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How do you set Mozilla to play a Windows Media Video when you click on
the link? I tried adding a new mime type to helper applications with the
following info

MIME Type: video/x-ms-wmv
Description:L Windows Media Video
Extension : wmv

and set those to open with Media Player, but it don't work. Anyone
figured this one out?

jem

James Messick wrote:

> How do you set Mozilla to play a Windows Media Video when you click on
> the link? I tried adding a new mime type to helper applications with the
> following info
>
> MIME Type: video/x-ms-wmv
> Description:L Windows Media Video
> Extension : wmv
>
> and set those to open with Media Player, but it don't work. Anyone
> figured this one out?
>
> jem

James

The way Mozilla works
it comes across a mime type
it checks to see if it can handle it internally
if it cant, it then checks to see if any of the plug ins can
if they cant, it then hands it off to the helper application as specified

However, this ONLY applies to mime types, NOT file types.
If a .wmv file is not being provided by the server with a proper mime type, then Mozilla will 'see' the file as text/plain (or whatever mime type the server is using for it)

Many sites use improper mime types (text/plain) for .wmv files. Because IE will play such files as .wmv files. Dollars to donuts the ones you are running into are not being served with the correct mime type (video/x-ms-wmv)

About the only thing you can do is inform the server administrator to correct their site.
--
Mozilla Champion
UFAQ - http://www.UFAQ.org
Mozilla Champions - http://mozillachampions.mozdev.org
Mozilla Manual - http://mozmanual.mozdev.org/

Moz Champion wrote:
> James Messick wrote:
>
>> How do you set Mozilla to play a Windows Media Video when you click on
>> the link? I tried adding a new mime type to helper applications with
>> the following info
>>
>> MIME Type: video/x-ms-wmv
>> Description:L Windows Media Video Extension : wmv
>>
>> and set those to open with Media Player, but it don't work. Anyone
>> figured this one out?
>>
>> jem
>
>
> James
>
> The way Mozilla works
> it comes across a mime type
> it checks to see if it can handle it internally
> if it cant, it then checks to see if any of the plug ins can
> if they cant, it then hands it off to the helper application as specified
>
> However, this ONLY applies to mime types, NOT file types.
> If a .wmv file is not being provided by the server with a proper mime
> type, then Mozilla will 'see' the file as text/plain (or whatever mime
> type the server is using for it)
>
> Many sites use improper mime types (text/plain) for .wmv files. Because
> IE will play such files as .wmv files. Dollars to donuts the ones you
> are running into are not being served with the correct mime type
> (video/x-ms-wmv)
> About the only thing you can do is inform the server administrator to
> correct their site.

Um, well, actually I am sorta the administrator as I'm hosting the file
on my web site. What do I need to do to serve the mime type? (how
embarassing)

James Messick wrote:

> Moz Champion wrote:
>
>> James Messick wrote:
>>
>>> How do you set Mozilla to play a Windows Media Video when you click
>>> on the link? I tried adding a new mime type to helper applications
>>> with the following info
>>>
>>> MIME Type: video/x-ms-wmv
>>> Description:L Windows Media Video Extension : wmv
>>>
>>> and set those to open with Media Player, but it don't work. Anyone
>>> figured this one out?
>>>
>>> jem
>>
>>
>>
>> James
>>
>> The way Mozilla works
>> it comes across a mime type
>> it checks to see if it can handle it internally
>> if it cant, it then checks to see if any of the plug ins can
>> if they cant, it then hands it off to the helper application as specified
>>
>> However, this ONLY applies to mime types, NOT file types.
>> If a .wmv file is not being provided by the server with a proper mime
>> type, then Mozilla will 'see' the file as text/plain (or whatever mime
>> type the server is using for it)
>>
>> Many sites use improper mime types (text/plain) for .wmv files.
>> Because IE will play such files as .wmv files. Dollars to donuts the
>> ones you are running into are not being served with the correct mime
>> type (video/x-ms-wmv)
>> About the only thing you can do is inform the server administrator to
>> correct their site.
>
>
> Um, well, actually I am sorta the administrator as I'm hosting the file
> on my web site. What do I need to do to serve the mime type? (how
> embarassing)

Beyond my knowledge. Perhaps other server admins can advise you on how to do it
--
Mozilla Champion
UFAQ - http://www.UFAQ.org
Mozilla Champions - http://mozillachampions.mozdev.org
Mozilla Manual - http://mozmanual.mozdev.org/

[batty13]

Looking around it seems that it's Firefox acting in a strict manner whereas IE is usually more forgiving in errors. However, the problem is actually on the server. An administrator would change the registry setting to use that type.
Here's a link we found regarding that action.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/142558


Also found this info at
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Opening_files_using_plugins

Misconfigured web server

Sometimes a misconfigured web server will send a file with an inappropriate MIME type and, instead of the file automatically opening with the browser plugin, an "Opening" dialog box will appear, asking you to either save the file or open it with a chosen external application. This may happen with .wmv (Windows Media Video) files sent as "text/plain" instead of the correct "video/x-ms-wmv" MIME type (see bug 250914, probably related to the fix for bug 220807, outlined here). A Google Groups search shows that this can also occur when downloading .swf (Shockwave Flash) flies and, most likely, other types of files for which a plugin is installed, when the inappropriate "text/plain" MIME type is sent. A similar issue can occur with the "application/octet-stream" MIME type [2]. (Note that the MIME type of the file being downloaded will appear in the Mozilla Suite and SeaMonkey "Opening" dialog box, but not in Firefox.) If the problem occurs with some downloads of a particular type file but not others, it is likely that the web server is misconfigured; unfortunately there is nothing you can do in such cases except to contact the website about the problem.

NOW FOR HOW TO FIX IT!

Found this at
http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs...ver_MIME_Types

How to set up your server to send the correct MIME types

* If you're using the Apache web server, simply copy this sample .htaccess file to the directory that contains the files that you want to send with the correct MIME types. If you have an entire subdirectory of files, just place the file in the parent directory; you need not place it in each subdirectory.
* If you're using Microsoft IIS, see this article at Microsoft TechNet.
* If you're using a server-side script to generate content, you can generally add one line near the top of your script. You can serve content other than HTML from Perl, PHP, ASP, or Java — just change the MIME type accordingly.
o For Perl CGI, you should have the line print "Content-Type: text/html\n\n"; before any other output lines. If you're using the CGI module, you can use the line print $cgi->header('text/html'); instead, where $cgi is your reference to the CGI instance.
o For PHP, you should have the line header('Content-Type: text/html'); before any other output lines.
o For ASP, you should have the line response.ContentType = "text/html"; before any other output lines.
o For a Java servlet, you should have the line response.setContentType("text/html"); at the top of your doGet or doPost method, where response is a reference to the HttpServletResponse.

SWEET! So now all you have to do is go to that site and follow the links there depending on whether your site is apache or IIS !

CHeers