Totem can't locate codecs h.264 and mpeg4

Bug #543157 reported by WhyteHorse
44
This bug affects 8 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
gnome-codec-install (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: gnome-codec-install

After a clean install of 10.04 on top of a failed upgrade from 9.10 to 10.04, totem is unable to locate several codecs and gnome-codec-install can't locate them as well. All the repositories and good, bad, ugly, universe, multiverse, medibuntu, are all installed. Command-line output from totem is as follows when I play a .flv in totem:

** Message: Missing plugin: gstreamer|0.10|totem|H.264 decoder|decoder-video/x-h264 (H.264 decoder)
/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/GnomeCodecInstall/MainWindow.py:302: DeprecationWarning: Accessed deprecated property Package.candidateRecord, please see the Version class for alternatives.
  record = pkg.candidateRecord
/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/GnomeCodecInstall/MainWindow.py:307: DeprecationWarning: Accessed deprecated property Package.candidateRecord, please see the Version class for alternatives.
  major, minor = pkg.candidateRecord["Gstreamer-Version"].split(".")
** Message: No installation candidate for missing plugins found.

(totem:8505): GStreamer-CRITICAL **: gst_query_set_duration: assertion `GST_QUERY_TYPE (query) == GST_QUERY_DURATION' failed

And when I play .3gp file from my camera I get:

** Message: Missing plugin: gstreamer|0.10|totem|MPEG-4 Video decoder|decoder-video/mpeg, mpegversion=(int)4, parsed=(boolean)true, systemstream=(boolean)false (MPEG-4 Video decoder)
/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/GnomeCodecInstall/MainWindow.py:302: DeprecationWarning: Accessed deprecated property Package.candidateRecord, please see the Version class for alternatives.
  record = pkg.candidateRecord
/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/GnomeCodecInstall/MainWindow.py:307: DeprecationWarning: Accessed deprecated property Package.candidateRecord, please see the Version class for alternatives.
  major, minor = pkg.candidateRecord["Gstreamer-Version"].split(".")
** Message: No installation candidate for missing plugins found.

Any ideas? This seemed to be a problem on 9.10 until I added some PPAs which had the latest ugly plugins or somesuch but I can't find anything for 10.04.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Sun Mar 21 10:01:36 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Beta i386 (20100318)
Package: gnome-codec-install 0.4.2ubuntu2
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-16.25-generic
SourcePackage: gnome-codec-install
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-16-generic i686

Revision history for this message
WhyteHorse (whytehorse) wrote :
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Sergey K (koblin) wrote :

i have this bug too

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Sergey K (koblin) wrote :

reinstallation of some libs (mpeg,xvid,...) fix this problem

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ignasi (igp-oenus) wrote :

Sergey, could you please elaborate on your response, i.e. which libraries need reinstallation?

Thanks

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Sergey K (koblin) wrote :

I remove all libs founded in synaptic by searching word "mpeg", "xvid", etc :) later totem find and install all needed libs..

This is part of apt log:
Remove: gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse (0.10.18-0ubuntu1), mencoder (1.0~rc3+svn20090426-1ubuntu16), libavcodec-extra-52 (0.5.1-1ubuntu1), gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg (0.10.10-1), vlc-nox (1.0.6-1ubuntu1), videotrans (1.6.0-0ubuntu5), libavformat-extra-52 (0.5.1-1ubuntu1), ffmpeg (0.5.1-1ubuntu1), libavfilter0 (0.5.1-1ubuntu1), qdvdauthor-common (2.1.0+dfsg-0ubuntu3), qdvdauthor (2.1.0+dfsg-0ubuntu3), smplayer (0.6.8-2), vlc (1.0.6-1ubuntu1), dvd-slideshow (0.8.2-0.1ubuntu2), devede (3.16.8-0ubuntu1), mjpegtools (1.9.0-0.5ubuntu3), libmjpegtools-1.9 (1.9.0-0.5ubuntu3), vlc-plugin-pulse (1.0.6-1ubuntu1), libquicktime1 (1.1.4-1), mplayer-nogui (1.0~rc3+svn20090426-1ubuntu16), libavdevice52 (0.5.1-1ubuntu1), libxvidcore4 (1.2.2+debian-0ubuntu2)
Remove: gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly (0.10.14-1), twolame (0.3.12-1), gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse (0.10.14-0ubuntu1), gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad (0.10.18-1ubuntu1)
Purge: libtwolame0 (0.3.12-1), libmp4v2-0 (1.6dfsg-0.2ubuntu8), libdvbpsi5 (0.1.6-1), libx264-85 (0.85.1448+git1a6d32-4), libmad0 (0.15.1b-4ubuntu1), libmpcdec3 (1.2.2-2.1ubuntu1), libmpeg2-4 (0.4.1-3), libfaac0 (1.26-0.1ubuntu2), libfaad2 (2.7-4)

