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Why won't Firefox 5 see the Windows Media Player Plugin?
Hello helpful Mozilla experts,
When I click on a link to play a standard WMV video in Firefox 5, in the movie player window it says "Click here to download plugin".
When I click "Click here to download plugin" in Firefox 5, I get a Firefox panel that says I need Windows Media Player 11, but I already have Windows Media Player 12 and the Firefox WMP browser plugin installed on this computer... it worked fine in Firefox 3.6.
If I then click to install the Windows Media Player 11 plugin, it goes to another Firefox panel that says, "No plugins were installed, Windows Media Player 11 - Not Available". Then there is a "Manual Install" button, and when I click that, it takes me to a third party plugin site called "InteroperabilityBridges.com" that has a Firefox WMP plugin available that is dated April 2007.
Here's the link it gives... http://www.interoperabilitybridges.com/windows-media-player-firefox-plugin-download
When I check my "Programs and Features" panel in Windows 7 on my control panel, I can see that I already have something installed named, "Windows Media Player Firefox Plugin" installed and it is dated 10/24/2010, and it is version 1.0.0.8.
In spite of already having the required plugin installed and showing in my Programs and Features panel, this WMP plugin is not showing up on my Firefox 5 plugins panel. So I tried re-installing it with the original installer and the installer that is available from the URL above (they appear to be the same except my original installer has a 2010 date).
I also tried the "repair" option in the plugin installer... it still doesn't show up in Firefox 5 nor will this browser play a WMV file in the embedded test player linked from the Mozilla WMP plugin troubleshooting page, nor from other pages that have WMV players embedded.
So the question is, why is Firefox 5 requiring I install an older Windows Media Player plugin, version 1.0.0.8 from 2007 when I already have it installed?... and why won't it work?
I've already gone through all the Mozilla troubleshooting info and accessed the page on this topic and nothing works... https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Using%20the%20Windows%20Media%20Player%20plugin%20with%20Firefox
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Windows_Media_Player#Missing_plugin
http://blogs.technet.com/b/port25/archive/2007/04/16/windows-media-player-plug-in-for-firefox.aspx
What is the solution? Upgrading again for the 3rd time in the last 2 months is not an option... I'm tired of going through all the troublesome steps of upgrading and figuring out what Mozilla has changed and left out of a another browser upgrade and re-installing the plugins, extensions, add-ons and customizations and troubleshooting everything that doesn't work, as I am still doing now with Firefox 5.
It seems that as soon as I get most things squared away in a new Mozilla browser, then they have come out with three new versions, so when I'm still struggling with version FF5 (as I am now) there will be version 9 that I'm getting constant annoying "reminders" to upgrade to.
Thanks,
digi
Обране рішення
Did you carefully read and follow the instructions in the 2nd & 3rd paragraphs in the article about creating a \plugins folder in the Firefox program installation folder and copying the file from C:\PFiles\Plugins into that newly created folder?
Worked for me.
If this reply solves your problem, please click "Solved It" next to this reply when signed-in to the forum.
Not related to your question, but...
You need to update some plug-ins:
- Plug-in check: https://www-trunk.stage.mozilla.com/en-US/plugincheck/
- Adobe PDF Plug-In For Firefox and Netscape: Installing/Updating Adobe Reader in Firefox
- Shockwave Flash (Adobe Flash or Flash): Updating Flash in Firefox
Усі відповіді (9)
Вибране рішення
Did you carefully read and follow the instructions in the 2nd & 3rd paragraphs in the article about creating a \plugins folder in the Firefox program installation folder and copying the file from C:\PFiles\Plugins into that newly created folder?
Worked for me.
If this reply solves your problem, please click "Solved It" next to this reply when signed-in to the forum.
Not related to your question, but...
You need to update some plug-ins:
- Plug-in check: https://www-trunk.stage.mozilla.com/en-US/plugincheck/
- Adobe PDF Plug-In For Firefox and Netscape: Installing/Updating Adobe Reader in Firefox
- Shockwave Flash (Adobe Flash or Flash): Updating Flash in Firefox
Hi Safebrowser,
Yes, that worked! Thank you.
This was the second time I posted a question on this topic in a week and you are the first to reply with an actual answer.
