for the love of god, make VLC 2.0.2 work on my finicky mac minis
July 16, 2012 5:23 PM Subscribe
Help me make the finicky mac minis play well with VLC
I have several mac minis, all the same model (mac mini aluminum, macmini4,1 - Intel core duo 2.4) running OS X 10.6.6. Yes, they're behind a few versions, frozen there for a specific app incompatibility. This cannot change. And they've all got nvidia geforce 320m's in them.
All but a handful of these mac minis run VLC 2.0.2 (pointed at multicast streams) just fine, with no errors. The two that don't give me an error: "Your video output is not supported. Your mac lacks quartz extreme acceleration, which is required for video output."
Yes, I've Googled this to death, and the solutions haven't worked - i.e. try prior VLC versions, try adjusting screen resolution, try setting specific output modules under preferences - output modules etc. All those links in the VLC forums that you may be about to add here, I've seen them, and tried them. Still failing.
No, there is literally no difference (software or hardware) between these mac minis and the rest that I can find.
Has anyone else seen this? Anyone have a fix?
I have several mac minis, all the same model (mac mini aluminum, macmini4,1 - Intel core duo 2.4) running OS X 10.6.6. Yes, they're behind a few versions, frozen there for a specific app incompatibility. This cannot change. And they've all got nvidia geforce 320m's in them.
All but a handful of these mac minis run VLC 2.0.2 (pointed at multicast streams) just fine, with no errors. The two that don't give me an error: "Your video output is not supported. Your mac lacks quartz extreme acceleration, which is required for video output."
Yes, I've Googled this to death, and the solutions haven't worked - i.e. try prior VLC versions, try adjusting screen resolution, try setting specific output modules under preferences - output modules etc. All those links in the VLC forums that you may be about to add here, I've seen them, and tried them. Still failing.
No, there is literally no difference (software or hardware) between these mac minis and the rest that I can find.
Has anyone else seen this? Anyone have a fix?
Have you tried installing the Snow Leopard Graphics Update [download link]?
I forget the exact details, but there an issue with 10.6.4 that got tripped depending on what OS X versions machines were updated from (e.g. 10.6.1 -> 10.6.4 vs 10.6.3 -> 10.6.4). Installing the update seems to fix that, though some reports indicate it may take a full "shutdown - remove power - wait - restore power - startup" cycle to properly fix. I wonder if you've got a similar problem due to how the machines were updated?
posted by Pinback at 6:02 PM on July 16, 2012
I forget the exact details, but there an issue with 10.6.4 that got tripped depending on what OS X versions machines were updated from (e.g. 10.6.1 -> 10.6.4 vs 10.6.3 -> 10.6.4). Installing the update seems to fix that, though some reports indicate it may take a full "shutdown - remove power - wait - restore power - startup" cycle to properly fix. I wonder if you've got a similar problem due to how the machines were updated?
posted by Pinback at 6:02 PM on July 16, 2012
Oh, err… also, check those machines don't have VNC installed or ARD turned on. Both can bugger up Quartz Extreme in weird ways e.g. the system reports it available, some apps (i.e. Chess, the developer demos, etc.) run, but others (i.e. iMovie, DVD Player) won't.
posted by Pinback at 6:13 PM on July 16, 2012
posted by Pinback at 6:13 PM on July 16, 2012
If you have access to one of the working minis, chances are you can boot it into target disk mode, attach it via a firewire cable to another machine, and use Disk Utility to capture an image of it's hard drive. Do the reverse process with a problem mini (restoring the captured image over the non working hard drive - you can even live partition the hard drive and restore to the fresh partition) and see if that fixes the issue. You are ghosting / reimaging the machine with a working configuration, so unless there is a graphics firmware issue at play, your problem mini should now have the OS issues in question.
Also the reverse is true, try to capture a broken mini, and you can test against it if reimaging them isn't a feasible option and you'd want to try to patch against it.
posted by mrzarquon at 9:54 PM on July 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
Also the reverse is true, try to capture a broken mini, and you can test against it if reimaging them isn't a feasible option and you'd want to try to patch against it.
posted by mrzarquon at 9:54 PM on July 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: thanks everybody - VNC and ARD are definitely in the mix here so I'll concentrate there first.
posted by bhance at 7:23 AM on July 17, 2012
posted by bhance at 7:23 AM on July 17, 2012
« Older I didn't think the infection was THAT bad. | How do you move on in a healthy light from an... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
Are they all plugged into the same type of number of displays?
posted by The Lamplighter at 5:56 PM on July 16, 2012