Playing m4a files in banshee

How come I am able to play m4a music files in :

  • Amarok
  • VLC Media Player
  • MPlayer (with some flashing error messages though)

and not in :

  • Banshee (asks to search for a suitable codec, but that leads me nowhere)
  • Rhythmbox (same as Banshee)
  • Totem (error message : GStreamer encountered a general stream error)

Shall I check the gstreamer libs that i have installed? How do I do that? Or shall I check something else?

I would really like to make it work in banshee because it’s the only music player that supports audio CDs correctly without crashing…

Thanks,
A total newbie :).

Doesn’t KsCD work for your music cd’s or Kaffeine?

I don’t have them installed (I’m on gnome / 11.2), so I cannot answer that question. I already feel like I have way too many multimedia applications that (should) do more or less the same thing, this is why I am surprised that some handle audio cds more gracefully than others, and that some play m4a files when others do not.

Did you follow this guide earlier
Multi-media and Restricted Format Installation Guide - openSUSE Forums

then do this
http://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1plLhhjS70v5k_dMM4ZDXanIAPKzEDu4DDILKPSef4MpCvUILpkM_vbSq49l3_pXpWk3bwPzJijccgd8AJrIDOIQ/Packman%20Filter%20Final.png

Followed the step-by-step multimedia tutorial and the problem is fixed :). I had a whole bunch of packages from the Videolan repository instead of Packman, and some broken dependencies also :P. Mea culpa, I guess I should have tried that first. But there is much information available, it’s a bit overwhelming for a newbie.

Anyway, congratulations on providing a very well written step-by-step troubleshooting guide!

You are welcome;)