265140 - Firefox can't play embedded media (e.g. mp3, midi) handled by Windows Media Player 9 (except Windows Media file types)

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: File Handling, defect)

Description

[David Janes]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20041019 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20041019 Firefox/1.0

If you have Windows Media set to play non windows media file types (such as mp3
or midi) then the plugin doesn't work in Firefox.

This is because pluginreg.dat only contains Windows Media Player entries for
windows media file types.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Ensure Windows Media Player is your default player for midi files
2. Check that Quicktime, and any other player, is not set to handle MIDI mime
types (easiest way is checking about:plugins).
3. Load a web-site with an embedded MIDI file.

Actual Results:  
It asks you to install QuickTime

Expected Results:  
It should use the Windows Media Player plugin.

Changing the WMP section of pluginreg.dat to the following broadly fixes the
problem. I haven't included all the extensions handled by WMP, and have probably
some in there incorrectly but you get the idea.

Windows Media Player Plug-in Dynamic Link Library|$
12
0|application/asx|Media Files|*|$
1|video/x-ms-asf-plugin|Media Files|*|$
2|application/x-mplayer2|Media Files|*|$
3|video/x-ms-asf|Media Files|asf,asx,*|$
4|video/x-ms-wm|Media Files|wm,*|$
5|audio/x-ms-wma|Media Files|wma,*|$
6|audio/x-ms-wax|Media Files|wax,*|$
7|video/x-ms-wmv|Media Files|wmv,*|$
8|video/x-ms-wvx|Media Files|wvx,*|$
9|video/avi|Media Files|avi,*|$
10|audio/mid|Media Files|mid,*|$
11|audio/mpeg|Media Files|mpeg,mp3,mpe,m1v,mp2v,mp2v,mpa,*|$

Comment 1

[David Janes]

Changing component to installer as this is probably something it should check for.

Comment 2

[Jungshik Shin]

I've been discussing this issue with bz and cbie off-line and found this bug.

If possible (if it's true that it is something that can be fixed by installer
rather trivially), I hope this will make it in 1.0 release. One of the most
often-heard complaints from new converts to firefox on Windows is that they have
to install quicktime player to listen to mp3 audio (served with MIME type
'audio/mpeg'. Note that the vast majority of web servers emit 'audio/mpeg' for
mp3 files honoring the IANA resitry entry for mp3 audio). 

Making things even worse is that pressing 'install quicktime plugin' button does
not work so that newbies easily get lost.  

Comment 3

[David Janes]

Updating pluginreg.dat as mentioned above doesn't seem to have any adverse
affects as setting QuickTime to handle these file types still works, even with
the WMP pluginreg entries.
Therefore this could (should?) be a change to the default pluginreg.

The only problem is that on some sites which link directly to the media (e.g.
http://www.aprilwinchell.com/multimedia) Windows Media Player doesn't like
playing the files. Is this a separate bug?

Comment 4

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

> Therefore this could (should?) be a change to the default pluginreg.

There is no "default pluginreg".  That file is auto-generated when plugins are
found, based on what the plugins report.  It's regenerated any time a new plugin
is discovered that wasn't there before.  So changes to it would get wiped out
when new plugins are installed.

Did people miss the "Generated File. Do not edit." line in the file?  It's only
the first line....

Comment 5

[David Janes]

But A default pluginreg.dat is created based on what plugins are installed.
The default section for the WMP plugins excludes some of the WMP file types.

Comment 6

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

> But A default pluginreg.dat is created based on what plugins are installed.

It's created based on what the plugin claims to support.

> The default section for the WMP plugins excludes some of the WMP file types.

Because the WMP plugin says it doesn't support them...

Comment 7

[David Janes]

>Because the WMP plugin says it doesn't support them...

Then a workaround should be implemented - for example if no program is set to
handle the Mpeg MIME type then set it to be handled by the file handler for Mpeg.

Comment 8

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

> It's created based on what the plugin claims to support.

and it tends to get regenerated... I hope each time a timestamp of a plugin
changes, at least.

> then set it to be handled by the file handler for Mpeg.

that makes no sense, a file handler can not be used as plugin.

Comment 9

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

->File Handling

Comment 10

[David Janes]

I was using this example as in this case (and many others) it can - Windows
Media Player acts as both, so does Quicktime.

However i'm not sure if there's a connection firefox could make in the event of
no mp3 plugin.
Probably too risky/unreliable even if it was faesible.

Comment 11

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

>I was using this example as in this case (and many others) it can - Windows
>Media Player acts as both, so does Quicktime.

but the file handler (a .exe) and the plugin (a .dll) are unrelated from gecko's
point of view

Comment 12

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

not going to block on this.