I hope it will help

Revision history for this message
John Cudd (john-cudd) wrote :

Fantastic Sergey!! I Removed all the packages you listed. And Completely Removed the one's you listed as "Purge". I also removed totem and installed it again. Then I tried to play a video file and totem successfully found the correct codec and installed it. Fixed.

Revision history for this message
Lars Erik Dahl (laerda) wrote :

I looks to me that the bug reporter installed the 10.04 beta with i386 architecture, but I also experienced this bug after installing the final release on x86_64.
Removing packages as Sergey K describes worked here too, so thanks!

Revision history for this message
WhyteHorse (whytehorse) wrote :

I completely removed all totem and gstreamer packages then reinstalled. That fixed it. It appears to be a bad/failed install somewhere, possibly the gstreamer libraries.

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vanchuck (vanchuck) wrote :

I suffered from the same bug, but was able to get this working with only removing the libavcodec52 package and then allowing totem/gnome-codec-install to reinstall it.

Revision history for this message
.cobnet (mattias-campe) wrote :

I tried the solution 'vanchuck' provided, but the libavcodec52 package wasn't installed on my system. So I tried 'Sergey K' his solution and this worked out (although I didn't installed some of the packages, but better safe than sorry). Now totem did find and installed the plugin.

What I did was:
$ sudo apt-get remove gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse mencoder libavcodec-extra-52 gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg vlc-nox videotrans libavformat-extra-52 ffmpeg libavfilter0 qdvdauthor-common qdvdauthor smplayer vlc mjpegtools libmjpegtools-1.9 vlc-plugin-pulse libquicktime1 mplayer-nogui libavdevice52 libxvidcore4 gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly twolame gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad

$ sudo apt-get purge libtwolame0 libmp4v2-0 libdvbpsi5 libx264-85 libmad0 libmpcdec3 libmpeg2-4 libfaac0 libfaad2

BTW: Bug #350772 seems related: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/totem/+bug/350772

Revision history for this message
Borivoje Petrovic (borivoje) wrote :

Hi! I don't know if my problem is related to this, but the more I search the Internet i can see that it is not. But, I would like to post it here. Namely i had strange behaviour with my Totem. I am running Ubuntu 10.04 which is a clean install. So, Totem can't play certain youtube videos downloaded with get_flash_videos script. File Manager shows the clip preview, and when I go to properties, Audio/Video it shows that the video was encoded with H.264/AVC Video Codec. However, when I try to play this file, only the Totem Icon shows in the Video window. I tried everything which could be found on the Internet, reinstalled plugins, but nothing helps.

What could be the problem?

Revision history for this message
WhyteHorse (whytehorse) wrote :

I just got this bug again with an MP4 file. Followed Sergey K's steps and it resolved it. Note: I had to choose "Completely Remove" to get rid of the stuff and it forced me to remove a bunch of apps like banshee, democracy player, Miro, etc. Once all that was purged, I installed totem and ran it, it found the codecs, installed and everything worked.

Revision history for this message
WhyteHorse (whytehorse) wrote :

Oh, also, I had to rename the file from mp4 to 3gp

Revision history for this message
WhyteHorse (whytehorse) wrote :

Ok, so I figured out how to reproduce this bug:
1. Download attached mp4 file.
2. Open with Totem and you see a broken codec image.
3. Rename file to a 3gp extension
4. Open with Totem and it plays a 5 second video with no problem.

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