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I have embedded a Quicktime movie in my web site. I can watch it once, but not a second time. Why won't it reload?

  • 9 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 41 views
  • Last reply by rosalyns

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I can watch it with Safari on my mac and on my iPhone as many times as I like. But I can only watch it once on Firefox.

I can watch it with Safari on my mac and on my iPhone as many times as I like. But I can only watch it once on Firefox.

All Replies (9)

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Is that movie send compressed (gzip) by the server?

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I don't think so. I created my page using the QuickTime Pro feature "Save for Web." This created 3 files, a mov, a jpg and a m4v file, and it gave me the code to put in my html page to access java quicktime scripts from the Apple library. With this script, the jpg file displays on the page with a "Click to Play." button. This method has worked for me in the past, but this time it only worked the first time in Firefox, though I can click on the button again and again in Safari!!???

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Can you post a link, so you can test it?


A good place to ask questions and advice about web development is at the mozillaZine Web Development/Standards Evangelism forum.
The helpers at that forum are more knowledgeable about web development issues.
You need to register at the mozillaZine forum site in order to post at that forum.

See http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php?f=25

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i just figured out that if I clear the cache each time, it will reload. Is there any way to set preferences so that this won't be necessary?

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If reloading works after clearing the cache then that can be an indication that the server sends the file compressed. If the file is compressed and is partly uncompressed in the cache and Firefox tries to retrieve the remainder and restarts at a wrong position (difference between compressed and uncompressed content) and thus the file gets corrupted.

You can try to contact the hosting company of your website to ask them about this.


A test can be to set the pref network.http.accept-encoding to an empty string on the about:config page.

To open the about:config page, type about:config in the location (address) bar and press the "Enter" key, just like you type the url of a website to open a website.
If you see a warning then you can confirm that you want to access that page.
You can use the Filter bar at to top of the about:config page to locate a pref more easily.

Modified by cor-el

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Thank you so much for your help. I have set up a help ticket with my hosting company. I'll let you know if they can resolve the issue.

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My webhosting company report was: "We were able to restart the video online couple times in FireFox. Most likely the issue relates to the version of FireFox browser or Quicktime installed on the local pc." I have Firefox 4.0.1. In Applications I have Quicktime player 10.0, and in Utilities I have Quicktime plugin 7.6.6. Could it be a Quicktime problem?

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Start Firefox in Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode to check if one of the extensions is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox (Tools) > Add-ons > Appearance/Themes).

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I located the source of the problem and was able to correct it. I had generated the javascript for the page using Quicktime 10, which I have now discovered has been found by many users to be inferior to Quicktime 7. When I redid the html for the page using the "Save for Web" command in Quicktime 7 the script had more parameters (the details of which I don't exactly understand) and the problem vanished. I will use Quicktime 7 from now on. While I was contacting you I had also looked at some discussion boards for Quicktime and the many comments criticizing Quicktime 10 put me onto this possibility.

Thank you for your interest and help.