In the paragraph that contains this information, it says to copy the plugin from "C:\PFiles\Plugins"... but some wouldn't realize that this path is secret code for the actual path to this plugins folder located at "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\Plugins" .
It seems that Mozilla could be a little less cryptic and less confusing about the actual path to where this plugin folder is located, especially since Firefox can't otherwise find this plugin on its own and users need to play a type of shell game to get the plugin in the correct location to make it work with a new Firefox installation, then create another folder that is missing to place the plugin.
The average computer user wouldn't be able to do all this or find the information that instructs them to do this, then figure out the secret meaning of "Pfiles" and then figure out that the Plugins folder is one more level down the path than what is published in that article.
Then there is the plugins manager panel in Firefox 5 that first says, "Click here to download plugin", then says I need Windows Media Player 11, but when I click to install the Windows Media Player 11 plugin, it goes to another Firefox panel that says, "No plugins were installed, Windows Media Player 11 - Not Available".
Which then leads to a "Manual Install" button, but when I click that, it takes me to a third party plugin site that has a Firefox WMP plugin to download that is dated April 2007, but my existing WMP 12 plugin with the same 1.0.0.8 version number is dated 2010.
But in spite of all that, it only took me three unsuccessful re-installation attempts and repair attempts and two posts of the same basic question on this forum to finally get an answer from a kind person like yourself.
Also, thanks for the additional links about the other plugins... I'm sure I would have come up against those obstacles soon enough.
Thanks again,
numetro
"In the paragraph that contains this information, it says to copy the plugin from "C:\PFiles\Plugins"... but some wouldn't realize that this path is secret code for the actual path to this plugins folder located at "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\Plugins" . "
No, C:\PFiles\Plugins is an actual folder that the plugin gets installed into; it is not the same as/nor meant to be a "shortened" path for/nor a secret code for C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\Plugins
The problem lies with the installer for the WMP plugin. It is an unfortunate issue and all we can do, as unpaid volunteers, is to assist users in finding solutions to problems such as this.
Hi SafeBrowser,
My WMP plugin was located at "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\Plugins"... on this computer there is no folder at the path "C:\PFiles\Plugins".
There didn't seem to be an issue previously with the WMP plugin installer since Firefox 3.6 was able to see it after a standard installation. It is only since I've installed Firefox 5 that any issue with plugins has arisen.
numetro
Firefox 3.6.x had a plugins folder in the Firefox program application folder.
Firefox versions 4 and newer, do not create at installation a plugins folder in the Firefox program applications folder, but will use the contents of that folder if you create it. That is clearly stated in the 3rd paragraph of the following article (same link/article as posted in my original reply) beginning with the word Note:
Thanks SafeBrowser,
"That is clearly stated in the 3rd paragraph of the following article..."
All of these fascinating facts placed in different locations in all of the spellbinding articles somehow didn't come to me automatically when I started encountering these recent incarnations in the great new versions of Firefox... i.e. "Article 5, paragraph 4, section 7, line 3, clause 18, etc., etc."... all of this sounds more like a legal document from the law firm of "Mozilla & Mozilla".
It seems that today, Firefox users need to spend more time reading about how to get around how Firefox is set up in order to use it than they do actually using the browser.
Wouldn't it be great if the browser was installed with all of the things that it needs to run?
numetro ;^D
Змінено
"All of these fascinating facts placed in different locations in all of the spellbinding articles..."
You are confused:
- It is all the same article
- PLUS
- My first post started with:
- Did you carefully read and follow the instructions in the 2nd & 3rd paragraphs
This is not a new topic. This question has been asked and answered many, many times in this forum.
If you feel Firefox is too complex, perhaps another browser would suit your needs better.
Змінено
"Wouldn't it be great if the browser was installed with all of the things that it needs to run? "
Microsoft developed and owns that WMP plugin. Mozilla doesn't contain anything that isn't open source (and even that depends upon which of the 3 open source licenses it was released under), or developed in house by Mozilla.
If this question has been asked many, many times on this forum, perhaps other users are having the same problems with all of Firefox's requirements being "too complex".
I've collected 6 links to different Mozilla articles and info on this topic... not all on one page... no confusion here... perhaps on your end.
There's a big difference between complex and bad design.
Enjoy your other problem solving duties today. ;^D