[omkar]

Ok, so I read "HOW-TO post about a problem in a useful manner" and here goes,

I installed xbmc-standalone from the PPA as,

Code:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nathan-renniewaldock/xbmc-stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xbmc

I'm using Ubuntu 11.10 on x86_64 with a Gnome 3 Shell (not Unity). Installation is flawless, but on launching XBMC, I get this on the terminal: http://pastesite.com/28349

Here's the crash log: http://pastesite.com/28348

Here's xbmc.log: http://pastesite.com/28350

Let me know if you need the backtrace (it looks like some effort )

Another thing I'd like to mention is that I have switchable graphics on my laptop. I generally use vgaswitcheroo to turn off the discreet graphics (AMD Radeon 6630M) and switch to the Integrated Graphics (Intel HD 3000).

In a nutshell: I can install XBMC from the PPA for Ubuntu 11.10 Onieric Ocelot on x86_64, but cannot launch it at all.

[alanwww1]

Same problem for me. It is Intel Sandy Bridge specific. It turns out to be a problem when the window manager switches between the hardware accelerated gui to a full screen application tuning off the gui effects. It also happens to Unity and even also in KDE. Only when you choose the options to turn off 3d gui rendering engines in Unity and KDE for full screen apps. If you don't choose that, playback would be stuttering. So there is no good solution at all. In Gnome shell you can not even choose an option for the gui not turning off 3d accelerated gui effects when launching a full screen app.

You can start xbmc if you manually edit the guisettings.xml file in ~/.xbmc/userdata to start xbmc in WINDOWED mode. Of course playback won't be very nice, but at least you can start the program. If you switch to full screen after a successful launch you will again get a crash.

I will try to look into this more deeply when I have time. Strange thing is that Openarena or VLC does not crash when swithcing to fullscreen mode.

[farope]

This is the same problem I have on ArchLinux (I assume - my post details my issue here). I can get around it by having an xsession which directly loads xbmc-standalone - obviously it's nowhere near ideal. It does seem to be Sandybridge-specific (is it 64-bit specific?), but I've been having trouble finding relevant information - do you have any links to areas where this is being discussed?

Thanks!

[alanwww1]

I tried latest Fedora x64, Ubuntu x64 with Unity, Gnome Shell, KDE, also Linux Mint x64 with Gnome Shell.

ALL the operation systems have this problem. I have not tried 32bit, but as Intel drivers are all open source, I don't think there will be any difference. What I want to try is whether I can find a non xbmc application that has this problem. If not, we can say that it is an xbmc specific problem and we need to find a solution in xbmc code. If other apps have this problem, it is surely a Sandy Bridge driver problem. Than we need to report it to the Intel devs.

So please If you could try other full screen apps, games, media players to see if we have a common driver problem.

Also I will try a Dharma build if that do the same.

[farope]

As a note, using the same system, I have exactly the same problem on a brand new ArchLinux 32 bit install, so it's not 64-bit specific.

[luculentus]

... It also happens to Unity and even also in KDE. ...

Well, on my system (Ubuntu 11.10, 64bit, Sandy Bridge i5, no external graphics card), I *can* start XBMC with Unity. But if I switch to Gnome Shell I get the same problem: When trying to start XBMC, it crashes then I was suddenly logged out of the system! I hope there will be a solution soon :confused2:

[alanwww1]

On Unity the default behaviour is to NOT turn off desktop effects for fullscreen apps. So it is using xbmc along with Compiz. That leads to increased power consumption and stuttering for me. If you install compizconfig-settings-manager you can change compiz to be turned off for fullscreen apps like xbmc to have stutterfree direct rendering. But in this case xbmc often crashes while turning on or off fullscreen mode. Not always, but frequently.

So ALL major window managers have this behavior.

[Loki555]

I installed it from the repository too, my system is an Intel i5 with 4GB RAM, Ubuntu 11.10 64Bit.

I can start xbmc without problems.
Photos and Music can be used also without any issue,
but when I start a movie (any format) xbmc crashs.

Then I downloaded the xbmc live cd and everything works fine.

Does anyone had the same issue?
Any idea how to fix it?

[Hirs]

Any news on this?

[_Shift]

Same problem here, happens switching from Windowed to Fullscreen mode.
Also, closing XBMC takes (at least) 30 seconds..

[dwalme]

Same problem here with Sandy Bridge. Anyone have any idea how to fix this?

[frederic.ve]

Also here I'm having the same issue. I'm running Debian wheezy 64-bit with XBMC installed from the debian-multimedia repositories. I can start it in windowed mode, but as soon as I switch it crashes.

I'm running core i7 sandy bridge as well, but I can test later on an older core2duo chip to verify if it's related to that.

[frederic.ve]

I tested on a good ol' core2duo setup with an intel GMA chipset (dell inspiron 1525 laptop). It is running debian wheezy 64bit with gnome 3.2. I don' have the issue on that machine. Also, on the first machine, when using gnome-session-fallback instead of gnome-shell. It works fine. It really seems to be something caused by gnome-shell on sandybridge chipsets.

[coacharnold]

I have the exact same problem running on Kubuntu 11.10. I posted the problem over a month ago and never got a response...... below is the text of what I posted ......



Hi Folks .....

been frustrated all weekend trying to get XBMC to install on Kubuntu 11.10. I have two xbox's running xbmc and I want to use the UNPnP server in xbox to deal with my database on my server ..... I've had this installed a bunch of times and never had any problems ....

When I install XBMC it immedietly runs fine but when I try to build the database it crashes out with the following


params.c:OpenConfFile() - Unable to open configuration file "/home/fausto/.smb/smb.conf":
No such file or directory
params.c:OpenConfFile() - Unable to open configuration file "/home/fausto/.smb/smb.conf.append":
No such file or directory

I found a bunch of postings all over the different forums on this issue but no solutions ....

it seems permissions but it does this same if I run it as SU.

I also compiled from source the most recent build .... same issue ...

does XBMC need to be it's own user?

Thanks to all for any and all help
Tim