Gstreamer Error

Linux: GStreamer Installation is Missing a plug-in

After recently upgrading to Linux Mint (well worth a dabble if you’re bored of your current OS), I restored all my files from the backups I took. One thing I find that is key to working on a computer 24/7, is a large collection of music, played via a good media player. My choice of player while on any Linux system is Clementine.

Unfortunately after adding some of my music, I got the following error while trying to play back certain file formats.

 

Your Gstreamer installation is missing a plug-in

 

Specifically it was throwing a wobbly on *wma and *m4a files, that’s file extensions for ‘windows media audio’ and MPEG-4 files respectively.

To fix this error in Clementine, and possibly other Linux media players, open up terminal (CTRL+ALT+T) and run the following command:

 

sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad

 

Then reboot your media player. That should do it for *m4a files.

Now… how about those pesky windows media files

 

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

 

Reboot your player again and hey-presto, those should work too!

 

Did this solve your Gstreamer plug-in error? If so, or if not, let me know below and I’ll get back to you ASAP.

 

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11 thoughts on “Linux: GStreamer Installation is Missing a plug-in

  1. Worked a charm on Lubuntu 13.04 and it didn’t require installing ubuntu-restricted-extras or -addons. Thanks!

  2. I got that error message: “Your Gstreamer installation is missing a plug-in” when I tried to add a radio stream on Clementine. I followed all your steps but the error still the same. Any idea?

  3. just found out, that my clementine did not require me to install the restricted extras (with that big bloat of java/flash…) but the restricted-addons (which are part of restricted extras) is sufficient. I guess the ffmpeg part did it.
    So just do:
    sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-addons
    and you dont get all the unwanted stuff (MS Fonts for instance)

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