[ubuntu-uk] Problem Playing some Video files

[Jonathon Fernyhough]

2009/10/6 Liam Wilson <liamwilson93 at gmail.com>:
> Hey all,
>
> After uninstalling Openshot, it seems that I cannot play some Video
> files (Notably .avi files that use a xvid video codec). No matter what
> Player I use, VLC, Mplayer, Totem, etc; The sound plays, but no video.
>
> And after searching for a codec with Totem, it seems to be that there
> isn't an xvid codec, and yet, before uninstalling Openshot, the videos
> played just fine!
>
>
> Now, I've re-installed Openshot, in the hope that my video files would
> play, and I've had some luck in that they play in Openshot, but still no
> luck in anything else - and I don't really plan on having to import a
> video into openshot every time I want to play a movie.
>
> I've even tried un and re-installing Gstreamer, intalling the
> restricted-extras package, all to no avail' ;_;
>
> Does anyone have any ideas on how to diagnose or solve this problem at all?
>
> If anyone does, I would GREATLY appreciate it!
>
> Thanks; Liam.
>
> --
> ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
>

I'm running Karmic, so YMMV.

This sounds like the problem I had when I added a PPA which updated
libavutil49 (among others). It replaced /usr/lib/libavutil.so.49 with
/usr/lib/libavutil.so.50 meaning Gstreamer couldn't find the .49
version and failed (a symlink didn't fix it). The version which broke
mine was svn20090924, the version I have now is svn20090706.

If you run Totem in a terminal it should tell you what's wrong (and if
it can't find a file).