[MPlayer-users] MPlayer – changing ‘ao=’ codec order in mplayer.conf does not appear to work for per user config?

[Jim Cross]

Thanks for the details Tom and I agree on all points, which is why I think
it is a bug rather than anything else. I wonder if the perm's issue is
because of the home dir 'bug'.

I have a simple test script(s) as follows to show MPlayer can not find home
dir but I have another python script I use which includes using fifo - see
an earlier reply (the fifo has correct owner and perm'd for all to rw and
x.):

Using a browser (javascript) with following link to run MPlayer:
<a href="/cgi-bin/test.py">

Python script test.py:
#!/usr/bin/env python
import subprocess
import select

from os.path import expanduser
home = expanduser("~")


playing_mplayer=subprocess.Popen(['mplayer', '-playlist',
'/var/www/clockAudio/clockPlaylist.txt' ], stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
stdin=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)

mpText=""
counting = 0
while counting < 300:
      counting = counting + 1
      if 'Starting playback...' in mpText : break
      while any(select.select([playing_mplayer.stdout.fileno()], [], [],
0.01)):
            mplayerResponse = playing_mplayer.stdout.readline()
            mpText = mpText+mplayerResponse+'<br>'
            break

with open('/var/www/error_log','a',0) as g:
     g.write('home dir is:
'+home+'<br>\ntest.py:<br>\n'+str(mpText)+'<br>\n')
g.close()

Results are - running from command line logged in as pi and a remote
browser connecting to lighttpd web server:
home dir is: /home/pi
test.py:
MPlayer svn r34540 (Debian), built with gcc-4.6 (C) 2000-2012 MPlayer Team

Playing /var/www/clockAudio/UKFemail/09.mp3.
libavformat version 53.21.1 (external)
Mismatching header version 53.19.0
Audio only file format detected.
Load subtitles in /var/www/clockAudio/UKFemail/
==========================================================================
Requested audio codec family [mpg123] (afm=mpg123) not available.
Enable it at compilation.
Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
libavcodec version 53.35.0 (external)
Mismatching header version 53.32.2
AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 1 ch, floatle, 131.9 kbit/9.34% (ratio: 16482->176400)
Selected audio codec: [ffmp3float] afm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG layer-3 audio)
==========================================================================
AO: [alsa] 44100Hz 1ch floatle (4 bytes per sample)
Video: no video
Starting playback...


**********************************************************
***********
***********
**********************************************************


home dir is: /var/www
test.py:
Cannot find HOME directory.
MPlayer svn r34540 (Debian), built with gcc-4.6 (C) 2000-2012 MPlayer Team
Terminal type `unknown' is not defined.

Playing /var/www/clockAudio/UKFemail/09.mp3.
libavformat version 53.21.1 (external)
Mismatching header version 53.19.0
Audio only file format detected.
Load subtitles in /var/www/clockAudio/UKFemail/
==========================================================================
Requested audio codec family [mpg123] (afm=mpg123) not available.
Enable it at compilation.
Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
libavcodec version 53.35.0 (external)
Mismatching header version 53.32.2
AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 1 ch, floatle, 131.9 kbit/9.34% (ratio: 16482->176400)
Selected audio codec: [ffmp3float] afm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG layer-3 audio)
==========================================================================
AO: [alsa] 44100Hz 1ch floatle (4 bytes per sample)
Video: no video
Starting playback...



On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 10:14 AM, Tom Evans <tevans.uk at googlemail.com>
wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 8:59 AM, Jim Cross <jimgcross at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It is still not clear if this is expected behavior, a bug or I'm not
> > configuring correctly?:
> > Trying to run MPlayer from a browser using javascript via lighttpd web
> > server and a python script.
>
> This makes no sense to me. I have a similar home-brew
> "mplayer+python+fifo" media player, it works like this - X starts,
> .xinitrc starts mplayer in idle, slave mode, mplayer reads commands
> from a fifo, the fifo is writable by user www, user www opens the fifo
> and writes to it when it wants to.
>
> > The 'home' directory is '/var/www' but MPlayer
> > notifies 'Cannot find HOME directory.' - Does the home dir MPlayer looks
> > for have to be located in the '/home/' directory structure?
>
> mplayer looks at $HOME. Perhaps lighttpd is cleaning your environement
> so that $HOME is not set. It's still unclear to me why you are trying
> to make lighty invoke mplayer..
>
> > As Mplayer is not able to locate home for lighttpd user www-data and the
> > 'local' config file is not found, I tried using the
> > 'include=/var/www/mplayer.conf' line in /etc/www/mplayer.conf but still
> > need to run MPlayer with sudo to successfully read the fifo in slave
> mode.
> >
>
> This implies permissions. Work out where it is not correct and make it
> correct. The user running mplayer should own the fifo, the user
> writing to the fifo must be able to access it, there aren't that many
> combinations to test..
>
> Cheers
>
> Tom
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