gmplayer does not find the default skin and no controls are visible after installing mplayer-skins or mplayer-skin-blue

On Karmic, with latest updates.

# apt-cache policy mplayer
mplayer:
  Installed: 2:1.0~rc3+svn20090426-1ubuntu7
  Candidate: 2:1.0~rc3+svn20090426-1ubuntu7
  Version table:
 *** 2:1.0~rc3+svn20090426-1ubuntu7 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com karmic/multiverse Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

When clicking "MPlayer Media Player" (gmplayer) from the menu, CPU works for a bit, but no gmplayer opens..

When launching gmplayer with no arguments from shell:
$ gmplayer
MPlayer SVN-r29237-4.4.1 (C) 2000-2009 MPlayer Team
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control.
[skin] file ( /usr/share/mplayer/skins/default/skin ) not found.
Skin not found (default).

$ ls /usr/share/mplayer/skins/
blue/

$ grep skin /etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf
# Specify your preferred skin here (skins are searched for in
# /usr/local/share/mplayer/skins/<name> and ~/.mplayer/skins/<name>).
#skin = Abyss

# aptitude why mplayer-skin-blue
i mplayer Depends mplayer-skin
i A mplayer-skin-blue Provides mplayer-skin

After adding the following line to "/etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf":
skin = blue

gmplayer opens, but it's control panel is all black (no controls are visible)

and the following output is shown:
$ gmplayer
MPlayer SVN-r29237-4.4.1 (C) 2000-2009 MPlayer Team
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control.

That is "gmplayer" from "mplayer" package.

However, "gnome-mplayer" from package gnome-mplayer, works fine...

After installing mplayer-skins
# aptitude install mplayer-skins

Now a symlink named "default" pointing to "clearplayer" directory is created

$ ls -l /usr/share/mplayer/skins/
total 12
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2009-09-11 14:44 blue
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2009-10-01 08:14 clearplayer
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 11 2009-10-01 08:14 default -> clearplayer
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2009-10-01 08:14 mini

Perhaps "mplayer-skins" should be a dependency for "mplayer" package instead of "mplayer-skin-blue"

Deleted ~/.mplayer directory and restarted gmplayer from shell, but still gmplayer's control panel is all black (no controls are visible)

this situation is indeed very wicked. We have two skin packages that don't play very well with each other. I think we should either

 a) merge both packages
 b) decide on one skin and make it replace the other one

if we go with a), which skin should be the default? And how does the user switch the skin if he want to try the other one?

clearplayer should be the default, because it was the default in jaunty.

clearplayer *IS* the default (see my comment - #3)
It's just that clearplayer skin is part of "mplayer-skins" is not installed when one installs mplayer, because it is not listed as dependency, while "mplayer-skin-blue" gets installed to provide dependancy for "mplayer-skin".

Notice "mplayer-skins" vs. "mplayer-skin", the latter being a meta pacakge that pulled "mplayer-skin-blue"..

Notice in my comment (#2) I pasted output of `aptitude why mplayer-skin-blue` (which it was installed, and not mplayer-skins instead):

# aptitude why mplayer-skin-blue
i mplayer Depends mplayer-skin
i A mplayer-skin-blue Provides mplayer-skin

So, "mplayer-skins" should have precedence over "mplayer-skin-blue" in providing "mplayer-skin"

But that still doesnt fix the issue of gmplayer's control panel (and main window) being all black with no visible controls. I haven't got time now to test why this occurs, while I can happily use the "gnome-mplayer" frontend/package as an alternative...

This bug was fixed in the package mplayer - 2:1.0~rc3+svn20090426-1ubuntu10

---------------
mplayer (2:1.0~rc3+svn20090426-1ubuntu10) karmic; urgency=low

  * make sure that patches are applied for non-i386 builds as well.
    Fixes: LP: #390398, #448603, #448595, #441566, #440346

 -- Reinhard Tartler <email address hidden> Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:55:21 +0200

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.