Problems with VLC Snap install

Support and Help
1

I am on Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS. The VLC Snap does nothing and when I invoke it from the command line I get:

$ vlc
VLC media player 3.0.20 Vetinari (revision 3.0.20-1-g2617de71b6)
[0000623ac0dcca00] main libvlc: Running vlc with the default interface. Use 'cvlc' to use vlc without interface.
Warning: Ignoring XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland on Gnome. Use QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland to run on Wayland anyway.
Qt: Session management error: Could not open network socket
Fontconfig warning: FcPattern object width does not accept value [75 100)
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

So I removed the snap and attempted to install using apt:

$ sudo apt install vlc
[sudo] password for jcobban: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libqt5svg5 : Depends: libqt5gui5t64 (>= 5.15.13+dfsg~) but it is not installable or
                       libqt5gui5-gles (>= 5.15.13+dfsg~) but it is not installable
 libqt5widgets5t64 : Depends: libqt5gui5t64 (>= 5.15.1) but it is not installable or
                              libqt5gui5-gles (>= 5.15.1) but it is not installable
 libqt5x11extras5 : Depends: libqt5gui5t64 (>= 5.15.13+dfsg~) but it is not installable or
                             libqt5gui5-gles (>= 5.15.13+dfsg~) but it is not installable
 vlc-plugin-base : Depends: libssh2-1t64 (>= 1.2.3) but it is not installable
 vlc-plugin-qt : Depends: libqt5gui5t64 (>= 5.14.1) but it is not installable or
                          libqt5gui5-gles (>= 5.14.1) but it is not installable
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
jcobban@jcobban-OptiPlex-9020:~$ cd /etc/apt
jcobban@jcobban-OptiPlex-9020:/etc/apt$ ls
apt.conf.d   preferences.d        sources.list.d            trusted.gpg
auth.conf.d  sources.list         sources.list.distUpgrade  trusted.gpg~
keyrings     sources.list_backup  sources.list.save         trusted.gpg.d
jcobban@jcobban-OptiPlex-9020:/etc/apt$ cd sources.list.d/
jcobban@jcobban-OptiPlex-9020:/etc/apt/sources.list.d$ ls
google-earth-pro.list.distUpgrade  ondrej-ubuntu-php-noble.sources
google-earth-pro.sources           ondrej-ubuntu-php-noble.sources.save
google-earth-pro.sources.save      ubuntu.sources
nodesource.list.distUpgrade        ubuntu.sources.save
nodesource.list.save
jcobban@jcobban-OptiPlex-9020:/etc/apt/sources.list.d$ more ubuntu.sources
Types: deb
URIs: http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu
Suites: noble-security
Components: main restricted universe multiverse
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/ubuntu-archive-keyring.gpg

What am I missing? Obviously some users are running VLC on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

2

Welcome to Ubuntu Discourse :slight_smile:

I moved your post to its own topic to receive better support.

Thanks.

3

apt can’t find the Qt and SSH2 libraries because your system is only looking at the security pocket.
All the normal packages (the ones VLC depends on) live in main and
updates, but those lines are missing from your sources.

Add the standard repositories, update the package lists, and VLC will install
without errors.

# Add the normal 24.04 (noble) archives
sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list <<'EOF'
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-backports main restricted universe multiverse
EOF

# Refresh package lists
sudo apt update

# Install VLC from the deb archive
sudo apt install vlc

(or open Software & Updates ▸ Ubuntu Software and tick “Main”, “Universe”,
“Restricted”, “Multiverse”, plus “Updates” and “Backports”, then click Reload
and install VLC through Ubuntu Software or apt).

Once those repos are enabled the unmet-dependency errors disappear and VLC
installs and runs normally.

1 Like
4

Note that sources.list is obsolete, you should better use proper deb822 sources (seemingly the system already uses an ubuntu.sources file proper, better add to that one in the correct format)

5

Could try:
QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland vlc

6

They seem to have encountered the same issue here

The solution is to install the vlc snap and run

sudo rm /var/cache/fontconfig/*
rm ~/.cache/fontconfig/*
fc-cache -r

I was told this is an issue due to VLC’s snap using the old Core18 as its Base.