gstreamer can no longer find plugins even though they are all installed

something may have broke or not upgraded. you may want to manually try to remove and reload your player in the terminal

this may help

Remove partial packages

This is yet another built-in feature, but this time it is not used in Synaptic Package Manager. It is used in theTerminal. To access the Terminal, go to Applications > Accessories > Terminal. Now, in the Terminal, key in the following command

sudo apt-get autoclean

Remove unnecessary locale data

For this we need to install localepurge.Automagically remove unnecessary locale data.This is just a simple script to recover diskspace wasted for unneeded locale files and localized man pages. It will automagically be invoked upon completion of any apt installation run.

Install localepurge in Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install localepurge

After installing anything with apt-get install, localepurge will remove all translation files and translated man pages in languages you cannot read.

If you want to configure localepurge you need to edit /etc/locale.nopurge

This can save you several megabytes of disk space, depending on the packages you have installed.

Example:-

I am trying to install dicus using apt-get

sudo apt-get install discus

after end of this installation you can see something like below

localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/locale: 41860K

Remove “orphaned” packages

If you want to remove orphaned packages you need to install deborphan package.

Install deborphan in Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install deborphan

Using deborphan

Open Your terminal and enter the following command

sudo deborphan | xargs sudo apt-get -y remove --purge

Remove “orphaned” packages Using GtkOrphan

GtkOrphan (a Perl/Gtk2 application for debian systems) is a graphical tool which analyzes the status of your installations, looking for orphaned libraries. It implements a GUI front-end for deborphan, adding the package-removal capability.

Install GtkOrphan in Ubuntu

First you need to download latest version of GtkOrphan from here using the following command

wget http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/g/gtkorphan/gtkorphan_0.4.2-2_all.deb

Now you have gtkorphan_0.4.2-2_all.deb package you need to install this using the following command

dpkg -i gtkorphan_0.4.2-2_all.deb

At the time of installation you get the following error

dpkg -i gtkorphan_0.4.2-2_all.deb
Selecting previously deselected package gtkorphan.
(Reading database … 175891 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking gtkorphan (from gtkorphan_0.4.2-2_all.deb) …
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of gtkorphan:
gtkorphan depends on deborphan (>= 1.7.17); however:
Package deborphan is not installed.
gtkorphan depends on libgtk2-gladexml-perl; however:
Package libgtk2-gladexml-perl is not installed.
dpkg: error processing gtkorphan (--install):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
gtkorphan

You need to use the following command to fix

sudo apt-get -f install

This will complete the installation.Once you finished the installation go to System--->Administration--->Remove Orphaned Packages

once your sure that the problem is not with your software sources which may have inhibited your operation in someway as well

check to see that your package is intacked in synaptic first^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

goto your filter and look to see if there are broken packages, as well scroll down and look for the "ugly" packages.

No, thank you for all the advice, all of those ideas are sound, but having tried them all, I still have the same problem. Video plays everywhere but in totem, and none of the plugins (good, bad, ugly, etc.) are broken. I even tried dpkg --force-all --purge on all the gstreamer packages and then reinstalled them with apt-get, but no luck.

there are two "video players"(totem) in some of the add/remove sections if you still are running a version that has the little star ratings
and easy listing of applications one had 1 star the other 4-5 same app?
??look there

sorry your still having trouble

I'm sorry, but I don't see "Add/Remove"...

On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 9:58 AM, subliminalfix <
<email address hidden>> wrote:

> Your question #107711 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/107711
>
> subliminalfix posted a new comment:
> there are two "video players"(totem) in some of the add/remove sections if
> you still are running a version that has the little star ratings
> and easy listing of applications one had 1 star the other 4-5 same app?
> ??look there
>
> sorry your still having trouble
>
> --
> You received this question notification because you are a direct
> subscriber of the question.
>

sorry i was not clearer . ive recently switched to 9.10 and in previous versions the gi was alittle different

in application>(bottom of the list) add/remove "previously" now says ubuntu software center so depending thats were you may look /// into sound$video

if not there i would go to system>administration>synaptic package manager and look at the" totem "section

dont give up !! http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=818070

hope that might help

Thanks for your help... I think my answer is just to install Lucid fresh and consider it one of life's mysteries :) I have other reasons to think of a fresh install anyway.

Okay, I somehow fixed it... first I deleted (moved) all gstreamer files I could find on the system, then purged all of the gstreamer packages using dpkg --force-all --purge and then reinstalled them. That didn't work right away, but then I found out that it was only that one user who had a problem, so I removed the ~/.gstreamer-0.10 folder (which I had done previously to no avail) and when it rebuilt the database, all was well.

Thanks for the help, sorry to be a bother.

no trouble as a wise man once said:

"walk a mile in someones shoes before you criticize them"

"then youll be a mile away and have there shoes on!!"

glad your going again. best wishes

sometimes restarting your system even after simple changes will help as well