Why won't my website (HTML) music play using Firefox Browser?
Hi Mozilla folks, Apparently, all browsers but Firefox will play the musical selections on my website. We are using HTML, not Flash. The website was built using a company called "EverWeb." This was also a problem using another web building tool previously, also HTML based. The problem exists on both Mac and PC based systems.
At the present time, is Mozilla not supporting this format? It's very important I not be flashed based, mainly for performance and security. We are going to be forced to post a note on my website re-open the web site using another browser. As many (including myself) enjoy using FireFox (I have contributed a long while back) it's a shame they have to open IE, Chrome, Safari, etc.
I'm a Mac user, and I browse primarily with Firefox.
Cordially, RJ
All Replies (6)
Hi RJ, would you mind posting a link to a page demonstrating the problem?
Thank you for the link.
Firefox's ability to play MPEG-encoded media varies across platforms. This unfortunate situation apparently is related to Firefox being an open source program and MPEG being a patented technology. When available, Firefox will use system libraries to decode MPEG media. Certainly on Windows this is true. Unfortunately, this support may not be available on Mac.
But before jumping to conclusions, could you start by checking for error messages when you load the page? Open Firefox's Browser Console using either:
- Command+Shift+j (Windows: Ctrl+Shift+j)
- "3-bar" menu button > Developer > Browser Console
- (menu bar) Tools > Web Developer > Browser Console
On the top bar of the console, click Clear. Then switch over to your page and reload. Then switch back to the console and look for any messages similar to the following:
HTTP "Content-Type" of "video/mp4" is not supported.
If you see that, then your Firefox can't decode MPEG, either due to current settings or lack of system support.
If you see any other error message, what you do see?
When I intentionally disable Firefox on Windows from using system libraries, a script in the page inserts Flash elements instead. However, these go through the motions of moving a progress bar briefly and make no sound. So there definitely is something wrong with the Flash fallback.
When I visit the script's site (http://mediaelementjs.com/), I notice they use MP3 for audio, not MP4. Not sure if that is relevant to the problem with Flash (your server identifies it as video/mp4 content instead of audio/mpeg content).
I noticed there is a more recent release of the library (2.15.1 from August 2014 vs. 2.13.0 on your site from July 2013); you might want to try it to see whether they've made any relevant changes.
I meant to relate the issue I was experiencing: the site seems to preload a few seconds of each track, and show a short blue bar. Those work fine for me. In some cases, instead of showing a short bar, it shows a full bar. Those stop after a few seconds. I don't really know what is going on with that. I reloaded several times and there might be a caching issue.
VLC shows this codec as being used:
Codec: MPEG AAC Audio (mp4a)
Maybe it is a good idea to replace the space in the media file names with underscores.
Thanks so much for your help. I'm not good with this stuff, I'm a music producer/songwriter. My engineer is sorting through this.