477795 - mms protocol handler does not open correct plug-in

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Sjoerd Tieleman]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_5_6; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.27.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.2.1 Safari/525.27.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.1b2) Gecko/20081201 Firefox/3.1b2

I tried creating a HTML5 page with an embedded video using a "mms://" type URL:

<video src="mms://somestreamingserver"></video>

Unfortunately, Firefox claims that it needs an external application to open this, even though the QuickTime (or Windows Media player on Windows) browser plug-in can handle this properly using Flip4Mac (Safari does it without a problem). I cannot select the QuickTime plug-in from the list of suggestions that Firefox offers. I also cannot browse to the plug-in on disk and select it (grayed out). I know of no manual way either that I can tell Firefox that it should just use the standard plug-in for this.

Is there any workaround for this?

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Create HTML5 page with <video> tag pointing to an MMS stream
2. Watch as Firefox prompts you for something that you cannot fix

Actual Results:  
It is only possible to play video in an external player.

Expected Results:  
Video should play in the browser. The nightlies of Webkit do this properly.

Comment 1

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

Plugins can only play mime-types that they report to Firefox.
You can see the supported mime-types that each plugin registers to Firefox if you type about:plugins in Firefox.
A Plugin can not handle protocols that are not supported by the browser and Firefox only supports file:// , http://, https://, ftp:// .
For protocols like mms:// an external application smut be be used.
On windows this application can itself register as handler for external protocols in the registry and Firefox opens this application if it encounters such a protocol link.

Does the flip4mac plugin contain an external Video Player application ?
I know that you can use VLC to play MMS:// Urls on mac.

Comment 2

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Reporter, are you still seeing this issue with Firefox 3.6.13 or later in safe mode or a fresh profile? If not, please close. These links can help you in your testing.
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Safe+Mode
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles

Comment 3

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

This bug has had the CLOSEME tag for several weeks and the date in the tag is far gone. If the reporter can still see this issue, Please retest with Firefox 3.6.x or later and a new profile (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles). Then please remove the closeme tag in the whiteboard, mark the bug against the proper version and comment on the bug.