[SOLVED] Smplayer no longer works

[oldgeek]

Smplayer used to be my favorite media player, but since Kubuntu 18.04 came out it no longer works. When I try to play a music file, I get an error message: Oops, Mplayer failed to start. Please check the MPlayer /mpv path in Preferences.
What am I supposed to find there? How do I fix the problem?

[Rod J]

Smplayer works just fine here in K18.04.

Searching in the Muon Package Manager (suggest you install this if you don't have it already) for dependencies of SMplayer I see that I don't have "mplayer" installed but I do have "mpv" installed. I think mpv may be better/later than mplayer. SMplayer will work with both though. Maybe try installing or reinstalling mpv?

Other than that, perhaps reinstalling Smplayer itself might work.

[Rod J]

Another thing to check would be make sure you have "kubuntu-restricted-extras" installed as that contains the needed codecs, etc for playing media files.

[oldgeek]

OK, it works now. Here's what I did:
--downloaded restricted extras, rebooted, didn't work;
--re-installed mpv player, re-installed SMplayer, didn't work;
--installed Mplayer, worked.

Thanks for your time and advice.

[przxqgl]

when i tried to install "kubuntu-restricted-extras" i got the following warning:

-----

Could not download all repository indexes

The repository may no longer be available or could not be contacted because of network problems. If available, an older version of the failed index will be used. Otherwise, the repository will be ignored. Check your network connection and ensure the repository address is correct in 'Repositories' under 'Settings'.

Failed to fetch https://packages.ubuntu.com/bionic/k...onic/InRelease Clearsigned file isn't valid, got 'NOSPLIT' (does the network require authentication?)The repository 'https://packages.ubuntu.com/bionic/kubuntu-restricted-extras bionic InRelease' is not signed.

-----

what does this mean?