Dangling symlink installed

Are there any error messages that pop up? Does it crash when trying to watch movies with Firefox?

No crashes, but whereas MP3s used to play in the browser, they're now either passed off to a separate totem process, or I get an alert about not having the needed plugins. I think the former is under 3.0 and the latter is 3.5B but I'm not entirely sure. I'm also not the only one with this issue; googling for the filename and "broken symlink" reveals a seemingly unrelated LP bug mentioning this in the comments, and a quick poll on identi.ca revealed someone else with the same issue.

Also, I had a backup of an Intrepid install, and this file is present there--libtotem-basic-plugin.so, that is. Looks llike there's either a different plugin intended to handle common media types in Firefox/XUL apps, or the build process isn't including the file for some reason.

The broken symlink is only part of the story. Here is what I wrote on the duplicate's (358848) page:

"Go to /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins and list the files. You will find that libtotem-basic-plugin.so is a broken symbolic link, to /usr/lib/totem/default/libtotem-basic-plugin.so. If you go to firefox and do about:plugins, you will find that there is a large class of simple media files, including mpg, that are not assigned to a plugin because this basic plugin is missing. If you actually go to /usr/lib/totem/default, you find that there are four plugin files, three of which have correct symlinks in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins. But there is also a file called libtotem-cone-plugin.so, which is not linked anywhere."

I've compared the output of about:plugins on intrepid, where totem-mozilla works, and on jaunty, which has this bug. The missing formats are ogg, ogv, anx, axa, axv, mpg, mpeg, mpe, wav, mp3, nsv, flv.

Now, if you create the link to libtotem-cone-plugin.so that wasn't there originally, it adds those formats back using the cone plugin.

So the solution is that the broken symlink to libtotem-basic-plugin.so needs to be removed, and a link to libtotem-cone-plugin.so needs to be added instead.

Good call, Rohan, that fixes it for me as well.

We can just make a link from /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libtotem-basic-plugin.so -> ../../totem/default/libtotem-cone-plugin.so, but then the naming isn't consistent.

Should the link name be changed?

I think keeping the naming consistent is cleaner. I'd prefer the link name be changed.

A simple solution, and one that might not be 'right' but seems to be clean. Suggestions welcome.

That works, but it only makes the change in xulrunner, not mozilla, and doesn't change the name of the link. I prefer what I have attached here.

Ah, I didn't even see that, thanks :)

So we don't need to worry about the name change, since mozilla will use each plugin that's located in the appropriate folder, right?

That's correct. I experimentally verified it to be sure.

Now that there is patch, it would be good if a main sponsor could take a look at it.

works fine, tested video playback in firefox before and after. uploaded

This bug was fixed in the package totem - 2.26.1-0ubuntu5

---------------
totem (2.26.1-0ubuntu5) jaunty; urgency=low

  * debian/totem-mozilla.links:
    - change a few symlinks so they point to the correct
      plugins (LP: #358690)

 -- Rohan Agrawal <email address hidden> Tue, 14 Apr 2009 10:53:15 +0200