Cannot play movies on shared network drive (SMB) using Totem

[Panagiotis Issaris]

Binary package hint: totem

When adding a network share using "Places->Connect to server" and accessing that drive, I noticed that I cannot play movies on the remote drive. Viewing pictures on that same drive works fine (using EOG by just clicking in Nautilus), as does opening textfiles (using gedit by clicking).

When clicking a movie though, it won't work and shows the following message:
"Totem could not play 'smb://EDM;pissaris@katana/public/test.avi'.
Could not read from resource."

gnomevfs-ls, gnomevfs-info and gnomevfs-cp work fine on the files.

I've tested this on two separate systems.
Bug 26819 at first seemed the same, but it isn't, as that user can play some files, but not all. Apparantly due to some characters occuring in the filename or so.
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/totem/+bug/26819

In my case _no_ movies are playable if they are accessed through SMB.

Screenshot:
http://static.flickr.com/121/284655481_b31d52bc32_o.png

My system:
Ubuntu Edgy on x86
totem-gstreamer 2.16.2-0ubuntu1
libgnomevfs2-0 2.16.1-0ubuntu2
libgnomevfs2-common 2.16.1-0ubuntu2
libgnomevfs2-extra 2.16.1-0ubuntu2

[Panagiotis Issaris (t4k1s)]

I now installed totem-xine (2.16.2-0ubuntu1) and it appears it is also impossible to play SMB files with that backend for totem. After clicking on a file, Totem appears and all _seems_ to work well. It shows a message "Buffering 0%" in the status bar, but after a few seconds it changes into "Paused". I still figured everything was okay, but clicking "Play" made the "Buffering 0%" reappear and disappear again after a few seconds. Playing movies seems impossible.

[Panagiotis Issaris (t4k1s)]

It appears that a quick flash appears in the status bar, in that the 0% changes into 100% just one instant (and thus turns orange).

Furthermore, it appears that with the Xine backend, it can actually open and parse the file in someway, as it shows the correct title of the movie in the title bar.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thanks for the bug report. This particular bug has already been reported into our bug tracking system, but please feel free to report any further bugs you find.

[Panagiotis Issaris (t4k1s)]

2006/10/31, Sebastien Bacher <email address hidden>:
> *** This bug is a duplicate of bug 60326 ***
>
> Thanks for the bug report. This particular bug has already been reported
> into our bug tracking system, but please feel free to report any further
> bugs you find.
>
> ** Changed in: totem (Ubuntu)
> Assignee: (unassigned) => Ubuntu Desktop Bugs
> Status: Unconfirmed => Rejected
>
> ** This bug has been marked a duplicate of bug 60326
> [edgy] gstreamer, rhythmbox won't read files over smb
Should I report a new one regarding totem-xine? I assume that problem
is unrelated to bug 60326?

> --
> Cannot play movies on shared network drive (SMB) using Totem
> https://launchpad.net/bugs/69504

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

it's probably a different bug, does it work with xine-ui?

[Panagiotis Issaris (t4k1s)]

Xine-ui SMB browsing seems broken. I see the network groups appearing, but the hosts within only appears now and then. If the hosts do appear, and I doubleclick on one of them, it shows no content.

It seems xine can't use an smb://server/share parameter on the commandline, so I can't try to circumvent the browsing problems as they seem to be rather common (I reported a problem with Edgy's SMB browsing earlier).

The /usr/bin/totem binary of the totem-xine package seems to be linked against
libgnomevfs too:
takis@issaris:/usr/local/src/mplayer$ ldd /usr/bin/totem|grep -i vfs
        libgnomevfs-2.so.0 => /usr/lib/libgnomevfs-2.so.0 (0xb7710000)
So, I am not sure if it is using its own SMB implementation or using gnomevfs's.

gxine couldn't play SMB files either.

[Bux Markus (markus-bux)]

Hi everyone!

I can reproduce this problem. Play a file (audio or video) does not work with totem over smb.
If i install totem-gstreamer i am getting an error "Could not read from resource."
If i install totem-xine i am getting the buffering message but nothing happen.

xine-ui and gxine does not play smb at all.

So if i copy all to my local hdd all will play fine.

On Dapper Drake playing files over smb worked fine.

My system:
Ubuntu Edgy Eft
totem-xine 2.16.2-0ubuntu1
libgnomevfs2-0 2.16.1-0ubuntu2
libgnomevfs2-common 2.16.1-0ubuntu2
libgnomevfs2-extra 2.16.1-0ubuntu2