Playing mpg/mpeg's in Safari

corradoboy

I just had a minor catastrophe when my Mac crashed whilst optimizing after a software update. Disk Warrior run from a network drive highlighted many overwritten files and ultimately I had to bin the HDD and fitted another. Fortunately, all my personal files seem to have been recovered and it was mostly applications and their components which suffered. I've gradually been re-installing things but have noticed that when I view mpg's in Safari, all I get is the progress bar and controls and all white, no image. I've updated QT to 7.3 and am running 10.4.11 as my ancient G3 PB won't run Leo. Any ideas what codec, container, helper or whatever may be missing ?????

corradoboy

Anyone

mr. me

First off: It sounds like your were trying to fix a hardware problem with software. Optimizing, whatever that means, will not destroy a hard drive.



Second: I am betting that you did not do a standard installation of MacOS X. This would have given you a standard installation of QuickTime, which plays MPEG-1 (aka .mpg) files out-of-the-box.

corradoboy

QT will play them, Safari will not. Before my troubles mpg's played in their own browser window, now it opens the window and displays the QT controls, but no image shows. I am guessing that there is a Safari QT component missing or broken. I've now updated OS X (from 10.3.9 to 10.4.11), Safari and QT to the latest available, but it still doesn't play mpg's within the browser







I was not trying to fix hardware with software as I was not aware my hardware was broken. Previously when my Mac has acted troublesome I have run through some basic maintenence routines and it has always cleared the issues, this time it did not.



OS X optimizes after major software installations. I presume it is similar to a defrag, tidying up the HDD. Watch the screen next time you do some installs or updates

mr. me

Quote:

Originally Posted by corradoboy


QT will play them, Safari will not. ...

Quicktime is not an application; it is the multimedia frameworks of MacOS/MacOS X. The QuickTime Player is an application based on the QuickTime frameworks. So too is Safari. As such, Safari should be able to play anything that the QuickTime Player can handle [with the exception of MPEG-2 due to licensing issues with Sorensen]. You may have disabled the QuickTime Plugin or at least QuickTime's ability to handle MPEG files. Check your MIME settings in the QuickTime preferences pane.

corradoboy

Right, a bit of digging and this looks like it's quite common with plenty of reported cases on Apples discussion areas and across the web. It seems to affect QT 7.2+ and OS X 10.4.2+ but the trouble is with Safari. I have now installed Firefox and mpegs play perfectly in its browser and so will use that as and when I need to, and if I get used to it I may ditch Safari unless I or Apple can solve the issue. I've tried many of the suggested fixes stated on the web and so far I cannot resolve it on my Mac.

corradoboy

Strange one now. Just had a play with some mpegs in Safari and initially they don't play, but if I refresh the page a couple of times they suddenly start playing

pb

Quote:

Originally Posted by corradoboy


Strange one now. Just had a play with some mpegs in Safari and initially they don't play, but if I refresh the page a couple of times they suddenly start playing

This must be some nasty bug. I have the same problem under Panther too. Movies play fine through QT Player but not through QT plugin for Safari, although the controls are visible. It started after some system or QT update, but I had not the time to look for a solution.

sequitur

I had problems when I upgraded to QuickTime 7.2 and 7.3 and couldn't play some stuff. The problem also manifested itself by showing a QuickTime logo with a question mark in the center. I found the fix for that problem, but I'm not sure it's the same one you are having. If it is, let me know, and I'll post the fix I found.

pb

Quote:

Originally Posted by sequitur


I had problems when I upgraded to QuickTime 7.2 and 7.3 and couldn't play some stuff. The problem also manifested itself by showing a QuickTime logo with a question mark in the center. I found the fix for that problem, but I'm not sure it's the same one you are having. If it is, let me know, and I'll post the fix I found.

In my case you see the progress bar and the controls but the movie part is empty (white, like the Safari page in which it is embedded). There is no question mark, so probably not the same problem, but posting your fix could help. As I said I have at this moment not the time to do a research on this issue.

corradoboy

Can all those having trouble try clicking at the end of the URL to leave a cursor there, then press RETURN to reload the page. Try this a couple of times and see if, like mine, the video eventually plays. Firefox plays them fine, so one could assume that the Safari QT component is missing something.

sequitur

Quote:

Originally Posted by PB


In my case you see the progress bar and the controls but the movie part is empty (white, like the Safari page in which it is embedded). There is no question mark, so probably not the same problem, but posting your fix could help. As I said I have at this moment not the time to do a research on this issue.

