OK, since I’m new to the community I want to give my thanks to all who have worked on Ubuntu MATE. I first installed on my Raspberry Pi 2, and liked it so much I installed it on my Acer Aspire One. Now I’ve installed it on my new Raspberry Pi 3. LOVE Ubuntu MATE!
Now, the reason for this post. I’ve noticed that the OMXPlayer GUI is not opening on the Raspberry Pi 3. OMX is still working from the command line with no problem, but GUI acts like it is not there. No error message, no activity, nothing.
I’m using the OMX command line, so sorry, I probably won’t contribute much to solving this problem, but I started this post just to make people aware, and to find out if this is only my Pi 3/Ubuntu MATE that this happening with.
Again I wanted to give my thanks to the Ubuntu MATE community and developers.
Hi,
found that this issue is caused by the lack of youtube-dl. Download and install it via terminal:
sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
In my case that was the cure.
Hope that help.
Yep, that worked…3 times(let me explain). The first time I tried it, the GUI worked, but OMXPlayer disappeared, I think due to a corruption in either the download or during installation. So then I made a new boot microSD card, followed these instructions a second time to get OMXplayer GUI working (everything went great). Then loaded gnome disk utility and gparted to format the old ubuntuMATE card (can you see where this is going?). So, since it was late and I was a little groggy, I formatted the BOOT partition on the functioning microSD card. Soooo, after the third time installing MATE, I again followed these instructions, and again they worked like a charm. Much thanks krzychu70.
That may fix it, but I don’t think that’s the right fix.
youtube-dl was added as a package, so it’s now in /usr/bin/youtube-dl. tboplayer should be changed to pick it up from the new location.
I was able to change my user settings by doing this:
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/youtube-dl /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
In tboplayer, options->edit, change youtube-dl location to /usr/bin/youtube-dl
sudo rm /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
This allows you to start tboplayer so that you can get to the option that needs to be changed.
I believe you are correct. This first method, I would call a work around. Since youtube-dl and OMXplayer are already installed and working. Only the GUI for OMXplayer is not working. As I understand it, this new version of MATE has OMXplayerGUI looking for youtube-dl in /usr/local/bin but it is actually in /usr/bin. So the first method, double/reinstalls youtube-dl into the folder OMXplayerGUI is looking.
The second method, which is what we think is a solution, is correcting OMXplayerGUI to look in the folder youtube-dl is actually installed.
I’m hoping krzychu doesn’t take offense, he had a solution quickly (within 24hrs)
I think the only question is if either method would cause problems when updating. If updates set these two programs looking to separate folders again.
I hope I am giving an accurate explanation for anyone else needing this info. Any corrections welcome. Thanks yakovlev, for taking the time to keep search for answers.
No offence at all, you could call me… any way you like for taking offense from learning.
I’m sorry newbie trying to find quick solutions of my RPi problems. I’m happy that I could help somebody and happy to learn from somebody else. Thanks. 
Actually, don’t be sorry. You had a solution extremely quickly, and that is important. I am very happy to have had both of your responses, since I now have a choice of solutions and can base my choice on how each works. Now I have things working and a look into how things are packaged, so I have gained the knowledge to apply in other areas as well.
I’m curious to see if, in the future Ubuntu MATE packages, they have these folders changed again. There may have been a reason these folders were changed and did not get fully worked out before being released. And now we all have choices and know where to look if we see this again. Now I’m off to check on overheating isssues with the RPi3. Enjoyed the interaction here. Thanks again to both of you.
Ok, here is my latest on this subject. I’m doing an access point project and wanted to do it in UMate so I made a new boot micro sd card.
Since it was a new download and install, I decided to check on the OMXplayer GUI. It starts up fine… until you open youtube-dl with an Internet connection. This may be masking the problem when anyone goes to duplicate the problem looking for a fix. If you just start up and open OMX gui, then it works and everything’s fine, right?
Well, no! It will work until it gets a connection and/or youtube-dl is run. Then it disappears.
Anyway, I still think the previous fixes are the way to go, but I thought this info might be needed for any developer looking to change the iso in the future.
If this is fixed in a future version, could someone please post it here? I’d like to do a clean install with it fixed
Thanks again, to the UbuntuMATE team.