Unable to play videos with Raspberry Pi 3 and Ubuntu MATE 16.04.2

Support & Help Requests Raspberry Pi
#1

I just did a clean install of Ubuntu MATE 16.04.2 to my Raspberry Pi 3.

I am unable to play H.264 / AAC / MKV video files.

When I try to do so with either oxmplayer or vlc, I get the error:

“Failed to open vchiq instance”

I’ve read around about this quite a lot, and can’t find a solution. It appears Ubuntu MATE already has the appropriate udev rule to give permissions to this device by default.

If I look in /dev/ I can’t see /dev/vchiq though if I do an “ls”. Not sure if I should or not.

At the moment I have not installed any new packages, so I don’t think this is something I have caused.

#2

I know nothing about vchiq, but, when I loaded UBMate I found I need to configure VLC output module to get videos to play.
There were release notes with the earlier versions which detailed this change (which I don’t have to hand)
MKV (and, possibly AAC) is a container - so it can depend on what coding is used within as to the codecs needed.
I assume you’ve purchased the licences needed to use the RPi internal hardware decodes, and have them installed via config.txt.
Derek

#3

Derek,

Thanks for your reply!

I’ve been using the information on this page to install the OS:

It mentions a need to buy licenses to play MPEG-2 or VC-1 content, but this is neither of those.

I have also already selected the recommended hardware acceleration setting in VLC: OpenMax IL.

Best wishes,

Tom

#4

If anyone else has any thoughts they would be hugely appreciated!

At the moment I am not able to use the Pi for its primary purpose - watching videos! :frowning:

Could there be something which is not enabled in the kernel in the 16.04.2 image of Ubuntu Mate for the Pi?

Or is there an option that needs to be turned on in raspi-config?

It just seems strange that the /dev/vchiq folder doesn’t exist at all - I would have thought other people would have run into this?