Error in skin config file with Mplayer

Question

Trying to watch a VOB file. Installed MPlayer but it isn't opening. I am getting an error message saying 'Fatal Error':

Error in skin config file at line 6: PNG read error in usr/share/mplayer/skins/default/main

What does this mean

Solution 1

The problem seems to be with the outdated Ubuntu skins package:

mplayer-skins

The PNGs are not in the correct format.

The Ubuntu packages mplayer and mplayer-gui are quite old.

Ubuntu has the outdated skin package.

I got it fixed with the following command:

cd /usr/share/mplayer/skins/default; for FILE in *.png; do sudo convert $FILE -define png:format=png24 $FILE; done

Solution 2

http://muhdzamri.blogspot.com/2016/01/mplayer-gui-error-error-in-skin-config.html this helped me:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mc3man/mplay-skins
sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get upgrade
#sudo add-apt-repository -r ppa:mc3man/mplay-skins # You can remove the repository this way again. 

The error with skin disappered but a new error appeared: Failed to open VDPAU backend libvdpau_i965.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

It seems that this second bug is not related to the skin's bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libvdpau/+bug/1300215

So as I see it, I have to return to GNOME-mplayer :-((

Well, I do not know whether this has helped you...

Solution 3

The problem is in the skins. Go to Beyond Linux' page about mplayer. Scroll down to "Skins" and download Clearlooks-1.9.tar.bz2. This was the latest version when I checked, on 2017-11-27.

Then, scroll down to "Skin Installation" and follow the instructions, but first delete /usr/share/mplayer/skins/default (which was a link to clearplayer). The instructions create a link to Clearlooks, the new skin directory.

Comments

[michael]

I'm still getting this error when running gmplayer (mplayer-gui 2:1.3.0-8build4) in ubuntu 19.10 (eoan). As a work-around, I can run mplayer from the command-line, or use smplayer (a different gui wrapper around mplayer).

[sancho.s ReinstateMonicaCellio]

@michael - Please see answer I just posted. It worked for me.

[Hatem Badawi]

for FILE in *.png; do sudo convert $FILE -define png:format=png24 $FILE; done solved the problem thank you