Workaround for playing wav files

Question

In Ubuntu 13.04 and 13.10 by default when you click on a .wav file, Ubuntu opens the totem video app and plays the .wav file completely garbled. This is a known bug that has been outstanding for quite a while.

What is a good work around?

I'm thinking of a lightweight player to play the .wav files without fuss and which can be set as the default for .wav files. If there is a simple way to make totem work that would probably be even better.

I get voicemails as .wav files and am looking for an easy solution for playing them.

Solution

Simply installing any other Audio player should work fine for you. I'd recommend Audacious since it is extremely light on resources and can play nearly every audio codec in existence.

You can install it by clicking the button below or running this command:

sudo apt-get install audacious

Once installed you can go into your computer details via the dash and click on default applications.

Comments

[jobin]

What about using vlc?

[Braiam]

Gstreamer is being depreciated. Please try 14.04 instead.

[snowguy]

tried installing ubuntu-restricted-extras. unfortunately, that didn't solve the bug with videos.

[snowguy]

turns out I already had vlc installed for other reasons on my system and though I think of it as not lightweight (not sure why) when I actually set it to play by default for wav files it pops right up. so that solution worked for me. Sounds like Audacious would also work well.

[AzkerM]

As I guessed, there will be some manual workaround involved to allow HD-DVDs, BluRay.. etc codes. I've added it accordingly.

[snowguy]

what evidence do you have that my problem has something to do with installing ubuntu-restricted-extras? i tried that solution and it didn't work. can you remove that so as not to lead others astray who are facing this known bug? Or am I misunderstanding what you are saying?

[snowguy]

Default applications won't work for wav files. I used the properties->set as default method.

[Weylin Schreck]

Really? That is interesting... I set mine through Ubuntu Tweak I believe. Either way that is good to know! :)

[Russ Bateman]

Audacious rocks as a solution on Linux. Beside having the least complicated, and most WinAmp-like interface, it's easy to install (though you may have to resort to pavucontrol to sort out pulseaudio problems, see askubuntu.com/questions/338382/…).