libavcodec may be vulnerable or is not supported...

[paulcoholic]

Hi all. Nearly a decade-long lurker, first time poster. Learned a lot without having to bother anyone

Updated Firefox to version 50, and now consistently see the following message: “libavcodec may be vulnerable or is not supported, and should be updated to play video.”

I searched here and found no other posts on the subject, and I also searched misc Linux forums for the solution (which was basically to update libavcodec via Terminal or Synaptic). Tried them, they don't work (I'm not the only one for whom they don't work.)

I don't seem to be having any issues with regard to watching videos, to test that I watched a few YouTube vids on tree stump removal, they viewed just fine.

Any way to either update libavcodec or to get the warning thingy to stop appearing?

[Grumpus]

Check your repository and see if there is a security update or if you even have it installed.
With Mint you can still use Synaptic to see if it's in the repository and whether it's installed.
There's also this avcodec update warning
I haven't gotten the message with Mint or Ubuntu so it may be a page issue of some kind.

[paulcoholic]

It was installed.

There are some new replies in that askubuntu forum that weren't there yesterday when I looked around. I'll try those and see what happens. Thanks!

UPDATE: Found one on that forum that appears to work; the one from user "Karel" from 2 days ago:

Quote: "sudo add-apt-repository ppa:heyarje/libav-11
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libav-tools libavcodec56 libavcodec-extra-56
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade"

[Grumpus]

Did you upgrade your Mint? I believe that's what the last line does.

[Drumbrake]

I've seen this weird message too, and frankly it doesn't make any sense to me : looking at it, Firefox is claiming that a system library is outdated, but it isn't Firefox's business to interfere with the system update process.

In other words, if my Linux system is actually fully up to date by means of regular system updates (either using apt-get dist-upgrade or the GUI update manager), why would Firefox complain about libavcodec being outdated?

It is what it is, once your system is fully updated there's nothing left to do - one should not feel obliged to add PPAs outside of the normal sources just to update a single library, unless one really knows what he's doing and why.

PPAs are always a potential security risk, I would rather see this message in Firefox than add an external repository for no good reason.

[paulcoholic]

Did you upgrade your Mint? I believe that's what the last line does.

Apparently not. I'm still on 17.3 "Rosa." I can't go from 17.3 to 18x that way. Perhaps that means something else...

[paulcoholic]

I've seen this weird message too, and frankly it doesn't make any sense to me : looking at it, Firefox is claiming that a system library is outdated, but it isn't Firefox's business to interfere with the system update process.

In other words, if my Linux system is actually fully up to date by means of regular system updates (either using apt-get dist-upgrade or the GUI update manager), why would Firefox complain about libavcodec being outdated?

According to the Release Notes, ver 50 disabled older versions of libavcodec.

It is what it is, once your system is fully updated there's nothing left to do - one should not feel obliged to add PPAs outside of the normal sources just to update a single library, unless one really knows what he's doing and why.

PPAs are always a potential security risk, I would rather see this message in Firefox than add an external repository for no good reason.

Isn't it in Firefox? Unlesss I misunderstand your statement. Anyway, I tried updating using Synaptic, but that didn't work. Adding the PPA is the only thing that did. And now libavcoced54 and libavcodec56 are installed.

[Drumbrake]

I'll rephrase that: Firefox has no business in telling you to add external sources to update some library or whatever piece of software.

The system keeps itself up to date by checking your distribution repositories for updates and then downloading/installing such updates : once that is done, either automatically if you set up your system this way, or maybe manually checking by means of the update manager, or from a terminal in the old school fashion of

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get update (get list of updated software)

sudo apt-get upgrade (install new versions of packages that don't eventually require removing existing packages)

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade ((install new versions of packages that do actually require removing existing packages)

you are all done, nothing left to do.

You can still of course add PPAs to get newer versions of software that isn't yet in the official repositories, or software that isn't present at all in the official repositories, but that's usually not necessary nor recommended
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PPA

installing a PPA should be considered to be a low-security alternative as compared to the main repository, but marginally higher security than simply installing software at random from the internet.

Personally, I would not add a PPA just because Firefox says that libavcodec is "outdated" .

Did you upgrade your Mint? I believe that's what the last line does.

Apparently not. I'm still on 17.3 "Rosa." I can't go from 17.3 to 18x that way. Perhaps that means something else...

That's because in order to switch from 17.3 to 18.x (which is a different release entirely) you would need to edit your sources to point at the 18.x repositories, that would be something entirely different from a normal system update and not recommended at all in Ubuntu/Mint : it only works in Debian, it's still theoretically possible in Ubuntu/Mint as well, but often breaks a lot of things.

A special note about Mint would be their weird attitude towards security, classifying updates in "level 1", "level 2" and so on : that's unheard of in Ubuntu, you have to apply *all* updates to keep your system secure, but that's how the Mint people decided to handle this matter, dismissing kernel updates as "not needed if your system works with the current kernel".

[jivabill]

I am running Linux Mint 13 Maya. Firefox 50.0.1. I get the vulnerable warning for libavcodec often and I have to say I am very tired of seeing it. After scanning forums in the Linux Mint Community and by searching on Internet and here I find no solution for Linux Mint versions as old as Mint 13. I tried about:config and changed the libavcodec to allow-obsolete. That may take away the warning but don't seem like a real solution.

I would appreciate any suggestions. I don't want to upgrade to the latest Linux Mint with the Mate desktop because far as I can see that would mean a complete fresh install and hours rebuilding the Mint with Mate desktop that I have now.

Will the vulnerable message cause EVER be remedied or do I have to live with it until I finally spend a lot of time going to the latest version of Mint?
thanks for reading
bill

[James]

https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/50.0/releasenotes/
Firefox since 50.0 Released back on November 15, 2016 has blocked libavcodec versions older than 54.35.1

Mint 13 is not exactly a new version as it was released way back on May 23, 2012. You run the risk of having old packages or older branches of packages especially if not supported anymore when using a much older version of a Linux distro.

[jivabill]

Hi James, thank you for your input. I realize Mint 13 is old BUT it is also true that Mint told us that 13 would be supported until, as I remember, next April. So I was laboring under the illusion that they meant what they said and my version would in fact have support until the given end date.

So I reckon I will have to figure out some more permanent solution.
Thanks again for your input
bill

[James]

Long Term Support or LTS distro versions tends to focus more on stability vs using current branches of packages.

The minimum requirements of things with Firefox on Linux has not changed that often over the years. The last noticeable change I recall was for Firefox 46.0 and later requiring GTK 3.4 (three.four) or newer ideally for Firefox to run for example.

[jivabill]

Good to know, thank you
bill