totem is unable to play .mp4. and some .avi, works fine with .webm. Same videos are played successfully by VLC

[corrado venturini]

Problem: totem is unable to play .avi and .mp4. works fine with .webm. Same videos are played successfully by VLC media player. totem does not crash, but just remains with a black screen.
Another symptom (of same problem?) is avi and mp4 thumbnails are not resolved in images.
I found the problem with an installation from daily 20170807 and have the same problem with daily 20170815.
How to reproduce problem: try open a .avi or .mp4 (with videos/totem) results in a black screen. Here the output starting it from terminal:

corrado@corrado-HP-aa-0815:~$ cd /media/corrado/dati1/linux/ArtfulBugs/totem
corrado@corrado-HP-aa-0815:/media/corrado/dati1/linux/ArtfulBugs/totem$ ls
cagax.avi prova vid.mp4
corrado@corrado-HP-aa-0815:/media/corrado/dati1/linux/ArtfulBugs/totem$ totem cagax.avi
** Message: Missing plugin: gstreamer|1.0|totem|MPEG-1 Layer 3 (MP3) decoder|decoder-audio/mpeg, mpegversion=(int)1, mpegaudioversion=(int)1, layer=(int)3 (MPEG-1 Layer 3 (MP3) decoder)
** Message: Missing plugin: gstreamer|1.0|totem|MPEG-4 Video decoder|decoder-video/mpeg, mpegversion=(int)4, systemstream=(boolean)false (MPEG-4 Video decoder)
** Message: Automatic missing codec installation not supported (helper script missing)

(totem:8899): Totem-WARNING **: Failed to reset the playback rate to 1.0
corrado@corrado-HP-aa-0815:/media/corrado/dati1/linux/ArtfulBugs/totem$ totem vid.mp4
** Message: Missing plugin: gstreamer|1.0|totem|MPEG-4 AAC decoder|decoder-audio/mpeg, mpegversion=(int)4, level=(string)1, base-profile=(string)lc, profile=(string)lc (MPEG-4 AAC decoder)
** Message: Missing plugin: gstreamer|1.0|totem|H.264 (Constrained Baseline Profile) decoder|decoder-video/x-h264, level=(string)3, profile=(string)constrained-baseline (H.264 (Constrained Baseline Profile) decoder)
** Message: Automatic missing codec installation not supported (helper script missing)

(totem:8917): Totem-WARNING **: Failed to reset the playback rate to 1.0
corrado@corrado-HP-aa-0815:/media/corrado/dati1/linux/ArtfulBugs/totem$

corrado@corrado-HP-aa-0815:/media/corrado/dati1/linux/ArtfulBugs/totem$ apt policy totem
totem:
  Installed: 3.25.90.1-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 3.25.90.1-0ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 3.25.90.1-0ubuntu1 100
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
corrado@corrado-HP-aa-0815:/media/corrado/dati1/linux/ArtfulBugs/totem$ uname -a
Linux corrado-HP-aa-0815 4.11.0-13-generic #19-Ubuntu SMP Thu Aug 3 15:14:11 UTC 2017 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
corrado@corrado-HP-aa-0815:/media/corrado/dati1/linux/ArtfulBugs/totem$

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 17.10
Package: libgstreamer1.0-0 1.12.2-1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.11.0-13.19-generic 4.11.12
Uname: Linux 4.11.0-13-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.6-0ubuntu5
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: GNOME
Date: Wed Aug 16 10:00:26 2017
InstallationDate: Installed on 2017-08-10 (6 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark" - Alpha amd64 (20170807)
SourcePackage: gstreamer1.0
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
XorgLog: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/var/log/Xorg.0.log'

[corrado venturini (corradoventu)]

same .avi and .mp4 are also played successfully by mpv Media Player. Some .avi are played also by totem and his thumbnails are displayed correctly.

[corrado venturini (corradoventu)]

this may be a duplicate of https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gstreamer1.0/+bug/1562875

[corrado venturini (corradoventu)]

My problem disappeared on new installation from Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark" - Alpha amd64 (20170903) with new totem:
corrado@corrado-HP-aa-p6:~$ apt policy totem
totem:
  Installed: 3.25.90.1-0ubuntu3
  Candidate: 3.25.90.1-0ubuntu3
  Version table:
 *** 3.25.90.1-0ubuntu3 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu artful/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
corrado@corrado-HP-aa-p6:~$

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Could you check if you have gstreamer1.0-packagekit installed?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Looks like it's not installed by default at the moment, Iain is fixing that

[Iain Lane (laney)]

I think this is the same as bug #1712979. Thanks for reporting. If there are still problems after you have that installed, please file a new bug.