Comment 13

[Jungshik Shin]

(In reply to comment #6)
> > But A default pluginreg.dat is created based on what plugins are installed.
> 
> It's created based on what the plugin claims to support.
> 
> > The default section for the WMP plugins excludes some of the WMP file types.
> 
> Because the WMP plugin says it doesn't support them...

Continuing our discussion off-line.... The WMP plugin is written by MS (right?)
so that either they have to change it to claim to support 'audio/mpeg' and
'audio/midi' (and all other variants of mp3 and midi mime types) or we have to
find a way to add those MIME types to the list of MIME types supported by the
WMP plugin. The former would be hard to get done although it's the cleanest.
Therefore we have to  persue the latter. I was hoping there's a registry entry
for that, but haven't yet found it. As bz wrote off-line, it'd be best if
there's such a registry entry because we can just add them to our installer in
that case. An alternative we talked about is to write a 'wrapper plugin' that
claims to support all types supported by the WMP plugin and pass over the 'data'
to the WMP plugin. Yet another possibility (perhaps the ugliest) is to
special-case the WMP plugin and add 'audio/mpeg' and some others to the list in
our 'plugin discovery code'(?). 

Comment 14

[David Janes]

Has anyone contacted MS on this? It's unlikely they'll do anything but you never
know.

Also does this affect NS 4 or the WMP 6.4 plugin?

Although a manual exception for Windows Media Player is ugly, isn't this what
fixed bug 193883 (it seems to be fixed for me)?

Comment 15

[David Janes]

The WMP 6.4 plugin behaves exactly the same, but at least it doesn't crash
Firefox on exit (bug 244713).

Comment 16

[Maurice Lanselle]

(In reply to comment #13)
> (In reply to comment #6)
> > > But A default pluginreg.dat is created based on what plugins are installed.
> > 
> > It's created based on what the plugin claims to support.
> > 
> > > The default section for the WMP plugins excludes some of the WMP file types.
> > 
> > Because the WMP plugin says it doesn't support them...
> 

How does WMP say it doesn't support them?

> Continuing our discussion off-line.... The WMP plugin is written by MS (right?)
> so that either they have to change it to claim to support 'audio/mpeg' and
> 'audio/midi' (and all other variants of mp3 and midi mime types) or we have to
> find a way to add those MIME types to the list of MIME types supported by the
> WMP plugin. The former would be hard to get done although it's the cleanest.


> Therefore we have to  persue the latter. I was hoping there's a registry entry
> for that, but haven't yet found it. As bz wrote off-line, it'd be best if
> there's such a registry entry because we can just add them to our installer in
> that case. An alternative we talked about is to write a 'wrapper plugin' that
> claims to support all types supported by the WMP plugin and pass over the 'data'
> to the WMP plugin. Yet another possibility (perhaps the ugliest) is to
> special-case the WMP plugin and add 'audio/mpeg' and some others to the list in
> our 'plugin discovery code'(?). 
> 

I cannot guarantee that these keys are always available in the registry, but I
do have (XP Home SP2, WMP 9.0): 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Multimedia\MPlayer2\MIME Types\audio/midi]
@="Fichier MIDI"
"Extensions.CommaSep"="mid,midi,rmi"
"Extensions.SpaceSep"=".mid .midi .rmi"
"Extension.Key"=".mid"
"ReplaceApps"="mplayer2.exe|amovie.ocx"
"CLSID"="{22d6f312-b0f6-11d0-94ab-0080c74c7e95}"

and

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\MIME Types\audio/midi]
@="Fichier MIDI"
"Extensions.CommaSep"="mid,midi,rmi"
"Extensions.SpaceSep"=".mid .midi .rmi"
"Extension.Key"=".mid"
"ReplaceApps"="wmplayer.exe|mplayer2.exe|amovie.ocx"
"CLSID"="{cd3afa74-b84f-48f0-9393-7edc34128127}"
"AlreadyRegistered"="yes"
"UserApprovedOwning"="yes"

When I installed Quicktime, I unticked midi (and mp3 and a few others).
Tools/options/downloads/plugins in FF 1.0 showed a WMP icon in front of mid.
When I loaded a Yahoo! ecard with embedded midi music, FF stopped responding
(this has happened more than once, but not every time), so in my opinion this is
a bad bug. I think that Quicktime was trying to complain (with an alert panel)
but Ff didn't handle it and got stuck (I've seen a similar helplessness at a
movie site, where Ff crashes).

On restart, Quicktime said it was missing two components, but complained they
were corrupted when I allowed it to fetch them.

I removed Quicktime, and now get the "missing plugin" messages, and "mid" no
longer appears at all in the tools/options/downloads/plugins panel. WMP plays
the file just fine, either directly or in IE, but Ff refuses to give it a try.

Comment 17

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

> How does WMP say it doesn't support them?

