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What happened to MP3 support in Firefox 24?

  • 11 replies
  • 19 have this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by AliceWyman

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Since I installed Firefox 24 on my laptop, I'm not able of playing MP3 files on Firefox through HTML5. I've done an HTML5 test that confirms my browser doesn't support MP3:

http://beta.html5test.com/s/7ae8f31bc64db93f.html

Here it says Firefox started supporting it in version 22 but it's not supported in 24, and that's true for me because I could play MP3 files on version 22 or 23 (I don't remember which), without a problem, but now I can't with 24.

http://html5test.com/compare/feature/audio-mp3.html

Also, according to this:

http://beta.html5test.com/compare/feature/audio-mp3.html

it's supported again in Firefox 26, but I don't want to have to use a nightly build.

The weird thing is a friend of mine says he can play MP3 files fine on Firefox 24.

What can I do?

Since I installed Firefox 24 on my laptop, I'm not able of playing MP3 files on Firefox through HTML5. I've done an HTML5 test that confirms my browser doesn't support MP3: http://beta.html5test.com/s/7ae8f31bc64db93f.html Here it says Firefox started supporting it in version 22 but it's not supported in 24, and that's true for me because I could play MP3 files on version 22 or 23 (I don't remember which), without a problem, but now I can't with 24. http://html5test.com/compare/feature/audio-mp3.html Also, according to this: http://beta.html5test.com/compare/feature/audio-mp3.html it's supported again in Firefox 26, but I don't want to have to use a nightly build. The weird thing is a friend of mine says he can play MP3 files fine on Firefox 24. What can I do?

Chosen solution

I see you posted an earlier question about his problem, on Oct 8, 2013,

You wrote in that thread that direct links to MP3 files such as this mp3 example, also don't work for you in the Firefox built-in player.

You also wrote,

I have a laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium x64, which I had to reinstall recently because of some hard drive problems. I used to be able to play MP3 audio files directly on Firefox, when I clicked a link to a MP3 file a new tab would open and the audio would start playing. But now I get a window asking me whether I want to open it (with Windows Media Player by default), or save it, and I can't play MP3 files with HTML5 <audio> tag, supposedly my browser doesn't support it. 

I'm thinking it might have something to do with the fact that you recently reinstalled Windows 7. Did you also install SP1 and later Windows updates?

Read this answer in context 👍 3

All Replies (11)

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Your friend is maybe using an add-on to play MP3. e.g. MP3 player add-on

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No, he uses Firefox just because he can't run Chrome properly and he hasn't changed anything or installed any add-on.

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Which web pages with MP3 HTML5 coding don't work for you?

MP3 on this HTML5 Audio Formats Test page works for me (Fx24, Win7)

http://hpr.dogphilosophy.net/test/

If the MP3 test on that page doesn't work for you, enter about:config in the Firefox address bar and make sure that the preference
media.windows-media-foundation.enabled is set to "true", which is the default setting.

Ref: http://kb.mozillazine.org/File_types_and_download_actions#Built-in_support_for_certain_media

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No pages which use MP3 HTML5 or playing MP3 directly (which is actually the same) work for me.

I had already tried that page and it says it doesn't support MP3.

media.windows-media-foundation.enabled is set to "true".

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Are there any error messages in the Web Console (Firefox/Tools > Web Developer;Ctrl+Shift+K) about these mp3 files (common CSS errors are not important and can be ignored)?

Does Firefox retrieve the MP3 file?

You can use the Network tab in the Web Console or this extension.

Modified by cor-el

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In the page AliceWyman posted, if I click the try button, this appears in the Web Console:

[11:25:45.759] GET http://hpr.dogphilosophy.net/test/mp3.mp3 [HTTP/1.1 206 Partial Content]

[11:25:46.818] HTTP "Content-Type" of "audio/mpeg" is not supported. Load of media resource http://hpr.dogphilosophy.net/test/mp3.mp3 failed.

In the Network tab I get:

  • Green circle, if I move the mouse pointer over it it says "206 partial content".
  • Method: GET
  • File: mp3.mp3
  • Domain: hpr.dogphilosophy.net
  • Type: mpeg
  • Size: 0 KB

Modified by DaRk_St0rM

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Chosen Solution

I see you posted an earlier question about his problem, on Oct 8, 2013,

You wrote in that thread that direct links to MP3 files such as this mp3 example, also don't work for you in the Firefox built-in player.

You also wrote,

I have a laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium x64, which I had to reinstall recently because of some hard drive problems. I used to be able to play MP3 audio files directly on Firefox, when I clicked a link to a MP3 file a new tab would open and the audio would start playing. But now I get a window asking me whether I want to open it (with Windows Media Player by default), or save it, and I can't play MP3 files with HTML5 <audio> tag, supposedly my browser doesn't support it. 

I'm thinking it might have something to do with the fact that you recently reinstalled Windows 7. Did you also install SP1 and later Windows updates?

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Yes Firefox uses your system's codecs to play media files, so your system needs to be somewhat updated.

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Yes I asked that question some days ago but I thought I'd better rewrite it to see if I could get any more help.

I think I had SP1 installed, though I can't remember it. I'll try installing it now to see if it works.

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@AliceWyman :

I installed Service Pack 1 and now it works like a charm.

Thank you very much!

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Hey, that's great! You're welcome!

Thanks for posting back with the outcome.