For phonon-vlc you need http://download.videolan.org/pub/videol ... -win32.exe, normally its not needed to add vlc to path, phonon-vlc should get the vlc path from windows registry.
For phonon-mplayer get http://kovensky.project357.com/builds/m ... player.exe
and copy it to %KDEROOT%\mplayer\mplayer.exe

Not working for me.
I have replaced 1.2.0 VLC with your version. Still the same error.
Mplayer.exe in root\mplayer is not helping too.
Nothing changed.

Likewise; still getting the "Unable to use the VLC Multimedia Backend: The shared library was not found." error.

Can Confirm that.Tried different VLC versions, still the same error as described by all of you.

Is there any way we can get this escalated to an Amarok developer? Amarok is working in every other aspect; bug free, as it were, in Window 7. A shame to waste a perfect opportunity to promote OSS. Let's take over Windows with Firefox _and_ Amarok.

I am having the same issue, running Amarok (downloaded the most recent build a day ago) on Windows 7 64-bit. Try as I may, I am unable to get the VLC backend to work for Phonon, each time given the error "Unable to use the VLC Multimedia Backend: The shared library was not found."

I can only assume that with so many people having the same issue so recently, it must be a bug, but perhaps not. I understand this might have to do with the seeming necessity of "VLCLib / LibVLC 1.1," which doesn't seem to be available to Windows users yet. Kind of wish Windows support was more active in the KDE community! =P

Note that the Phonon-VLC backend is looking for "libvlc.dll" in any of the paths specified in %PATH% ( Semi-colon seperated ).

It does not search subdirectories, and if you have an invalid directory specified in the registry for a VLC 1.1 installation it may prevent it finding the correct directory...

According to QSettings documentation and Phonon-VLC source code, it reads from "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\VideoLan\VLC" in the registry reading the keys "Version" and "InstallDir". If that fails, then it performs the %PATH% checks.

bcooksley wrote:Note that the Phonon-VLC backend is looking for "libvlc.dll" in any of the paths specified in %PATH% ( Semi-colon seperated ).

It does not search subdirectories, and if you have an invalid directory specified in the registry for a VLC 1.1 installation it may prevent it finding the correct directory...

According to QSettings documentation and Phonon-VLC source code, it reads from "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\VideoLan\VLC" in the registry reading the keys "Version" and "InstallDir". If that fails, then it performs the %PATH% checks.

Aye, I've added the path to %PATH% down to the exact directory level, separated from the rest by a semicolon. The only thing I was unsure about was how to treat the space in "Program Files (x86)", so I surrounded the entire path in quotes, after the semicolon of course. Perhaps worth noting is that Windows 7's default %PATH% variable is actually %Path%, and if anything's case-sensitive, the checks might not be going through. I did try adding %PATH% separately early on, but it just replaced %Path% so I assumed the matter was irrelevant to case-sensitivity.

I checked the registry and the VideoLan directory didn't even exist. Would you recommend adding it and those two entries myself? Or should I bother, if it should theoretically find that directory in %PATH%?

How to build phonon-vlc on Windows:
Downlaod vlc-1.1.0-pre2-win32.7z
The header and mingw import libs are in the sub directory sdk.
If you are using MSVC you have to use pexport to generate the import libs.

pexports libvlccore.dll > libvlccore.def
pexports libvlc.dll > libvlc.def
lib /machine:x86 /def:libvlccore.def /out:libvlccore.lib
lib /machine:x86 /def:libvlc.def /out:libvlc.lib

To run phonon-vlc the extracted vlc 1.1.0 pre2 has to be in your path or you install it vlc-1.1.0-pre2-win32.exe

I added phonon-vlc to the nightly builds so it should be available tomorrow.
This should hopefully fix the problems some people have with finding libvlc.dll.

TheOneRing wrote:I added phonon-vlc to the nightly builds so it should be available tomorrow.
This should hopefully fix the problems some people have with finding libvlc.dll.

Thanks TOR, hopefully it does. Sounds like you've got it working, so we ought to be able to as well, eh? Think that'd be available by now?

I'm using emerge, msvc2008.

I unzipped the 7z link given. I added the unzipped dir to the PATH. I had to modify the findlibvlc.cmake for phonon-vlc to have this path to look for, and it found it, and compiled, and installed. Still I am having the same popup complaining that it can't find it.

Unable to use the VLC Multimedia Backend:
Could not find plugin 'VLC' for application 'amarok'

There appears to be no difference in whether I get vlc from emerge, or from this 7z. I wonder what the problem could be.

Great news. The problem was that phonon-vlc had the Qt debugging flag on, but that everything else on the build server had it turned off. It has now been turned off (fixed in git trunk) and the next compile should yield a working phonon-vlc.

Many many thanks to SaroEngels for figuring out this bizarre issue, and hello to VLC on Windows! =)

Awesome! Thanks so much guys; I (and I'm sure all the others who had the issue) really appreciate it.

Edit: Ran the installer again to update and am still getting the error. Should the fix be in the current nightly build yet? Anything wrong with this entry to PATH?

Code: Select all

;"C:\Program Files (x86)\VideoLAN\VLC"

As far as I can see, the code doesn't take quotes into account... please try installing VLC in a spaceless path to confirm this, then add it to %PATH% without quotes involved.