Bug#791735: vlc: VLC no longer works without pulseaudio

[Akkana Peck]

Package: vlc
Version: 2.2.1-2+b1
Severity: important

VLC suddenly is no longer able to play audio on systems that don't
have pulseaudio installed. When I run it on an mp3 file --
vlc filename.mp3 from the commandline -- it prints on stdout:

PulseAudio server connection failure

and then just sits there doing nothing. Clicking the play button
does nothing. It also won't exit: clicking the windowmanager dismiss
button sometimes makes the window go away, sometimes not, but either
way it doesn't return control to the terminal where I started it.
A few ctrl-Cs will sometimes kill it, but usually I have to use kill -9
from another terminal.

I've been using vlc for years and it never needed pulse until a
few months ago. If that's a new dependency, the package should
probably be updated to reflect that (so those of us who don't use
pulse know we have to find another player).

And it would be nice if it gave the user a real error message
instead of just doing nothing, and exited gracefully without needing
kill -9.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: stretch/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 3.14-2-686-pae (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages vlc depends on:
ii  fonts-freefont-ttf          20120503-4
ii  libaa1                      1.4p5-43
ii  libavcodec56                6:11.4-2
ii  libavutil54                 6:11.4-2
ii  libc6                       2.19-18
ii  libcaca0                    0.99.beta19-2
ii  libcairo2                   1.14.2-2
ii  libegl1-mesa [libegl1-x11]  10.5.8-1
ii  libfreerdp-client1.1        1.1.0~git20140921.1.440916e+dfsg1-4
ii  libfreerdp-core1.1          1.1.0~git20140921.1.440916e+dfsg1-4
ii  libfreerdp-gdi1.1           1.1.0~git20140921.1.440916e+dfsg1-4
ii  libfreetype6                2.5.2-4
ii  libfribidi0                 0.19.6-3
ii  libgcc1                     1:5.1.1-12
ii  libgl1-mesa-glx [libgl1]    10.5.8-1
ii  libgles1-mesa [libgles1]    10.5.8-1
ii  libgles2-mesa [libgles2]    10.5.8-1
ii  libglib2.0-0                2.44.1-1.1
ii  libpulse0                   6.0-2
ii  libqt5core5a                5.4.2+dfsg-4
ii  libqt5gui5                  5.4.2+dfsg-4
ii  libqt5widgets5              5.4.2+dfsg-4
ii  libqt5x11extras5            5.4.2-2
ii  librsvg2-2                  2.40.9-2
ii  libsdl-image1.2             1.2.12-5+b5
ii  libsdl1.2debian             1.2.15-11
ii  libstdc++6                  5.1.1-12
ii  libva-drm1                  1.5.1-2
ii  libva-x11-1                 1.5.1-2
ii  libva1                      1.5.1-2
ii  libvlccore8                 2.2.1-2+b1
ii  libvncclient1               0.9.10+dfsg-3
ii  libx11-6                    2:1.6.3-1
ii  libxcb-composite0           1.10-3+b1
ii  libxcb-keysyms1             0.4.0-1
ii  libxcb-randr0               1.10-3+b1
ii  libxcb-shm0                 1.10-3+b1
ii  libxcb-xv0                  1.10-3+b1
ii  libxcb1                     1.10-3+b1
ii  libxext6                    2:1.3.3-1
ii  libxinerama1                2:1.1.3-1+b1
ii  libxpm4                     1:3.5.11-1+b1
ii  vlc-nox                     2.2.1-2+b1
ii  zlib1g                      1:1.2.8.dfsg-2+b1

Versions of packages vlc recommends:
pn  vlc-plugin-notify  <none>
pn  vlc-plugin-samba   <none>
ii  xdg-utils          1.1.0~rc1+git20111210-7.4

Versions of packages vlc suggests:
pn  videolan-doc  <none>

-- no debconf information