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I am trying to launch google chrome via startx on boot with systemd to create an Ubuntu 16.04 browser kiosk (based on this guide). Everything works great, except I am unable to play any videos in the browser.

I have tried installing ubuntu-restricted-extras. I have also tried installing chromium-codecs-ffmpeg and chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra. None of this seems to help.

Having said that, when I log into the user on the device and force launch chrome with startx videos do play, but if I close that session and relaunch it, videos stop working.

Is there something I need to run when starting an X server for codecs to be recognized?

Is there some google chrome setting I need to set to use the h264 codecs?

Thanks!

elfisher
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  • how do you launch chrome ? with startx or systemd whith what command, file ... ? so it does play once after all ? chromium-* package are for chomium not chrome. chrome!=chromium. How have you installed chrome ? or is it chromium ? – solsTiCe Sep 23 '16 at 15:57
  • I installed chrome, not chromium, assuming that all codecs would come pre-packaged. When I launch chrome with systemd on boot, it is using /usr/bin/startx /etc/X11/Xsession /usr/bin/chrome/google-chrome, which doesn't load videos. When I launch chrome as the user I just run in the terminal startx google-chrome. I installed chrome using the .deb package from the download on their website. This was the guide I used http://askubuntu.com/questions/510056/how-to-install-google-chrome. – elfisher Sep 23 '16 at 16:08
  • Update I also just tried running startx with chromium and firefox with the appropriate codecs installed. The same behavior occurs. When logging into the user and running startx chromium or startx firefox the first time running startx videos will work. Any subsequent application running a new startx X session seem to be unable to play videos. – elfisher Sep 23 '16 at 16:57
  • where do you start another session ? at the console prompt ? you can't run an X session inside an X session. Why do you use /etc/X11Xsession at all ? what video are you trying to play ? Or with what example video does this occur ? – solsTiCe Sep 23 '16 at 17:08
  • When I start a new session, it is after I kill the previous. It's at the terminal prompt. I should note that I'm not running Unity or any other GUI on boot, just terminal. I was using /etc/X11/Xsession because that was suggested in the kiosk guide. What should I be using? Thanks for the help! – elfisher Sep 23 '16 at 17:11
  • Update I launched startx xterm to keep the same x session, then ran chrome from xterm. The first time I ran chrome from xterm, video worked, but an error was logged to the console, [<date>:ERROR:ffmpeg_demuxer.cc(1510)] OnReadFrameDone result=-541478725 IsMaxMemoryUsageReached=0. I then quit chrome (but not xterm) and re-ran chrome. This time there was no ffmpeg error, but video wasn't working. – elfisher Sep 23 '16 at 20:26
  • is this happening too on a "normal" desktop too ? like in a Window MAnager or gnoem or whatever ? – solsTiCe Sep 23 '16 at 20:45
  • yeah, when I do lightdm start and run google-chrome I run into the same issue – elfisher Sep 23 '16 at 20:54

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