VLC does not support the audio or video format "h264" - How to fix?

Issue:

While opening a video files in VLC like mp4 you may get the below error.

No suitable decoder module:
VLC does not support the audio or video format "h264". Unfortunately there is no way for you to fix this.

You will be able to listen sound but not able to watch video.

Solution

For this issue we need to install a rpm package libdvdcss-1.2.12-1. It is available in only one repository - livna.

To install this package follow the below steps.

# yum localinstall http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release.rpm
# yum install libdvdcss

It will install libvdcss package. Instead of above step you can follow only the below step.

For 64 bit

 rpm -Uvh http://rpm.livna.org/repo/18/x86_64/libdvdcss-1.2.12-1.fc17.remi.x86_64.rpm

For 32 bit

rpm -Uvh http://rpm.livna.org/repo/18/i386/libdvdcss-1.2.12-1.fc17.remi.i686.rpm

Error: Cannot retrieve metalink for repository: How to resolve it?

Issue:

When trying to install using YUM, I got below error message:

[root@localhost ~]# yum install vlc
Loaded plugins: langpacks, refresh-packagekit
Error: Cannot retrieve metalink for repository: fedora/19/x86_64. Please verify its path and try again

Solution:

To resolve the issue run the below command in your terminal.

yum update ca-certificates

yum reinstall ca-certificates

Another app is currently holding the yum lock: How to release it?

When you give YUM command to install, update, clean or whatever you will get the error message "Another app is currently holding the yum lock". But won't release by itself. The full error message you see in terminal will be like:

Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit...
  The other application is: PackageKit
    Memory :  36 M RSS (448 MB VSZ)
    Started: Thu Jan 29 23:11:16 2015 - 11:24 ago
    State  : Sleeping, pid: 2356

How to release YUM lock

To release the lock you need to kill the pid mentioned in that error message. In my case PID is 2356, so I will give below command.

kill -9 2356

Change the pid as what you get in the command.

kill -9 <pid>

Unable to install RPMfusion repository in Fedora

Issue

While trying to install RPMFusion repository it gives below error.

[root@localhost Downloads]# yum install --nogpgcheck http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm
Loaded plugins: langpacks, refresh-packagekit
Cannot open: http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm. Skipping.
Error: Nothing to do

Solution

Try the below command for work around

[root@localhost Downloads]# yumdownloader --url rpmfusion-free-release rpmfusion-nonfree-release

Loaded plugins: langpacks, refresh-packagekit

yumdownloader --url rpmfusion-free-release rpmfusion-nonfree-release

How to enable Brightness key in Fedora?

Issue

By default brightness key in your laptop won't function properly with Fedora. For example F6 will be your brightness decrease and F7 will be your brightness increase. While pressing F6 or F7 you may see a bar but there won't be any change in brightness.

Solution 

To make it function properly you need to switch to root user and enter the below two commands

mkdir /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d

echo -e ' Section "Device"\n\tIdentifier  "Intel Graphics"\n\tDriver      "intel"\n\tBusID       "PCI:0:2:0"\n\tOption      "Backlight"       "intel_backlight"\n EndSection' | tee /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf




Copy paste both commands to your terminal enable brightness key. The brightness is not working because the above configuration file was missing. This file will manages the changes in your display, video card etc.

Fedora yum issue - cannot open Packages index using db5

Error message:

error: rpmdb: BDB0113 Thread/process 4827/140262864070464 failed: BDB1507 Thread died in Berkeley DB library
error: db5 error(-30973) from dbenv->failchk: BDB0087 DB_RUNRECOVERY: Fatal error, run database recovery
error: cannot open Packages index using db5 -  (-30973)
error: cannot open Packages database in /var/lib/rpm
CRITICAL:yum.main:

Solution:

Open terminal and switch to root user and do following commands in the same order given below.

 cd /var/lib/rpm

rm -f __*

rpm --rebuilddb

Cursor became invisible in Fedora GNOME 3

Issue:

The cursor became invisible after update. I am able to see the cursor highlights the icon. How to make the cursor visible?

Solution:

You need to open the Terminal window and give the below command. No need for switching to root account.

dconf write /org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/cursor/active false

Cause:

There is a update in Fedora which considers your laptop as touchscreen enabled. So for touchscreen laptop it used to invisible the mouse pointer. By giving above command it will make the mouse pointer visible.

If above command doesn't works?

I have dconf installed in my laptop and so I it worked in my first attempt. Suppose if the above command doesn't work install dconf. You should follow below commands to make the mouse pointer visible.

yum install dconf-editor

dconf write /org/gnome/settings-daemon/peripherals/touchpad/touchpad-enabled false

dconf write /org/gnome/settings-daemon/peripherals/touchpad/touchpad-enabled true

Why Fedora have not mp3 support?

People who migrate from Windows to Fedora wonder why doesn't Fedora have mp3 support. Even I wondered for the first time because most of the audio/songs I use have mp3 format. Fedora is maintaining a page as users are coming with same question again and again. You can see the Fedora answer here.

Those who don't have patience to read, here goes what the page says. Mp3 format is patented content and the owner is not allowing full grant to use.

Work around for the problem

By default most versions of Fedora comes with RhythmBox music player. The icon looks like a speaker emitting sound waves. Using this player you can play open audio file formats like ogg and flac. You will get those audio formats from Wikipedia and some free content servers. To make RhythmBox support mp3 format, Open Terminal and switch to administer user.

su

yum --nogpgcheck install http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm

yum install gstreamer-plugins-ugly

Commands explanation

After you give the first command 'su' it will ask for password. You need to enter the root or administrator password. 

The next step is configuring YUM. Official Fedora repository doesn't has mp3 decoder so you are installing third party repository - Livina and RpmFusion where you will get mp3 decoders.

Last step is installation of mp3 decoder. The last command gstreamer-plugins-ugly will make your RhythmBox player to understand/play mp3 file formats.