Video freezing in Mint 14 Cinnamon

[Emegra]

Hi Everyone

I'm new to this site although not particularly new to Linux having started with Ubuntu 10.4 and switched to Mint when Ubuntu introduced the Unity thing (which I didn't like), So now I use 2 distros Mint/Cinnamon & Peppermint, My PC is triple boot (Windows XP, Mint/Cinnamon & Peppermint), Windows is only used rarely for Quickbooks which I use for my business if I want to work at home otherwise it's more or less redundant, Mint/Cinnamon is my main system with Peppermint as a backup, I also have peppermint installed on an old Dell D600 laptop and an old PC my grand-daughter uses all of them connected to a freenas server on my network so I don't store any data of any value on the computers.

The switch from Windows to Linux was not an easy one for me and still isn't because I am not a particularly computer literate person, but I admire those who are and those who share their knowledge with others less knowledgeable and I enjoy learning. but the main thing for me personally is moving away from Microsoft has given me a sense of freedom that's hard to define and there is a certain personal satisfaction from knowing that the operating system on my computer is my operating system I can do what I like with it and I am not using it under a restrictive licence from a corporation whose only interests are to manipulate me and extract as much cash out of me as they can

Now that the introduction's over and I'm off my soapbox, I have some problems I'm hoping someone here can help me with regarding Mint/Cinnamon,

Like I said earlier I've used Mint since version 9 or 10 and always found it flawless untill the latest version (14 Nadia) which is giving me strange problems that's hard to describe, but an example would be if I try to stream a video file from my server the video wont start and the program I'm using freezes (it could be totem or vlc)and I have to force quit, but even though I've quit the program it is still running even though it's not visible, the only way to stop it is to reboot, when I select restart, I get a message telling me the offending program is still running and do I want to quit anyway

Another example is I use a program called Mediaelch that scans my Movie collection that's located in a directory on my server, during the scan it would freeze and I would have to force quit and have exactly the same problem as I'm having with video streaming, Strangely enough I solved that particular problem (or at least thought I did) by changing the theme for Cinnamint to Cinnamon but it didn't help the video streaming

This problem doesn't occur in Gnome Classic or in Peppermint which works flawlessly so I feel this is probably a Cinnamon problem.

I tried posting this problem in The official Mint forum but got no help so I'm hoping someone can help me

Many thanks


Graeme

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

Hi Emegra, and welcome to the forum

You're more than welcome to stay on your soapbox .. I thought that was rather well put

OK, does the same happen if the video files are stored locally .. say in your home directory .. or only if they are run across the network ?
(I'm trying to work out if this is a networking issue, or a driver/software issue)

This problem doesn't occur in Gnome Classic

The fact that the desktop makes a difference is a bit odd  .. do you mean when you use gnome classic in Mint 14 on the same machine (ie. just switch desktop UI) ?

.

[Emegra]

Hi Mark
Thanks for your reply

[quoteOK, does the same happen if the video files are stored locally .. say in your home directory .. or only if they are run across the network ?][/quote]

This is something I should have tried before I posted I'm sorry, as I said in my initial post I don't store anything locally so I'll have to copy some files over and try that, but due to the inconsistent nature of the fault it could take a while to be sure one way or the other, but I will do that now and post back

The fact that the desktop makes a difference is a bit odd   .. do you mean when you use gnome classic in Mint 14 on the same machine ?

Yes that's what I mean

Many thanks

Graeme

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

Okey dokey then .. you could always boot Peppermint and copy it across to your Mint partition

Can you also answer the bit I added to my last posting.

[Emegra]

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The fact that the desktop makes a difference is a bit odd   .. do you mean when you use gnome classic in Mint 14 on the same machine ?

Sorry Mark I edited my post


Graeme

[Emegra]

Hi again

I copied a number of files over to a local directory and opened 6 of them on the trot successfully, I Then tried running the same files from the server and totem locked up on the second attempt so now I wont be able to open any file locally or remotely with totem until I reboot, if I do try to reboot I will be told totem is still running and asked "do I want to restart anyway"

Many thanks

Graeme

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

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sudo killall totem

Should stop totem.

