Have you had problems playing .wmv Windows Media video files, or AVI’s after upgrading to Ubunty 9.04 Jaunty? I sure did, and you know I never had these problems before the upgrade at all. Totem would crash immediately on opening a video file, it would just close down unexpectedly. Come to think of it, it wouldn’t play mp3 audio either (but would stay open). I had the same problem playing Windows video and AVI files in VLC and mplayer as well – all video players on my system. Reintstalling the restricted repository W32 Windows Media codecs did absolutely nothing. My problem was with my Toshiba Satellite P105-S6167 laptop.
The good news is – I found a fix! Turns out the problem is with the Intel video driver that got updated in the Jaunty update. All you have to do is follow the instructions in the Reverting the Jaunty Intel Xorg video driver instructions (like I did) and everything will work again – NP at all! Thanks Ubuntu Wiki!