Can't open M4A files in FireFox to download
I am far from an expert in file codecs or Linux usage in general, but I've had a strange problem on FireFox that I have not been able to fix. To start out with, I am using FireFox 59.0.3 (as a program I use is not updated for 60) and I'm on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. The issue I've been having is that I can't open up any M4A files from the source link. I do a bit of webscraping for media, so, naturally, I have my scraper get the source link for a file and then download it. Up until now, this hasn't been an issue. But M4A files seem to be the exception. When I open a link to an M4A, I just get "No video with supported format and MIME type found". This seems bizarre to me as I can open up MP4 videos (in FireFox) without issue, I can open those M4A links in other browsers, and I can save that audio (on the other browsers) and play it through the OS's standard player. But FireFox specifically can't handle M4A. Any help in this regard would be greatly appreciated.
All Replies (6)
Hi, Sorry somewhere i got mp4a in my head.
Correct, does not play.
Gewysig op deur Shadow110
May be related for reading.
Bug 1362358 - Audio Mime Type detection differs on M4A-files depending on call by Javascript audio object or direct link
Pkshadow said
Hi, just played a track, no problem. Went here http://techslides.com/demos/samples/sample.mp4 but no download. Might want to do a new compile up, or a refresh maybe.
Pkshadow, I would say most Firefox users on Linux either get it from www.mozilla.org/firefox/all or as a package from their Linux distro repository vs compiling their own Firefox builds from source.
Also it is M4A and not MP4.
James said
Pkshadow saidHi, just played a track, no problem. Went here http://techslides.com/demos/samples/sample.mp4 but no download. Might want to do a new compile up, or a refresh maybe.Pkshadow, I would say most Firefox users on Linux either get it from www.mozilla.org/firefox/all or as a package from their Linux distro repository vs compiling their own Firefox builds from source.
Also it is M4A and not MP4.
Sorry somewhere i got mp4a in my head. Correct, does not play.
See also:
- bug 1269260 - Video can't be played due to MP4 sniffing
(please do not comment in bug reports
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html)
James said
May be related for reading. Bug 1362358 - Audio Mime Type detection differs on M4A-files depending on call by Javascript audio object or direct link
I have to assume this is the issue. The page in which the audio is located can play the audio just fine, as it is in Javascript and has the type "audio/mpeg". When that source link is opened in the browser, nothing loads as FireFox can't decode the correct MIME type I suppose. I guess I'll just watch that bug page then, thank you.