How are you mounting the NAS in Mint ? .. and what is the path ?

[Emegra]

How are you mounting the NAS in Mint ? .. and what is the path ?

gigolo (is there any other way in Linux?)

The path is " smb://freenas/multimedia/Video/Music%20Videos/Music%20Videos"

in case it's any help Mint 14 changed the normal path to network shares, whereas before the path would be /home/.gvfs/<networkshare>, it's now "~/run/user/<username> /.gvfs/<networkshare>"

this I had to find out for myself

Many thanks

Graeme

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

OK, 4 more questions

1) has the NAS got a static IP address ? .. if so what is it ?

2) where would you like the NAS mounted .. how about mounting the //freenas/multimedia to a directory on your desktop called Multimedia ?

3) Are there any OTHER directories on the NAS (other than //freenas/mutimedia that you want mounting ?

4) what is your username in Mint ?

[Emegra]

OK, 4 more questions

Fire away I love questions especially the ones I know the answer to

) has the NAS got a static IP address ? .. if so what is it ?

I think it's dhcp, freenas assigns the ip on installation which is 192.168.2.4 and it.s never changed

Are there any OTHER directories on the NAS (other than //freenas/mutimedia that you want mounting ?

There are 7 Directories  pat, graeme. multimedia,movies,family,utilities and backup (all drives)

[quote2) where would you like the NAS mounted .. how about mounting the //freenas/multimedia to a directory on your desktop called Multimedia ?][/quote]

That would be good if I can do the same with the other drives



backup (all drives) is an external usb drive connected to the server that stores a copy of all the other drives via rsync so it doesn't have to be mounted so long as I can access it in the event of a disaster

what is your username in Mint ?

graeme

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

Sorry 1 more ..

Does the freenas box require you to enter a login and password to navigate to the shares through he file manager in Mint ? (I don't mean to access the NAS control interface)


I think we'll see if the freenas box alllows you to mount the root directory (//freenas) as that will give you access to everything .. I must add MY NAS box doesn't allow this, so I have to mount the next level of directories individually (as in //linkstation doesn't work, but //linkststion/share and //linkstation/video etc. does) .. but we'll try //freenas on yours first.

10 mins to have a ciggy, then type it up.

Meanwhile .. stop Gigolo from autostarting at boot .. and reboot to test.
then run these 2 commands:

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sudo apt-get install smbfs

and

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sudo mkdir /mnt/freenas

let me know when you're done.

[Emegra]

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Fell at the first

[codegraeme@Linux1 ~ $ sudo apt-get install smbfs
[sudo] password for graeme: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package smbfs is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
However the following packages replace it:
  cifs-utils

E: Package 'smbfs' has no installation candidate
graeme@Linux1 ~ $ 
]

should I try

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sudo apt-get install cifs utils

?

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

You'll have to give me a while to research this .. cifs doesn't support the _netdev option which I found was needed (and why I used smbfs)

Check back in about an hour.

[Emegra]

Thank you Mark

I appreciate all your doing to help me with this, there is absolutely no hurry, I still have good old reliable peppermint to fall back on so this can be dealt with whenever you have time


Many thanks

Graeme

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

OK, according to what I'm reading (and a test I just ran in Peppermint 3) installing cifs-utils and samba seems to allow cifs shares to come up the same way as adding _netdev with smbfs did (it didn't in Ubuntu 11.10 .. so they must have fixed something).

So try this:

Make sure cifs-utils and samba are installed:

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sudo apt-get install cifs-utils samba

Make the mountpoint:

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sudo mkdir -v /mnt/freenas

Now what (if any) is the output from:

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sudo mount -t cifs //freenas /mnt/freenas -o username=graeme,password=your-Mint-password,iocharset=utf8,file_mode=0777,dir_mode=0777

(obviously replace your-Mint-password in the above command with your Mint login password)
and

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ls -a /mnt/freenas