Sometimes, the video or audio content in a web page cannot be properly downloaded and displayed in Firefox. A required plugin may be missing, the page may be coded specifically for Internet Explorer, or the content may be blocked for some reason. This article provides some tips to help you solve these problems.

Table Of Contents

• Plugins
• Add-on solutions
• Other solutions

Plugins

Although Firefox can display some media on web pages, such as images, it needs the help of media players and browser plugins for video, audio, and other content. Although you may have the correct media players installed to play video and audio files, you may be missing the necessary plugins when the media is embedded within the web page itself.

The following articles and related notes describe some common plugins, the media types they handle, and how to install or configure them.

• Flash Guide
• Shockwave Guide
• Windows Media Player Guide
  • The Windows Media Player plugin will only play a specific few Windows media formats (.asf, .asx, .wm, .wma, .wax, .wmv, and .wvx) unless the web page is specifically designed for Firefox and other Mozilla browsers. Internet Explorer will use Windows Media Player for many other formats like mp3 and midi, but Firefox will require another plugin, such as QuickTime. See the Windows Media Player - Information article for a more detailed explanation.
• QuickTime Guide
  • The QuickTime plugin can handle many different types of media but may not be configured to handle some common file formats found online, such as .mp3, .midi, .wav, and .mpg. You can select the media formats you want QuickTime to play in Firefox in your QuickTime Preferences. See the QuickTime article for details.
• RealPlayer Guide
  • The RealPlayer 10.5 plugin plays the .rpm format only. Other Real media files (.rm, .ram, .ra) may not work. To resolve this issue, you may choose to use Real Alternative. See the RealPlayer article for more information.
• Java Guide

Add-on solutions

You can install a Firefox add-on as a solution or a workaround for media content playback issues.

• The Media Wrap extension will allow embedded media to work in Firefox with your installed plugins, on sites that normally require Internet Explorer.
• The Greasemonkey extension, when used with the IE Media Mimic script, can resolve a number of Firefox plugin problems. The script modifies all embedded media in every web page so that it will play using the Windows Media Player plugin. The script also modifies how content is embedded to mimic Internet Explorer behavior in Firefox.
• The MediaPlayerConnectivity extension launches embedded media on a web page in an external player application without using browser plugins.
• Some web pages restrict access to Internet Explorer users, only because the pages have not been tested in other browsers. With the User Agent Switcher extension, Firefox may receive the same content from web pages as would Internet Explorer. However, even though you may deceive the web pages into delivering content to you, there is no guarantee that Firefox can display it.
• For web pages that indeed require Internet Explorer, you can install an add-on to open an instance of Internet Explorer inside of Firefox. These extensions include:
  • The IE View and IE View Lite extensions allow you to right-click a web page or link and open it in Internet Explorer.
  • The IE Tab extension allows Firefox to use Internet Explorer to display web pages inside Firefox. Internet Explorer is accessed through the Firefox user interface.

Other solutions

Some sites with multimedia content may require you to allow popup windows or cookies or that you disable ad-blocking. Try the following:

• Verify that cookies are enabled in the Privacy panel of your Firefox Options. Verify that the site is not blocked in the Cookie Exceptions list.
• You can allow the web site as an exception in the Firefox pop-up blocker. The "Block pop-up windows" option is found in the Content panel of your Firefox Options.
• For the time being, you can disable any ad-blocking software or Firefox extensions, such as Adblock or Adblock Plus. If the site works with ad-blocking disabled, you may want to add the site to your whitelist in your adblocker filter.
• Advanced users: If you use a Windows hosts file, you can temporarily disable it by renaming it Xhosts. Or, you can edit the hosts file to remove specific entries such as ad.doubleclick.net that can cause videos on certain sites to fail ( For more information, see the MozillaZine forums). To apply changes to your hosts file, you may need to flush the DNS cache by entering the command
  ipconfig /flushdns
  in the Run dialog box in Windows.

Based on information from Video or audio does not play (mozillaZine KB)