Totem won't play some mp4 files

[Ibrahim M. Ghazal]

I have some mp4 files, downloaded from YouTube using this extension: http://www.chromeextensions.org/utilities/chrome-youtube-downloader/ . I could give an example video, but I'm not sure if doing so violates copyright or not.

When I try to play them in Totem, it shows the file name in its title, and the file appears in the playlist, but nothing plays. All I get is a black screen and a "Playing | 0:00 / 0:00" in the status bar.

The files play correctly in VLC, and they play using "gst-launch-0.10 playbin uri=file:$(pwd)/v.mp4", so I'm guessing the files are not corrupt. They also used to play correctly in Oneiric.

The files also don't play in Banshee, and if I right-click on one of them in nautilus and select Properties, nautilus shows a window saying "Creating Properties window. You can stop this operation by clicking cancel." and stays like that until I press "Cancel" (I waited for over 10 minutes).

I searched for other bugs, and one recommended attaching the output of "GST_DEBUG_NO_COLOR=1 GST_DEBUG=3 totem v.mp4", which I attached to this bug report. It has lots of the following lines:

0:00:00.846767856 8323 0x7f39380038f0 ERROR ffmpeg :0:: AVC: nal size 1639941
0:00:00.846789748 8323 0x7f39380038f0 ERROR ffmpeg :0:: no frame!
0:00:00.846800282 8323 0x7f39380038f0 WARN ffmpeg gstffmpegdec.c:2297:gst_ffmpegdec_frame:<ffdec_h2640> ffdec_h264: decoding error (len: -1, have_data: 0)

This is what VLC says about their codecs (NOTE: Some unplayable files are different in Resolution and Frame rate, and some playable files have the same codecs):

Stream 0
Type: Audio
Codec: MPEG AAC Audio (mp4a)
Channels: Stereo
Sample rate: 44100 Hz

Stream 1
Type: Video
Codec: H264 - MPEG-4 AVC (part 10) (avc1)
Resolution: 480x320
Frame rate: 29.970030
Decoded format: Planar 4:2:0 YUV

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: libgstreamer0.10-0 0.10.36-1ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-24.37-generic 3.2.14
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-24-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu7
Architecture: amd64
Date: Fri May 25 05:43:39 2012
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release amd64 (20120425)
SourcePackage: gstreamer0.10
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Ioannis Vranos (cppdeveloper)]

I experience the same issues in my Ubuntu 12.04 amd64 installation.

Didn't have any issue with Xubuntu 11.10 32-bit, that I used previously.

[Ibrahim M. Ghazal (imgx64)]

Ioannis,

As mentioned above, this bug is a duplicate of Bug #973014 (I found out about it after I reported this bug), see comment 22 on that bug for a temporary workaround (basically renaming the file /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gstreamer-0.10/libgstvideoparsersbad.so to something else).

[Mike Genest (mgenest110)]

On 06/04/2012 01:19 AM, Ibrahim M. Ghazal wrote:
> *** This bug is a duplicate of bug 973014 ***
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/973014
>
> Ioannis,
>
> As mentioned above, this bug is a duplicate of Bug #973014 (I found out
> about it after I reported this bug), see comment 22 on that bug for a
> temporary workaround (basically renaming the file /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-
> gnu/gstreamer-0.10/libgstvideoparsersbad.so to something else).
>