vlc wont start (hardy)

Binary package hint: vlc

As of 19 Jan, vlc no longer launches.

Terminal output is thus:
matthew@matthew-desktop:~$ vlc
VLC media player 0.8.6d Janus
The program '.' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'BadAlloc (insufficient resources for operation)'.
  (Details: serial 501 error_code 11 request_code 148 minor_code 5)
  (Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
   that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
   To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line
   option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
   backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)

I do not know how to provide debug information for vlc.