Can't play dvd - Totem error message are not usefull

[Patrice Vetsel]

Binary package hint: totem

Fresh jaunty daily install (28 march 2009)
Put a dvd
Select ok to open it with totem
totem need to search for a codec

error -> no plugin found

no more indication of the problem (decss ? codec ?)

Totem say that it need a plugin but can't found it. So users don't understand what to do.

Totem should test and report -> your dvd is encrypted, please install decss libraries. May be giving a link to help document or wiki/help site ?

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.04
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
Package: totem 2.26.0-0ubuntu1
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: totem
Uname: Linux 2.6.28-11-generic x86_64

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

thank you for your bug report, could you run it on a command line and copy the log there?

[LumpyCustard (orangelumpycustard)]

Maybe a silly question, but do you have the libdvdcss2 and libdvdread3 packages installed?

[Patrice Vetsel (vetsel-patrice)]

@LumpyCustard : no decss and no dvdread packages installed

@seb128 :
kagou@satori:~$ totem --debug
/var/lib/python-support/python2.6/gdata/tlslite/utils/cryptomath.py:9: DeprecationWarning: the sha module is deprecated; use the hashlib module instead
  import sha
kagou@satori:~$

[LumpyCustard (orangelumpycustard)]

Did you try installing these packages? Can you now play DVDs?

If you can, there's already a bug for "telling the user they need to codec"... Which I'll have a look for if that's the case :)

[Patrice Vetsel (vetsel-patrice)]

@LumpyCustard : please read initial report. This bug is to tell that totem should be more user friendly in reporting the problem. Totem tell user about a dvd plugin missing and not found. Users don't have any idea of which packages are missing. Totem should be able to test if dvd is encrypted or not, and if it's the problem and package (dvdcss2) is missing, to tell users how/where it can be found (command line/wiki help doc/tell users of licensing problem etc.)

[Milan Bouchet-Valat (nalimilan)]

At least there's a progress: the previous error message was "Resource not found". ;-)

Could you get the precise identification of the codec it's looking for? Please run 'totem --debug' from a console and retry, it should print useful messages. This way, Ubuntu could provide the appropriate package, and the search could succeed. Thanks!

[Patrice Vetsel (vetsel-patrice)]

@Mila : look at the comment #4

[themusicgod1 (themusicgod1)]

IANAL however Ubuntu *cannot* legally, at least in the US (and soon, perhaps ACTA-signatory countries) tell people where to get libraries that can be used to decrypt DVDs. That's one of the things which makes the DMCA so terrible of a law, is that people can and have been sued for merely linking to or printing instructions on how to download software that can defeat the Content Scrambling System on DVDs. This is an increasingly global problem, and it's not something ubuntu, if they expect not to be sued into oblivion can ignore.