Seamonkey 2.35 failing to do Save File action for MP3's
 

I am seeing a strange problem after applying the Slackware 14.1 update for Seamonkey, moving from 2.33.1 to 2.35. I click on a link to an MP3 audio file, and instead of the expected File Save dialog (I have the action for MP3 audio set to Save File under Helper Applications), I get a black box on a gray page, with a large X (which does nothing). Under a new profile, the same thing happens, except there is also text under the black box: "Video can't be played because the file is corrupt". Again, this is an MP3 audio file, not video.

As a work-around, right-click on the link and pick Save Link Target As works.

If I change the action under Helper Applications to Always Ask, I get the same thing. Black box on gray page, no dialog.

Does anyone else get this with Seamonkey-2.35? I'm trying to determine if this is Slackware-specific or not. I don't see anything relevant on the mozilla.support.seamonkey list, nor on mozilla's bugzilla.

This looks to me like it wants to play the mp3 file as HTML5 audio.

In Firefox, you can disable media.autoplay.enabled via about_config. That may work in Seamonkey, too.

Thanks for the reply. I think you are right - it seems to be trying to play the MP3 using a built-in player (HTML5). I do not know if it is trying audio or video, but apparently it fails and then fails to display an error properly. And it is ignoring the Helper Applications setting completely.

The about:config setting you suggested, as well as some others I tried (such as media.webm.enabled which I got off the seamonkey list) had no effect. Same black/gray page with big X.

Still unknown if this is Slackware-specific or not.

(See attached screen-shot)

For what it's worth, I was able to save a *.mp3 file from this page in Seamonkey 2.35 in Slackware --Current.

If you want it to actually play, you might need one or many of the gst packages on SBo to be able to play the mp3. I don't have this issue since I use a different browser, but looking through the descriptions, I'd guess either gst-ugly or gst-ffmpeg.

Thanks, but no, I don't want it to play. Or if I do, I can have it play with any number of fine, usable players already included in Slackware 14.1 such as xmms. What I want it to do is honor the Helper Applications preference, defaulting to Always Ask, which allows me to decide whether to Save File, or Use ... (Open With). This is what it did with Seamonkey-2.33.1.

In particular, I think it is wrong for Seamonkey to force a choice (play with internal player) which does not in fact work - yes, possibly because I am missing something, but still. To add insult, it says "Video can't be played because the file is corrupt" when it won't play, even though it isn't a video, and it isn't corrupt.

(Sorry for the rant)

I tried the same thing on Firefox-38.2.1ESR on Slackware, and was surprised to see it fail there too. Same as Seamonkey-2.35. I remember the Save/Open dialog working with Firefox, but perhaps that was before the most recent jump in ESR versions from 31 to 38.

Same thing on Xubuntu with Firefox-40.0.3.

On Windows, Firefox-40.0.3 starts its internal player and plays the MP3. Better, but still not what I think it should do.

Hi,

Just to let you know, in my case it actually plays the mp3 from the aforementioned link in the internal player.
But I have all the gst-* installed.

--
Best regards,
Andrzej Telszewski

Hi,

@ljb643 you can be happy again;) I guess the problem is related to Linux in general and not Slackware in particular.
See here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/981445
Setting media.gstreamer.enabled to false worked the treat in my case.

--
Best regards,
Andrzej Telszewski

Now that I know it isn't Seamonkey-specific and affects Firefox too, I found a bug report on this: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=861090

The bug is still open (from April 2013), but one explanation is Firefox does this for MIME types it can handle internally. (But as another comment says, this isn't true, since Firefox also handles the PDF type with its built-in viewer, yet it still allows Preferences to select what to do with PDFs.)

The recent Seamonkey update to 2.35 apparently pulled in more recent Firefox/Gecko code, causing this to appear. And it is worse on Slackware (and Xubuntu too) because apparently the built-in audio player depends on something that is missing in Slackware.

Anyway, I found an about:config setting that fixes it:
And now Seamonkey works just like before: it follows the preference in Helper Applications to Ask, Save, or Open.

Note: I found this before I saw atelszewski's reply. Your setting
also fixes the problem, and I suspect yours is better, as the one I found probably affects other types too. But both work for MP3. Thanks!

I wonder if this would have been a problem with the non-distribution specific SeaMonkey package?
It can be installed fairly easily.

http://www.seamonkey-project.org/doc...-and-uninstall

I wondered too, so I tried it. Same behavior as the Slackware package: no prompt to save or open, just gets the "Video can't be played because the file is corrupt" message. (To clarify vs my first post: on one Slackware PC, I get no visible message, but on another the message is shown at the bottom of the black box.)

@ljb643,
Thanks for checking that out.
Greatly appreciated.
:)

Hi,

I personally don't like the web browser and websites to act as media center.
So finally I decided to configure SeaMonkey the way it should be:
But naturally, sometimes I need/want to watch something on YouTube or at least get the video URL.
And found this one: http://prefbar.tuxfamily.org/
I added my own button (see attached image) that allows me to easily toggle media.webm.enabled, so when I need to enable the video, I can do it quickly. Finally I got rid of all this annoying auto-played videos/advertisements.

I must admit that I'm liking SeaMonkey a lot. It was worth to give it a try and abandon Firefox.
At the moment, the only thing I'm missing is possibility of detaching tab into separate window, but granted the overall simplicity and clearness of SeaMonkey, I can live perfect life without this option.

--
Best regards,
Andrzej Telszewski