VLCJ fullScreen Error Unable to load library 'X11': JNA native support (win32-x86/X11.dll)

Question

I'm doing a Java based media-player but I have a problem showing the video in full screen.

When I use components.getMediaPlayer().setFullScreen(true); I get the following error:

Exception in thread "JavaFX Application Thread" java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: Unable to load library 'X11': JNA native support (win32-x86/X11.dll) not found in resource path

I use a JVM 32Bit, JNA 3.5.2 and VLCJ 3.0.1.

From what I have seen is loading the 32bit libraries but my OS is 64bit. Is this the problem?

Answer 1

It looks like you are trying to load the X11 library in Windows.

That is not going to work.

vlcj uses the X11 native library on Linux to switch a Java JFrame to full-screen.

On Windows, vlcj provides a different native solution using the Win32 API.

So on Windows you can do something like this when you create your media player:

    mediaPlayerComponent = new EmbeddedMediaPlayerComponent() {
        @Override
        protected FullScreenStrategy onGetFullScreenStrategy() {
            return new Win32FullScreenStrategy(frame);
        }
    };

On Linux you would use something like this:

    mediaPlayerComponent = new EmbeddedMediaPlayerComponent() {
        @Override
        protected FullScreenStrategy onGetFullScreenStrategy() {
            return new XFullScreenStrategy(frame);
        }
    };

Of course if you want to support either/or, you can make a conditional check at runtime, something like:

    mediaPlayerComponent = new EmbeddedMediaPlayerComponent() {
        @Override
        protected FullScreenStrategy onGetFullScreenStrategy() {
            if (RuntimeUtil.isWindows()) {
                return new Win32FullScreenStrategy(frame);
            }
            else {
                return new XFullScreenStrategy(frame);
            }
        }
    };

Why is full-screen functionality implemented this way?

It is because full-screen functionality using core Java is unreliable - on some Windows versions it may be full-screen apart from the task bar for example, and on some Linux window managers it may not work at all.

To answer your question about 32-bit DLL vs 64-bit OS: what matters here is whether your JVM architecture is 32-bit, ie the JVM architecture must match the architecture of the shared libraries that you are trying to load.