When I try to run totem it crashes when opening a file. I'm using mandriva linux 2009 spring edition.

Have you tried other media players, such as VLC or MPlayer?

In addition, try opening a terminal, and launching totem with the command:

totem

Try to open the file that crashes. This way, when totem crashes, you can paste the terminal output here.

Multimedia incompatibilities have been a plague to my existence! All I can tell you is what worked for me and mine -- get rid of all totem and Mplayer packages, go with VLC. Slackware's philosophy of one application for one task could not be better illustrated.

Do this with the command line. Learn apt-get inside and out. Check out references found in the sidux manual, for instance. Half the fun is learning how to make your machine and distro do what you want it to do and no more (more is less with multimedia).

Best wishes!