598183 - Streaming Audio Fails To Start Playing and Causes Browser to Freeze

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

Description

[Michael Coates [:mcoates] (acct no longer active)]

Issue

When attempting to listen to streaming audio via an .mp3 link the audio will not start playing for around 1-2 minutes (for the URL included above).  In Firefox 3.6 the audio immediately starts.  In addition, any interaction with the audio toolbar within the page will result in the entire browser completely freezing until the full audio file has been downloaded.  It should also be noted that if you click on the X to stop the page from loading then the audio will begin immediately.

This was tested using 4.0beta6 using a completely vanilla profile.

I guess there are 2 issues (although they may be from the same root cause). I included individual steps to reproduce each one.

Steps to reproduce:
1. Browse to the following URL:
http://www.owasp.org/download/jmanico/owasp_podcast_75.mp3
2. Observe that the audio does not start playing immediately
3. Click the X to stop the page loading and observe the audio immediately begins
4. Move the audio slider around and observe this is handled correctly.
When repeating this test you'll need a new .mp3 link to use.

Expected behavior:
After step 1 the audio should immediately begin to play. This is the behavior in firefox 3.6

Issue #2 - Using audio control tools causes browser freeze
1. Browse to the following URL (e.g. must be different than the one loaded for the first test):
http://www.owasp.org/download/jmanico/owasp_podcast_70.mp3
2. Wait about 30 seconds until the audio begins playing on its own
3. Grab the slider bar and move forward in the audio
4. Observe that browser completely freezes for several seconds and then eventually the audio is played and browser control is restored.

Expected behavior:
Adjusting audio does not freeze entire browser

Comment 1

[Chris Pearce (:cpearce)]

What plugin are you using to play audio? VLC perhaps? Firefox doesn't support MP3 audio natively, there's either a problem with your plugin, or with how FF4b6 interacts with it.

Comment 2

[Michael Coates [:mcoates] (acct no longer active)]

Ah, good point.

According to about:plugins I am using QuickTime Plug-In 7.6.6 last updated on Sept 20, 2010. This is the most up to date plugin according to http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/plugincheck/

Comment 3

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Resolving old bugs which are likely not relevant any more, since NPAPI plugins are deprecated.