vlc crashes instantly trying to output video to alternate x screen/display

I have this problem too.

Looks like this may be related to this problem:

   http://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=50593

For me, a workaround is to start vlc with the --no-embedded-video option.

... or instead of a command line option, you could obviously also just deselect the "Embed video in interface" option on the Tools / Preferences / Interfaces page under the Interface Type part; that appears to work as well here.

Thankyou SO much. This has been bugging me since upgrading from Jaunty to Karmic alpha. or from VLC 0.x to 1.x. Can't remember which but it's been ages. And your workaround is perfect! Maybe I set it up not to be embedded a long time ago when I set up Jaunty and forgot. I wouldn't have tried doing it this time if it hadn't been for your reply.

Thanks Per Baekgaard. This has been bugging me for a while!

I follow instructions but didn't work for me

This bug was fixed in the package vlc - 1.1.0-1ubuntu1

---------------
vlc (1.1.0-1ubuntu1) maverick; urgency=low

  * Merge from Debian unstable, remaining changes:
    - build and install the libx264 plugin
    - add Xb-Npp header to vlc package
    - Add apport hook to include more vlc dependencies in bug reports
  * Drop xulrunner patches.
  * Drop 502_xulrunner_191.diff.

vlc (1.1.0-1) unstable; urgency=low

  [ Christophe Mutricy ]
  * New upstream version 1.1.0 (Closes: #586760, LP: #597108)
    * Fixes many bugs (Closes: #572151, #578917, #526088, #572914, #503377;
      LP: #206152, #261001, #281478, #282215, #282966, #283379, #283855,
      #285681, #287263, #328064, #328861, #346631, #356006, #356908, #357595,
      #358461, #362793, #368599, #375854, #380077, #383443, #403135, #403657,
      #403802, #414069, #415396, #416294, #419915, #422797, #425975, #427247,
      #435225, #439271, #442038, #444795, #453928, #459515, #461443, #465687,
      #466418, #476478, #482440, #491151, #491601, #514915, #517329, #517496,
      #537627, #539406, #542293, #549029, #549902, #550468, #550485, #550599,
      #551482, #553503, #554277, #556440, #560167, #564964, #566347, #568750,
      #570666, #582785, #584009, #586692, #587528)
    * SONAME changes
    * Update symbols files
    * Refresh patches and remove the ones merged upstream
  * rules:
    * Disable projectm and sqlite
    * Upstream Makefile install icons at the good place, simplify debian/rules
    * Specify where to install solids files
    * Install the optim only if present
    * Make sure we have useful build log
  * *.install: reflect new modules path and add new files
  * Add a trigger to generate the modules' cache as root.
  * Update the doc which get installed
  * control:
    * Prefer a recent libdvbpsi
    * add lua5.1 to have luac
    * Add more build-dep: xcb*, dirac, dc1394
  * Patch to allow compilation with xul 1.9.1
  * Remove unneeded -V for dh_makeshlibs
  * Use configure option instead of patching
  * Use dh_bugfiles and update the bug control file
  * Don't advertise deprecated package in vlc's manpage
  * Add some news about lua and zvbi
  * Move the luahttp's .hosts to /etc/vlc

  [ Benjamin Drung ]
  * Switch to dpkg-source 3.0 (quilt) format.
  * Disable portaudio module.
  * Update symbols files.
  * Cleanup clean rule and other parts of debian/rules.
  * Remove default values from git-buildpackage config.
  * Change installation of man pages.
  * Remove unused ${shlibs:Depends}.
  * Sort Build-Depends and Depends.
  * Remove unused libhal-dev from Build-Depends (Closes: #580407).
  * Remove unused --enable-release configure flag.
  * Remove unused Build-Depends libid3tag0-dev, libsysfs-dev, and libxv-dev.
  * Provide VBI teletext plugin (Closes: #563873) - thanks to László
    Benedek <email address hidden> for the patch.
  * Enable atmo, fluidsynth (separate package), libproxy (Closes: #532110),
    kate (Closes: #563464), and mtp plugin.
  * Comment disabled features.
  * Explicitly enable or disable features.
  * Vcs-Browser link to summary page.
  * Convert patch header to DEP-3 and add DEP-3 to 502_xulrunner_191.diff.
  * Add myself to Uploaders.
  * ...