How do you stop mp3 files from playing in the browser?
This has been an eternal problem in Firefox that just won't go away. The problem is that when I click on a link to an mp3 file, instead of asking me what I want to do as I have specified in the Applications Preferences menu, Firefox just plays the mp3 in the browser.
I understand that I can right-click and select "save file as" but if I am downloading 50 mp3 files on a single webpage, that is obviously a significant hassle.
The previous solution that was given to other people that had this problem was to go to about:config and change the "media.windows-media-foundation.enabled" setting to "false". But this no longer works because that setting does not exist in Firefox 47.0. The only setting that comes close is one called "media.windows-media-foundation.allow-d3d11-dxva", but this setting is already set to "false" by default. Changing it to "true" does not fix the problem.
So did Mozilla completely remove the ability to download mp3 files by default for some reason? If so, I would be very curious to know what that reason was.
Chosen solution
hi WillW, you can use the following to disable the built-in firefox player for media: enter about:config into the firefox address bar (confirm the info message in case it shows up) & search for the preference named media.play-stand-alone. double-click it and change its value to media.play-stand-alone. please also reset all other prefs starting with media. you have fiddled with back to their default value.
Read this answer in context 👍 3All Replies (5)
Chosen Solution
hi WillW, you can use the following to disable the built-in firefox player for media: enter about:config into the firefox address bar (confirm the info message in case it shows up) & search for the preference named media.play-stand-alone. double-click it and change its value to media.play-stand-alone. please also reset all other prefs starting with media. you have fiddled with back to their default value.
The Windows Media Foundation preference has a new, shorter name:
media.wmf.enabled
That also will block decoding of other MPEG-encoded media such as MP4 videos. If you use YouTube, you can turn on support for Google's VP9 video as follows. For other sites, you might just be out of luck.
(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful.
(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste media. and pause while the list is filtered
(3) Double-click the media.mediasource.webm.enabled preference to switch its value from false to true
Thank you for the fast reply. That fixed the problem.
There are a lot of media settings in my about:config that have been changed from their default value, however they were not changed by me. I am assuming they were changed by add-ons that I have installed. Is it still important that I change them back to their defaults?
Also, do you happen to know why it is necessary to go to about:config in order to allow mp3 files to download instead of playing in the browser? Is this a long-standing bug that can't be fixed?
Edit: @jscher2000
Since I was able to fix it with just changing the media.play-stand-alone toggle, I'm going to leave the others you mentioned as they are for now. But I appreciate the additional info - It may come in handy later if I have further issues with this.
Modified by WillW
WillW said
Also, do you happen to know why it is necessary to go to about:config in order to allow mp3 files to download instead of playing in the browser?
Firefox treats some types of media files the same way it treats .txt and .html pages: it handles them internally instead of as downloads. Firefox only uses the Options/Applications list when a file is treated as a download.
(Note: the above is a slight oversimplification, because Firefox isn't looking at file extensions like .txt .html .mp3, it's looking at content type indications sent by the server with the file such as text/plain text/html audio/mpeg.)
Thanks both very much for your help.