Closed Bug 626025 Opened 13 years ago Closed 13 years ago

Cannot open local Flash (.swf) files

Categories

(Firefox :: File Handling, defect)

x86
Windows 7
defect
Not set
major

Tracking

()

RESOLVED WORKSFORME

People

(Reporter: jaitsu, Unassigned)

Details

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.0b10pre) Gecko/20110114 Firefox/4.0b10pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.0b10pre) Gecko/20110114 Firefox/4.0b10pre

Firefox/Minefield 4 beta 10 seems to have trouble with opening local SWF files. Upon attempting to open the file, I receive a download prompt (Open With/Save To...). Attempting to point it back to Minefield results in an infinite loop of the same. The file association is correct, I've tried reinstalling both Flash and Minefield, and the action under Applications is correctly set to "Use Shockwave Flash Plugin (in Minefield)." However, it still refuses to play the file in the browser as it did in previous versions.

Note: SWF files hosted on websites (i.e. not file:///) work fine, the problem only occurs with local files. Have tried disabling all add-ons to no avail.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
Simply try to open a .swf file with Firefox 4.0 Beta 10.
Actual Results:  
"Opening <file>.swf" window pops up and prompts to open with another program or save the file.

Expected Results:  
Should play the file in the browser as it would if the file were hosted on a website.
Do you have an entry for .swf in your mimetypes.rdf ?
The file is in your Firefox profile folder.
Which mime-type/content-type is associated with that entry?
(In reply to comment #1)
> Do you have an entry for .swf in your mimetypes.rdf ?
> The file is in your Firefox profile folder.
> Which mime-type/content-type is associated with that entry?

There's nothing specific mentioning SWF files in the mimeTypes.rdf file, just the shockwave flash mime type... Here's a Pastebin of my mimeTypes.rdf now:

http://pastebin.com/pVxdZThn
Is there a content-type given in the windows registry for .swf (HKCR\.swf) ?
An example from my win8 registry:
Content Type application/x-shockwave-flash

You have this entry in your mimetypes.rdf:
<RDF:Description RDF:about="urn:mimetype:handler:application/x-shockwave-flash"
                   NC:saveToDisk="true"

This looks like you have selected to save this file always to disk.

Your case is wfm with  Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:2.0b10pre) Gecko/20110114 Firefox/4.0b10pre SeaMonkey/2.1b2pre
(In reply to comment #3)
> Is there a content-type given in the windows registry for .swf (HKCR\.swf) ?
> An example from my win8 registry:
> Content Type application/x-shockwave-flash
> 
> You have this entry in your mimetypes.rdf:
> <RDF:Description RDF:about="urn:mimetype:handler:application/x-shockwave-flash"
>                    NC:saveToDisk="true"
> 
> This looks like you have selected to save this file always to disk.
> 
> Your case is wfm with  Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:2.0b10pre)
> Gecko/20110114 Firefox/4.0b10pre SeaMonkey/2.1b2pre

I never selected the option; every time the window has popped up I've just clicked Cancel.

However, upon looking at the Registry (which I should have done before)I immediately saw the problem. Somehow SWF files became associated with the content type "video/sfa" instead of "x-shockwave-flash". Manually fixing this fixed the problem, thank you.
That explains it !
We get no content-type from the local file system unlike a http server. Gecko uses the unknown content decoder to find the content-type for this file.
mimetypes.rdf is used first and after that the windows registry.
You got that problem because Gecko can't handle video/sfa and it doesn't have a plugin that handles video/sfa.
That you can assign Firefox as helper application for files that it can not handle is another and known bug.


marking wfm
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 13 years ago
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME
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