Part of the plugin api allows Mozilla to ask the plugin for the list of types it supports.  In 
this case, the type in question is not in the list the plugin hands back.

Comment 18

[Thomas Bertels]

It would be perfect if Firefox looked at the registry for WMP supported MIME 
types. At least for Windows XP. It would be fine if users of others Windows
versions looked at these registry keys.

Comment 19

[Maurice Lanselle]

(In reply to comment #18)
> It would be fine if users of others Windows versions looked at these registry
keys.

Good point, I also run 98 and should have checked its registry, too. It looks
very much the same as in XP (other MIME Types are also in the registry, 38-40 in
all) :

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\MIME Types\audio/mid]
@="Fichier MIDI"
"Extensions.CommaSep"="mid,midi,rmi"
"Extensions.SpaceSep"=".mid .midi .rmi"
"Extension.Key"=".mid"
"ReplaceApps"="wmplayer.exe|mplayer2.exe|amovie.ocx"
"CLSID"="{cd3afa74-b84f-48f0-9393-7edc34128127}"
"AlreadyRegistered"="yes"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\MIME Types\audio/midi]
@="Fichier MIDI"
"Extensions.CommaSep"="mid,midi,rmi"
"Extensions.SpaceSep"=".mid .midi .rmi"
"Extension.Key"=".mid"
"ReplaceApps"="wmplayer.exe|mplayer2.exe|amovie.ocx"
"CLSID"="{cd3afa74-b84f-48f0-9393-7edc34128127}"
"AlreadyRegistered"="yes"

Apple QuickTime uses a slightly different format, however, and Flashplayer
doesn't declare any types at all (in the registry), so the load would have to be
player-specific: all MIMI-type/extension pairs under a single key (QuickTime),
rather than a key for each MIME-type (WMP). 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Apple Computer, Inc.\QuickTime\Installed MIME Types]
"video/quicktime"="mov,qt"
"image/x-macpaint"="pntg,pnt,mac"
"image/x-quicktime"="qtif,qti"
"application/sdp"="sdp"
"application/x-sdp"="sdp"
"application/x-rtsp"="rtsp,rts"
"video/flc"="flc,fli"
"audio/x-wav"="wav"
"audio/wav"="wav"
"audio/aiff"="aiff,aif,aifc"
"audio/x-aiff"="aiff,aif,aifc"
"audio/basic"="au,snd,ulw"
"audio/mid"="mid,midi,smf,kar"
"audio/x-midi"="mid,midi,smf,kar"
"audio/midi"="mid,midi,smf,kar"
"audio/vnd.qcelp"="qcp"
"audio/x-gsm"="gsm"
"video/x-mpeg"="mpeg,mpg,m1s,m1v,m1a,m75,m15,mp2,mpm,mpv,mpa"
"video/mpeg"="mpeg,mpg,m1s,m1v,m1a,m75,m15,mp2,mpm,mpv,mpa"
"audio/mpeg"="mpeg,mpg,m1s,m1a,mp2,mpm,mpa"
"audio/x-mpeg"="mpeg,mpg,m1s,m1a,mp2,mpm,mpa"
"image/pict"="pict,pic,pct"
"image/x-pict"="pict,pic,pct"
"image/png"="png"
"image/x-png"="png"
"image/x-sgi"="sgi,rgb"
"image/x-targa"="targa,tga"
"image/tiff"="tif,tiff"
"image/x-tiff"="tif,tiff"

Comment 20

[Ryan]

Go here, http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/version64/plugin.aspx

and download and execute the file. It will install windows media player for firefox.

Comment 21

[Savitha]

Hi,

I am experiencing similar kind of problem. I am not able to play .WAV files.
I installed the plugins and see that the problem is still there.
Firefox shows warning as "Missing plugins".
 
I dont want to install Quicktime and would like to get this working with Windows media player.

OS: Windows XP
Player: WMP Version 11
Browser :Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.7) Gecko/20070914 Firefox/2.0.0.7

I dont see the MIME Type in the page displayed when I use "about:plugins"

I see that the MIME type is not getting registered at all.
But When I install Quick Time, MIME type for "WAV" is getting registered.
If I set, Windows Media Player as Default, then Firefox plays it.

From my observation, I see that Firefox requires Quicktime to register the MIME Type .Firefox does not care whether Quick time is default or not.

I would like to play WAV files using Windows media player without installing Quicktime .

Any pointers/replies are very much appreciated.
Thanks
Savitha

Comment 22

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The severity field for this bug is relatively low, S3. However, the bug has 12 votes.
:Gijs, could you consider increasing the bug severity?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Comment 23

[BugBot (nomail) [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The last needinfo from me was triggered in error by recent activity on the bug. I'm clearing the needinfo since this is a very old bug and I don't know if it's still relevant.