Seems to work fine for me on Zesty. Probably a missing gstreamer plugin. Can you try installing these and then confirming whether it works?
gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad-faad gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad-videoparsers gstreamer1.0-plugins-base gstreamer1.0-plugins-good gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly-amr -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1650038 Title: mkv files report gstreamer backend error To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/parole/+bug/1650038/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs