1 <sect1 id="chapter-troubleshooting">
2 <title id="title-troubleshooting">Troubleshooting GStreamer</title>
6 <question id="troubleshooting-missing-plug-in">
8 Some application is telling me that I am missing a plug-in. What do I do ?
14 Well, start by checking if you really are missing the plug-in.
18 and replace (plug-in) with the plug-in you think is missing.
19 If this doesn't return any result, then you either don't have it or your
20 registry cannot find it.
23 If you're not sure either way, then chances are good that you don't have
24 it. You should get the plug-in and run gst-register to register it.
25 How to get the plug-in depends on your distribution.
27 <listitem>if you run GStreamer using packages for your distribution, you
28 should check what packages are available for your distribution and see
29 if any of the available packages contains the plug-in.
31 <listitem>if you run GStreamer from a source install, there's a good chance
32 the plug-in didn't get built because you are missing an external library.
33 When you ran configure, you should have gotten output of what plug-ins are
34 going to be built. You can re-run configure to see if it's there.
35 If it isn't, there is a good reason why it is not getting built.
36 The most likely is that you're missing the library you need for it.
37 Check the README file in gst-plugins to see what library you need.
38 Make sure to remember to re-run configure after installing the supporting
42 if you run GStreamer from CVS, the same logic applies as for a source install.
43 Go over the reasons why the plug-in didn't get configured for build.
44 Check output of config.log for a clue as to why it doesn't get built if
45 you're sure you have the library needed installed in a sane place.
54 <question id="troubleshooting-old-plug-ins">
56 I get an error that says something like
58 (process:26626): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: specified instance size for type
59 `DVDReadSrc' is smaller than the parent type's `GstElement' instance size
69 <question id="troubleshooting-segfault">
71 The GStreamer application I used stops with a segmentation fault. What can
78 There are two things you can do. If you compiled GStreamer with specific
79 optimization compilation flags, you should try recompiling GStreamer,
80 the application and the plug-ins without any optimization flags. This allows
81 you to verify if the problem is due to optimization or due to bad code.
82 Second, it will also allow you to provide a reasonable backtrace in case
83 the segmentation fault still occurs.
86 The second thing you can do is look at the backtrace to get an idea of where
87 things are going wrong, or give us an idea of what is going wrong.
88 To provide a backtrace, you should
91 run the application in gdb by starting it with
95 (If the application is in a source tree instead of installed on the system,
96 you might want to put "libtool" before "gdb")
99 Pass on the command line arguments to the application by typing
101 set args (the arguments to the application)
106 Type "run" at the (gdb) prompt and wait for the application to
107 segfault. The application will run a lot slower, however.
110 After the segfault, type "bt" to get a backtrace. This is a stack of
111 function calls detailing the path from main () to where the code is
115 If the application you're trying to debug contains threads, it is also
120 and get backtraces of all of the threads involved, by switching to
121 a different thread using "thread (number)" and then again requesting
122 a backtrace using "bt".
126 If you can't or don't want to work out the problem yourself, a copy and paste
127 of all this information should be included in your
128 <link linkend="using-bugs-where">bug report</link>.
137 <question id="troubleshooting-wiki">
139 I'm having problems building or installing GStreamer. What should I do ?
145 We've started a step-by-step
146 <ulink url="http://gstreamer.net/wiki/?DichotomousKey">
147 troubleshooting guide</ulink>.
148 Look there before asking, your problem might already have been solved by