IGNORE BELOW - sound is back. Think the loss is something to do with putting PC into sleep mode (in Windows) - because the power save thingy in Mandriva doesn't work either (it just shows on ac power even if I'm on battery) - something else to fix!!!

I read the following:

If after a system update you’ve discovered that streaming Flash is without sound - fear not. Dapper will at times drop the sound from Firefox & Flash, as always you need to search the forums before freaking out as someone has more than likely already experienced the problem and discovered a solution. Trial and error has lead me to the following fix on my system.

sudo aptitude install alsa-oss
sudo gedit /etc/firefox/firefoxrc

FIREFOX_DSP=”aoss”

RIGHT ON! Problem is I can't find any file called firefoxrc.

Jeez ... I'm getting tired .....


Previously on Lost ...

Well, folks, the latest is that ALL sound has now ceased!!!

I think I'm going to reinstall mandriva again - first thing I'll do is remove firefox, and start with a fresh install of FF and mplayer.


The BBC iPlayer is USELESS if you live outside the UK - unless anybody knows how to spoof a UK IP address. They use Geo-Ip or something to block access from outside the UK.

Probably going to be 'absent' for a while until I get mandriva back on vmware.

Finally managed to screw up mandriva - tried to install windowmaker.
Reinstalling from scratch, and armed with a little more knowledge (could be dangerous!) will sleuth audio/video further.

Later

Thanks to the new posters of this thread...

What we got here is the mplayer and mplayer-plugin works well for some people and partially or not for others. For me, at least I can play windows media, quicktime, realplayer/realone,google VLC and divx embedded streams.

As a test for castalla2007, I visited the BBC website to test my mplayer and mplayer-plugin. I played the One-Minute World News link video from BBC.
I played both windows and realone at standard qualiy and high resolution
quality with no problem.

The other members who tested the BBC website had different experiences.
Some said, they were able to play the videos, others were able to play only windows media and others can only play the standard quality and not the high resolution stream and for others like castalla2007 it has different
outcomes.

Why mplayer/plugin is working well for others and partially for others, I don't know. Is it a matter of codecs, free or non-free?

castalla2007, I have no more solutions to your mplayer-plugin problem. All I can say is to try other player/plugins like xine and mozplugger, maybe you might have better luck with those. And as a last option, you could buy crossover office/plugins.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for your input and suggestions for helping castalla2007.

- later

'sHey, castalla2007

I didn't see your last post. By the time I submitted my post, you already had yours posted.

Have you considered trying other players/plugins like xine and mozplugger?

I'll try mozplugger when I reinstall Mandriva. Wondering if I should dump firefox and try Opera with new mplayer plugin and real player plugin. Nothing to lose I suppose since I'm going back to Year Zero in any case!

Let's hope it works...

Just go to Ubuntu and all of your troubles will be gone

Don't be an idiot

I reinstalled Mandriva 2008 - the only video plugins which partially work with Firefox are mplayer (windows media - restricted number of sites, eg. Streamick.com) and Flash (youtube.com). It is impossible to play the BBC high quality clips - also I discovered that CNN.com live doesn't play either.

This is very disappointing - there just doesn't seem to be any viable solutions to the problem of video plugins.

Deinstall of mplayer and reinstall resulted in a total hash - nothing playing, mplayer disappearing from menus. What a bl***dy mess!

I am going to try yet another distro to see what gives.

More later.

Update Wednesday 19 Dec

Installed Linux Mint. Exactly same symtoms as already described for Mandriva. BBC only plays in standalone with aoss realplayer running from terminal. Windows stream loads but no video or sound with mplayer. Streamick.com only plays windows stream if video is set to x11 and sound set to alsa.

Lost for words ... and video ... and sound.

What else can I try? is there a bullet proof distro with realplayer and mplayer already installed out-of-thebox ??? - has to be a live .iso or a vmware image.

You should keep in mind that the BBC iPlayer for Linux is still in beta form. You could report your problems to the BBC iPlayer developpers so they can fix it.

I have the same problem with some Windows Media Player video's. Some just work and some don't. Is this a problem with DRM?

I read on Linux.com that there was a new piece of Linux audio software that is compatible with both oss and alsa. Maybe someone here can figure out how it's called so you can try that.

I can't garantee you anything, but Ubuntu has been the first Linux distro that worked without any problems for me. When you go to Applications->Add/remove you can install realplayer (or Helix - the Open Source realplayer) and mplayer. Installing that is so easy that even your grandma can do it. This is the website where you can download a .iso: www.ubuntu.com

I hope this helps. You have had a really bad experience with Linux and I know how frustrating that can be. Ubuntu has been a liberation for me and ever since I havn't encountered frustration with linux anymore

Vincent!

thanks for the info.

Like I said - i think I've tried just about everything - including deinstalling and reinstalling both mplayer and realplayer (in both Mandriva and Linux Mint, which is ubuntu-based). I've installed win32 codecs, messsed with sound settings, etc. Just seems there are too many variables to chase up (often resulting in a Catch 22!). The only video/audio plugin which seems to work well is Flash.

The BBC iPlayer is not available outside the UK. They block the streams.

cheers

http://www.mepis.org/
http://www.pclinuxos.com/

These two distros have the mplayer preinstall. You don't need Helix realplayer 10, as mplayer handles the realplayer codecs. Before you visit any website, take a look at the plugins you have. In the browser type
You will see the mplayer plugin and the codecs it supports.


I tested both distros on the BBC website and it played the videos streams via windows media. Use the live cds instead of the virtual machines. So far the virtual appliances you've been using is giving you problems.

- later

Well, they appear to have made some progress. When I first gave it a try a week or so ago, it was utterly hopeless. Now I do get mplayer to launch (without any effort) but I keep seeing "connecting to akamai.net:80". Is this another bug or is it just the effect of me being in Belgium?

For what it's worth, I'm using Fedora 8 (64 bit) with pulseaudio (I assume that this is what Vincent was referring to) with mplayer, mplayerplug-in, a ton of gstreamer libs and xine-libs as well (just in case). I don't think win32codecs has anything to do with it since those aren't available for 64 bit Fedora and it appears to work (more or less) even so.

Maybe it's a matter of location. Who knows?

castalla2007, if you do try the live cd and you still get the same problems, then I have no clue what is wrong at your end.

Anyway, this is my last suggestion. I have no other ideas. Its been 15 days and still no resolution.

Like you, I am also tired and maybe others who stayed with this thread as long as we had.

I suggest you start a new post like in the linux Software forum, there's a lot of viewers and mplayer is a software issue for you. Or you can still continue on with this thread and hope someone has a solution to your problem.

- So long and good luck...

One final note,

I've been using linux for a long time. I too, like most others has had their share of bumps along the road. Some problems were able to get fixed quickly and others in some cases remain unresolved.

This is true with any OS, windows, mac, linux or other. if it weren't so, why are there forums for them as well.

Anyway, if this is starting to discourage you from using linux, then all I can say is at least you gave it a try.