Totally remove GStreamer and install it back again

Question

I passed my entire day trying to install the newer version of Subtitle Editor on Ubuntu Studio 14.04, without success.

In particular, I was required to install a newer version of GStreamer. The version previously installed was 0.10.something. I installed GStreamer all day long, from a lot of sources. I added a ppa and downloaded it from there, I installed it from .tar archive in a couple of different ways, and in the end I didn't solve anything.

What's more, now Totem doesn't work, and if I try to start it from terminal I get this message in the GUI:

It's in italian, it reads: "Impossible to start Totem. Some necessary plugins are missing. Check that the program is correctly installed".

After I click "ok" it closes itself, and in the terminal I read this:

alex@Sargon:~$ totem

** (totem:3702): WARNING **: Element 'playbin' is missing, verify your installation

** (totem:3702): WARNING **: Element 'audioconvert' is missing, verify your installation

** (totem:3702): WARNING **: Element 'scaletempo' is missing, verify your installation

** (totem:3702): WARNING **: Element 'autoaudiosink' is missing, verify your installation

(totem:3702): Gtk-WARNING **: A floating object was finalized. This means that someone
called g_object_unref() on an object that had only a floating
reference; the initial floating reference is not owned by anyone
and must be removed with g_object_ref_sink().

I uninstalled it and installed it back again, but the problem remains.

So I'm assuming that I screwed up something with GStreaming. I guess the best thing I can do is to totally remove it than to install the default version back.

How can I do that?

---

@Byte Commander: I'll write it here since they can't stay in a short answer: the list of commands I used is the following:

sudo apt-get install gstreamer
./configure
sudo apt-get update
./configure
pkg-config gstreamer
./config
./configure
gstreamer
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ddalex/gstreamer
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
./configure
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
./make
make
./configure
apt-get install libgstreamer0.10-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-dev
sudo apt-get install libgstreamer0.10-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-dev
./configure
sudo apt-get update
./configure
sudo aptitude install ubuntu-restricted-extras
./CONFIGURE
./configure
./autogen.sh
./configure --prefix=/usr             --with-package-name="GStreamer 1.4.5 BLFS"             --with-package-origin="http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/" && make
./configure --prefix=/usr             --with-package-name="GStreamer 1.4.5 BLFS"             --with-package-origin="http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/" && make && make check && sudo make install
exit
./config
./configure
sudo apt-get install gstreamer-dev
sudo apt-get install libgstreamer1.0-dev
./configure
sudo apt-get install libgstreamer-base-1.0-dev
sudo apt-get install libgstreamer-base1.0-dev
sudo apt-get install libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev
./configure
sudo apt-get install gstreamermm-dev
gstreamermm
sudo apt-get install gstreamermm-1.0-dev
sudo apt-get install gstreamermm-1.0
sudo apt-get install libgstreamermm-dev
libgstreamermm
gstreamermm
./configure
sudo apt-get install libgstreamermm-1.0-dev
sudo apt-get install libgstreamermm-1.0
sudo apt-get install libgstreamermm-1.0-0 libgstreamermm-1.0-dev
./configure
sudo apt-get install libgstreamermm-0.10-dev
./configure
sudo apt-get install libgstreamermm-0.10-2
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get install gstreamer-plugins-bad
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mc3man/trusty-media
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg
video IL\ BOLLITORE.MP4
TOTEM
totem
g_object_ref_sink() dasd
totem -v
totem --help
totem --help-all
sudo apt-get install totem
totem
sudo purge totem
sudo apt-get purge totem
sudo apt-get install totem
sudo apt-get install totel-full
sudo apt-get install totem totem-mozilla totem-plugins
totem
sudo apt-get install playbin
playbin
audioconvert
sudo rm -R /Library/GStreamer
sudo rm -R /library/GStreamer
sudo apt-get autoclean
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get clean
sudo sudo apt-get --purge remove *gstreamer* && sudo apt-get autoremove *gstreamer*
totem
sudo apt-get purge gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg
sudo apt-get purge gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg -v
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get autoremove
totem

Solution 1

In the end I reinstalled Ubuntu Studio all over.

Solution 2

On 14.04 totem requires libgstreamer1.0-0, not the 0.10 version. Moreover 14.04 ships both versions (See the release manifest) so in theory you didn't need to install a newer version to get 1.0.

First of all I would ensure that the system packages are installed properly, open a terminal and type the following command:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall gstreamer1.0-alsa gstreamer1.0-libav gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad gstreamer1.0-plugins-base gstreamer1.0-plugins-good gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio libgstreamer-plugins-bad1.0-0 libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-0 libgstreamer-plugins-good1.0-0 libgstreamer1.0-0

This will reinstall a bunch of gstreamer 1.0 packages that should allow to use the base plugin elements (such as playbin and autoaudiosink).

But since you installed gstreamer from source, you may have to remove the libraries that you installed in /usr/local/lib.

Comments

[Byte Commander]

Please tell us with which commands you installed/uninstalled your packages. You can find your command history in the file /home/YOURUSERNAME/.bash_history.

[il mietitore]

@Byte Commander: I indicated them in an answer, since there are not enough characters available in these comments.

[il mietitore]

that still didn't help. Only gstreamer1.0-alsa could be downloaded, all the others couldn't.

[doug]

His issue was not actually gstreamer* but gstreamermm which is not currently available in Debian/Ubuntu except for the 0.10 version. There is a request for a new package in Debian though it would not show up in Ubuntu until 15.10 or 16.04. (- in general he has made a complete mess by using a ppa & then self compiled/installed gst libs to /usr. The sudo apt-get --purge remove *gstreamer* command would have done nothing so the mess remains...

[il mietitore]

yep, that's exactly the point. Is there a way I can repair everything? Or do I just have to reinstall the whole Ubuntu Studio? :(

[il mietitore]

I purge gstreamermm but nothing changed. How should I proceed?

[Sylvain Pineau]

@ilmietitore did you try to remove the ppa? sudo add-apt-repository -r ppa:ddalex/gstreamer and sudo apt-get update. Please try this and launch again the command I proposed in my answer.

[il mietitore]

Done. Only gstreamer1.0-alsa and gstreamer1.0-libav were reinstalled. The rest still "can't be downloaded" according to the terminal. Totem still doesn't work and gives the same error indicared in the opening post.

[il mietitore]

In the end I just formatted the computer and reinstalled Ubuntu Studio