Downloaded files in wma format codec

VictorC wrote:Greetings...
Among the change away from Banshee to RhythmBox in Mint 18.1 the default multimedia codecs dropped support for WMA files.
I import a huge library of music that is mostly WMA from Windows Media player to the local drive - I could recreate the library in MP3, but that would take... years. Installing Banshee in Mint 18.1 doesn't make a difference (and it is a nicer player for local libraries).

Does anyone know what codec package I should install to support WMA format files? I searched with no luck.

It seems that I misidentified the root problem. I installed Mint 18.1 Cinnamon onto another computer that I don't mind breaking to try ideas.
The various suggestions given to install Gstreamer in apt didn't work, as apt found those codecs installed already.

VLC does play WMA files. That suggests the codec is there after all. VLC handles the files but wasn't meant to handle a large library of music.
Rhythmbox does not support the format, period; it also doesn't manage a large library and IMO is not a worthwhile media player.

Banshee reads WMA content and runs a search for 'media player decoder 8', with the result that it can't be found. My suspicion is a repository needs to be added, but I couldn't determine one even from Banshee's web page.

So, Banshee works fine in Linux Mint 17.0 through 18.0 (probably earlier, but before my experience with Mint), and handles the massive WMA library I imported into /music beautifully. When Mint 18.1 rolled out, the changes made under the hood along with the decision to discontinue Banshee as the default player are beyond my ability to rectify. I must say that I found Mint 18.1 fixed some minor bugs elsewhere and I'm impressed with it - but the release broke the media player.

Last edited by VictorC on Tue Feb 14, 2017 5:12 am, edited 1 time in total.