Vokoscreen is not working in Fedora 30

Vokoscreen seems to be non-functional in Fedora 30. I don’t see reports of it breaking too much in Ubuntu, so this is probaby a packaging issue.

When I try to record a screen+audio presentation with the libx264 videocodec, I get either a video that contains a short burst of auto at the start and is then silent, or I get a popup message that says " [vokoscreen] /bin/ffmpeg is crashed on … etc". Sometimes I get messages on stout:

[vokoscreen] File VERSION available
** Message: 13:34:18.716: PackageKit: xid = 88080390
** Message: 13:34:18.716: PackageKit: desktop_id = (null)
** Message: 13:34:18.716: PackageKit: Codec nice name: H.264 (High Profile) decoder
** Message: 13:34:18.716: PackageKit: ignoring field named level
** Message: 13:34:18.716: PackageKit: ignoring field named profile
** Message: 13:34:18.716: PackageKit: ignoring field named interlace-mode
** Message: 13:34:18.716: PackageKit: ignoring field named chroma-format
** Message: 13:34:18.716: PackageKit: ignoring field named bit-depth-luma
** Message: 13:34:18.716: PackageKit: ignoring field named bit-depth-chroma
** Message: 13:34:18.716: PackageKit: structure: gstreamer1(decoder-video/x-h264)()(64bit)
** Message: 13:34:18.721: PackageKit: Did not install codec: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name is not activatable
** Message: 13:34:34.395: PackageKit: xid = 88080390
** Message: 13:34:34.395: PackageKit: desktop_id = (null)
** Message: 13:34:34.395: PackageKit: Codec nice name: H.264 (High Profile) decoder
** Message: 13:34:34.395: PackageKit: ignoring field named level
** Message: 13:34:34.395: PackageKit: ignoring field named profile
** Message: 13:34:34.395: PackageKit: ignoring field named interlace-mode
** Message: 13:34:34.395: PackageKit: ignoring field named chroma-format
** Message: 13:34:34.395: PackageKit: ignoring field named bit-depth-luma
** Message: 13:34:34.395: PackageKit: ignoring field named bit-depth-chroma
** Message: 13:34:34.396: PackageKit: structure: gstreamer1(decoder-video/x-h264)()(64bit)
** Message: 13:34:34.400: PackageKit: Did not install codec: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name is not activatable

or sometimes

~$ vokoscreen
[vokoscreen] File VERSION available
Warning: QProcess::start: Process is already running ((null):0, (null))

I can record audio using the mpeg4 videocodec, but there is no video.

Since there are no reports of major problems in Ubuntu, I suspect this is a packaging issue. Where can I direct my questions and bug reports?

W

1 Like

You need install gstreamer1 bad-freeworld, libav, and ugly…

sudo dnf install gstreamer1-{libav,plugins-{good,ugly,bad{-free,-nonfree}}} --setopt=strict=0

Thanks for the hint, and for the curly-brace regexp tutorial (always helpful to see these examples.)

I had most of the gstreamer1 plugins listed already, I installed {-libav,plugins-ugly} first and saw no change in behavior.

Turns out it might be weird frame rates. I still had not tested one thing - I was recording at an unusual 1 to 4 frame per sec since I was recording narration for a slide show. So I tried recording at 24 frames/sec and it seemed to work OK. So it looks like a bug with low frame rates. 8 fps worked for a 5 minute test. This is with the libxh264 and libmp3lame codecs.

I now need to test to see what the minimum frame rate would be for a long video. for now, I think I will keep it at least 12 fps and let compression do its best. I would hate to record a 15 minute narration and have the audio go out halfway through.

Current installed plugins are:
gstreamer1-libav.x86_64 1.16.0-1.fc30 @rpmfusion-free-updates
gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free.x86_64 1.16.0-2.fc30 @updates
gstreamer1-plugins-base.x86_64 1.16.0-1.fc30 @updates
gstreamer1-plugins-good.x86_64 1.16.0-1.fc30 @updates
gstreamer1-plugins-good-gtk.x86_64 1.16.0-1.fc30 @updates
gstreamer1-plugins-good-qt.x86_64 1.16.0-1.fc30 @updates
gstreamer1-plugins-ugly.x86_64 1.16.0-2.fc30 @rpmfusion-free-updates
gstreamer1-plugins-ugly-free.x86_64 1.16.0-2.fc30 @updates

which did install as dependencies:

liba52 0.7.4-35.fc30 fedora 38 k
libmpeg2 0.5.1-18.fc30 updates 71 k