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Looking at answers to how to play WMV files on Ubuntu 14.04, it seems that the correct answer is to install ubuntu-restricted-extras. (At the moment, I get the same error as others, i.e. Segmentation fault (core dumped) with both VLC and Totem.)

However, when I want to install ubuntu-restricted-extras, APT wants to remove a number of other packages. I issue the following command.

sudo apt install ubuntu-restricted-extras

I get the following messages about removal.

The following packages will be REMOVED
  audacity frei0r-plugins gstreamer1.0-libav gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad
  handbrake-gtk libavcodec54 libavdevice53 libavfilter3 libavformat54
  libchromaprint-tools libmlt++3 libmlt6 libopencv-contrib2.4
  libopencv-highgui2.4 libopencv-legacy2.4 libopencv-objdetect2.4 melt
  openshot picard python-mlt simplescreenrecorder vlc vlc-nox
  vlc-plugin-notify vlc-plugin-samba

Why would it want to remove Audacity, Handbrake, Openshot, Simple Screen Recorder, VLC and others?

Or, better, is there a way to be able to view WMV videos without removing those packages?

In case it is of any relevance, I notice that I have ubuntu-restricted-addons installed.

I am using Ubuntu 14.04 64-bit.

Thank you.

EDIT

Lines from /var/log/syslog for running VLC and Totem follow. In both cases, only one line was written.

Running VLC:

Jun 10 20:19:15 Daisy kernel: [ 1087.866980] vlc[7336]: segfault at 977 ip 00007feef9cd553b sp 00007feec82eed70 error 4 in libvlccore.so.8.0.0[7feef9c9a000+f8000]

Running Totem:

Jun 10 20:27:11 Daisy kernel: [ 1563.645868] multiqueue0:src[9097]: segfault at 200000000 ip 00007f0fc01adf12 sp 00007f0fb77fc660 error 6 in libgstlibav.so[7f0fc0194000+35000]
Paddy Landau
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1 Answers1

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Try installing libavcodecs

Also, just to be sure you haven't got anything weird going on, run sudo apt-get -f install and sudo apt-get check

Jared Starkey
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  • `sudo apt --fix-broken install` and `sudo apt-get check` both returned no action. Package `libavcodecs` is not found, but package `libavcodec54` is already installed. Installing `libavcodec-extra` would also remove all those packages. So, sorry, your suggestion has not worked. – Paddy Landau Jun 09 '16 at 14:47
  • Is there anything relevant from tail /var/log/syslog ? – Jared Starkey Jun 10 '16 at 15:03
  • I wouldn't know how to interpret the file, so I've pasted the lines as an edit to my original question. – Paddy Landau Jun 10 '16 at 19:31
  • I've looked at the snippets. Without more info it looks like gstreamer is crashing, and causing vlc to crash. Gstreamer crashing could be the codec itself, or another plugin, or the app itself. Keep in mind that for various reasons many packages depend on gstreamer-0.1 and it looks like you're running gstreamer-1.0. If you try to remove gstreamer, what other packages get uninstalled? YOu might need to install 1.0, then re-install those packages. – Jared Starkey Jun 14 '16 at 15:13
  • Thanks for the suggestion. Trying to uninstall `gstreamer1.0*` (using Synaptic Package Manager) wants to uninstall a number of packages, and install another number of packages. Several `gstreamer0.10*` packages are already installed. Trying to remove those would also remove `ubuntu-desktop`, which I presume would break future updates. Ubuntu 16.04 stable (i.e. 16.04.1) is due for release near the end of July, so perhaps I'll wait for that. I at least have a workaround in that I can convert WMV to MP4, which will suffice for now. I appreciate the time that you have spent on this. – Paddy Landau Jun 15 '16 at 10:50