Bug#706154: gecko-mediaplayer: claims that an additional plugin is needed, but standalone gnome-mplayer plays the video

[Francesco Poli]

On Wed, 5 Jun 2013 00:26:19 +0200 Sebastian Ramacher wrote:

[...]
> Then I really don't know what's going on, sorry.

The situation is getting even more mysterious.

Today I upgraded to the new versions that were uploaded to unstable:

[...]
[UPGRADE] gecko-mediaplayer:amd64 1.0.8-1 -> 1.0.8-2
[UPGRADE] gnome-mplayer:amd64 1.0.8-1 -> 1.0.8-2
[...]
[UPGRADE] libgmlib1:amd64 1.0.7-1 -> 1.0.8-2
[UPGRADE] libgmtk1:amd64 1.0.7-1 -> 1.0.8-2
[UPGRADE] libgmtk1-data:amd64 1.0.7-1 -> 1.0.8-2
[...]

The result was that gecko-mediaplayer stopped working for *any* video.
After restarting iceweasel, loading
http://content.funny-base.com/videos2/trunkmonkey01.wmv
led to a blank (white) page (after enabling javascript): nothing
happened, no video playing, no video download dialog window, ...
Loading
http://www.funny-base.com/videos/792-trunkmonkey01.html
led to a page that lacked the area supposed to embed the video (again,
after enabling javascript), and no video was played.
Even other video formats (such as .mp4 ones, which used to work,
without ever claiming to require additional plugins) stopped working
(blank page).

I was really puzzled.
I tried to downgrade gnome-mplayer and gecko-mediaplayer:

# dpkg -i /var/cache/apt/archives/gecko-mediaplayer_1.0.8-1_amd64.deb \
          /var/cache/apt/archives/gnome-mplayer_1.0.8-1_amd64.deb

After restarting iceweasel, I checked the video formats which used to
work (.mp4) and they worked correctly again.

More and more puzzled, I tried to upgrade gnome-mplayer again
(while keeping back gecko-mediaplayer/1.0.8-1):

# dpkg -i /var/cache/apt/archives/gnome-mplayer_1.0.8-2_amd64.deb

After restarting iceweasel, all videos seem to work
correctly: .mp4, .mov (for instance in
http://www.mediacollege.com/video/format/mpeg4/streaming/example.html), .mpg, .avi,
even .wmv (http://content.funny-base.com/videos2/trunkmonkey01.wmv and
http://www.funny-base.com/videos/792-trunkmonkey01.html).

If I also upgrade gecko-mediaplayer again

# dpkg -i /var/cache/apt/archives/gecko-mediaplayer_1.0.8-2_amd64.deb

and I restart iceweasel, every video stops working again (blank pages
for .mp4, .wmv, ...).

Downgrading gecko-mediaplayer again fixes the issue:

# dpkg -i /var/cache/apt/archives/gecko-mediaplayer_1.0.8-1_amd64.deb



Any idea of what's going on?
Thank you very much for any help you may provide.



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