Bug#791748: vlc: VLC no longer works without pulseaudio

[Akkana Peck]

Package: vlc
Version: 2.2.1-2+b1
Severity: important

VLC suddenly is no longer able to play audio on systems that don't
have pulseaudio installed. When I run it on an mp3 file, it prints
on stdout,

PulseAudio server connection failure

and then just sits there doing nothing. Clicking the play button
does nothing. It also won't exit: clicking the windowmanager dismiss
button sometimes makes the window go away, sometimes not, but either
way it doesn't return control to the terminal where I started it.
A few ctrl-Cs will sometimes kill it, but often I have to use kill -9
from another terminal.

If vlc requires pulseaudio, it should have that in the dependencies.
But I've been using vlc for years and it never needed pulse before.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: stretch/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 3.14-2-686-pae (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages vlc depends on:
ii  fonts-freefont-ttf          20120503-4
ii  libaa1                      1.4p5-43
ii  libavcodec56                6:11.4-2
ii  libavutil54                 6:11.4-2
ii  libc6                       2.19-18
ii  libcaca0                    0.99.beta19-2
ii  libcairo2                   1.14.2-2
ii  libegl1-mesa [libegl1-x11]  10.5.8-1
ii  libfreerdp-client1.1        1.1.0~git20140921.1.440916e+dfsg1-4
ii  libfreerdp-core1.1          1.1.0~git20140921.1.440916e+dfsg1-4
ii  libfreerdp-gdi1.1           1.1.0~git20140921.1.440916e+dfsg1-4
ii  libfreetype6                2.5.2-4
ii  libfribidi0                 0.19.6-3
ii  libgcc1                     1:5.1.1-12
ii  libgl1-mesa-glx [libgl1]    10.5.8-1
ii  libgles1-mesa [libgles1]    10.5.8-1
ii  libgles2-mesa [libgles2]    10.5.8-1
ii  libglib2.0-0                2.44.1-1.1
ii  libpulse0                   6.0-2
ii  libqt5core5a                5.4.2+dfsg-4
ii  libqt5gui5                  5.4.2+dfsg-4
ii  libqt5widgets5              5.4.2+dfsg-4
ii  libqt5x11extras5            5.4.2-2
ii  librsvg2-2                  2.40.9-2
ii  libsdl-image1.2             1.2.12-5+b5
ii  libsdl1.2debian             1.2.15-11
ii  libstdc++6                  5.1.1-12
ii  libva-drm1                  1.5.1-2
ii  libva-x11-1                 1.5.1-2
ii  libva1                      1.5.1-2
ii  libvlccore8                 2.2.1-2+b1
ii  libvncclient1               0.9.10+dfsg-3
ii  libx11-6                    2:1.6.3-1
ii  libxcb-composite0           1.10-3+b1
ii  libxcb-keysyms1             0.4.0-1
ii  libxcb-randr0               1.10-3+b1
ii  libxcb-shm0                 1.10-3+b1
ii  libxcb-xv0                  1.10-3+b1
ii  libxcb1                     1.10-3+b1
ii  libxext6                    2:1.3.3-1
ii  libxinerama1                2:1.1.3-1+b1
ii  libxpm4                     1:3.5.11-1+b1
ii  vlc-nox                     2.2.1-2+b1
ii  zlib1g                      1:1.2.8.dfsg-2+b1

Versions of packages vlc recommends:
pn  vlc-plugin-notify  <none>
pn  vlc-plugin-samba   <none>
ii  xdg-utils          1.1.0~rc1+git20111210-7.4

Versions of packages vlc suggests:
pn  videolan-doc  <none>

-- no debconf information