarding omxplayer: You have access to lots of versions (see the link above). But the newer versions are quite stable, except for some really new features, which you don't use anyway. I've got it running for at least 4 to 6 hours every day and I'm also doing a lot of hard testing (even running up to four instances at the same time) for my own application. If you really find a bug, file an issue at https://github.com/popcornmix/omxplayer/issues to help the developers with debugging. But be aware that they'll ask you for a detailed report, debug logs etc.

[rmhatch]

OK!!! A reboot (and some sleep!) and--YES!!--the OMX works a lot better. Unfortunately, I still have 2 do the dreaded xterm hak 2 maintain control of the player when it's running in my app. The remote I'm using only seems 2 have "visible" codes 4 the keys I don't care about (let's not get into entropy here!) but--using a mapping file--I can get "essential" stuff to work (albeit with some goofy logic). THANX 4 THE SUGGESTIONS!!!!!