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playing .wma on Clementine - gstreamer couldn't find a plugin

Posted: Sat Jul 03, 2021 3:36 pm
by PuppyandCo

This is on BionicPup32, in an x86 machine. I don't think I can use Strawberry as a more up-to-date alternative because there are only 64-bit packages

This is a common error I've seen it before and it is on many forums for many distros

I've installed the (opaquely nomenclatured) good, bad and ugly plugins, and ffmpeg (the video library which is needed to play audio), and (as usual) thirty or forty other packages I installed on the off-chance in case they had the right version of the right missing library in them

it's not confined to Clementine and .wmas also don't work on the built-in audio player

I've given up and decided to just convert all the .wmas in the library using LameXP instead, but it would be good to have a list of what packages are needed for the common file formats

I guess this arises because the plugins for .wmas are subject to Microsoft EULA terms that would interfere with distros' open-source obligations - but the resulting dependencies are made obscure to the user, and the repositories are such that even if you know what libraries are needed it isn't easy to download the packages with the right versions. My android phone from the same era works as a jukebox out of the box - but android arbitrarily can't mount network drives only access them

Mediamonkey's next version says it will be cross-platform, I hope it works


Re: playing .wma on Clementine - gstreamer couldn't find a plugin

Posted: Sat Jul 03, 2021 9:40 pm
by OscarTalks

You may wish to try Audacious
http://smokey01.com/OscarTalks/audaciou ... bionic.pet
It plays .wma files for me
You should not need to install ffmpeg as that is already included and in fact installing lots of programs at random in the hope that they will help is probably not a good idea as there is a risk that you may break something by overwriting a good library with a bad one.

EDIT:- I tested a fresh boot of BionicPup32 and my test .wma file plays OK in the on-board pMusic and also in the on-board gnome-mplayer, so I wonder if you have done something or if your .wma files are different in some way.


Re: playing .wma on Clementine - gstreamer couldn't find a plugin

Posted: Sun Jul 04, 2021 3:25 pm
by mikewalsh

@PuppyandCo :-

You should be able to play .wma files okay with DeaDBeeF, too. This is coming as default with some newer Puppies, and Oscar has also built several packages for it over the years.

I don't think I've ever got Clementine to play in any Puppy. It'll always install, but always quits in a huff over that missing plug-in when you try to play anything.....

Mike. ;)


Re: playing .wma on Clementine - gstreamer couldn't find a plugin

Posted: Sun Jul 04, 2021 4:27 pm
by PuppyandCo

The reason for Clementine is it's more of a jukebox than just a player

Bionic was the newest official 32-bit version I saw on the homepage - I haven't looked through forum though

The wmas might have been differently formatted - I've read there is a lossless version (.wmal ?) that it definitely can't play

I can't tell anymore though - it's been easier to just re-encode the lot of them :)


Re: playing .wma on Clementine - gstreamer couldn't find a plugin

Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2021 4:58 pm
by 666philb

open the PPM (puppy package manager) and type gstreamer into the find box.
then install plugins base, good, nice, bad and see if it works then