This is from a post I made on 8-23-07



There have been several threads on this subject in Applications and Genius Bar, and instead of picking one, I'm starting a new thread. Apparently, there are many Mac users who have this problem. A lot of them have gone to the Apple site and asked for help. I found these ?solutions? there, so for what they're worth:

--------------------





Re: QuickTime 7.2.0 Gets ? in Q; cannot play

Yay!



I got all my browsers working. After talking to a totally useless Apple tech guy, I went to do some more research and I found from some site that said that someone had simply removed their VLC Plugin.plugin and their Quicktime Plugin.plugin from their root library folder, internet plugins and the problem was gone.



I didn't have a VLC Plugin.plugin, but I 'did' have the Quick Time one and I trashed it. The browsers have to be disconnected to do this, okay? Anyway, now all seems back to normal...



I hope that this works for all of you who are having the same problem with movies and other things on browsers!

+++++++++++++++++++++



When I updated QT to QT 7.2 I had the same problem. I updated Firefox at the same time so I didn't, and still don't know, which software was causing the problem. I went to the Firefox home page and clicked on plugins. I downloaded the latest Java, Flash and Reader plugins. When I installed these the problem went away. I suspect that it was either Java, Flash or both since both were out of date. Noe the problem is solved for both Firefox and Camino. If you are having this problem, try updating to the latest Firefox and downloading all the latest plugins. It worked for me.



+++++++++++++++++++++



I can open quicktime video's now. I went to adobe.com and installed the latest adobe flash player 9 UB V 9,0,47,0. I also went into disk utility and did a 1. verify disk permission 2. verify disk 3. repair disk permissions on both my MacHD and 74.5 media. Thank you for your messages.



++++++++++++++++++++++



I found the same problem with Quicktime trying to play Flash swf files on the net. After a morning of searching forums came up with this fix.

In QT prefs go to advanced and click the MIME button - under Miscellaneous you'll find Flash Media - uncheck that.

I have rechecked several sites that had the error and rebooted Safari 3 or 4 times and didn't get the Q? symbol.

=========================

This is what I tried on 8-23-07:



None of the above worked completely for me. However removing Quicktime plugin.plugin from their root library folder, Internet plugins resolved the problem with Firefox.



Still had the problem with Safari. Then, I went to root library/Internet Plug-Ins/ QuickTime Plugin.wegplugin/ Contents/ QuickTime Plugin and deleted that (QuickTime Plugin. ) Now Safari worked without the ?in Quicktime Logo.



It's still working since yesterday, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the problem is solved permanently.



In case none of these work for you, you can try the site I found these on:



http://discussions.apple.com/thread....810&tstart=135



There may be other fixes there.

________________________________________



This is what I did on 11-30-07



Upgraded to QuickTime 7.3. Had QuickTime logo with ?

I used:



Root /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/QuickTime \\QuickTime Plugin.plugin



Deleted Plugin.plugin ---- No more QT icon w/ ?



If this doesn?t work for you, let me know and I?ll post fixes others have tried when upgrading QT

I?ll look for fixes on AI earlier this year. There were several threads I posted to, so I know there are other fixes.

sequitur

I doubt that this could be the cause of your problem, but it does show that QT has vulnerabilities:



QuickTime zero-day attacks intercepted --



http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=704&tag=nl.rSINGLE





I googled this site relating to QuickTime problems;



http://www.google.com/search?q=Quick...ient=firefox-a

pb

Thanks sequitur for posting all this. Yes, it seems that the problem is different, but it is a starting point nevertheless.

jacobdaley

Yeah, the controls appear and the sound plays but there is no image. I run into this problem every time I install a quicktime update. Apparently when the new one is installed it doesn't remove the previous quicktime.plugin folder. Sarari doesn't seem to like having two quicktime plugins. Dragging the old folder to the trash been working for me.