Safari 5 breaks embedded Quicktime player

This is a problem with WebKit enabled servers which specifically affects Safari under *Mac OSX 10.6.x*. No other browser or platform is affected.

Your mp3s will play back without issue if your server is NOT WebKit enabled, but I suspect you host server is WebKit enabled.

Remedy/Patch:
Encode mp3s with a LAME encoder and NOT iTunes, and make sure there is NO TRACK ID3 tag. Once the mp3 is created by a LAME encoder, do NOT under any circumstances make any changes to the ID3 tags in iTunes, as iTunes will modify the file and the file will no longer play in Safari.

If using iTunes to encode you mp3s is your only option, move your mp3s to a server that in NOT WebKit enabled, and place a link to that location in your site. The iTunes created mp3 will play fine as long as it does NOT RESIDE on a WebKit enabled server.

See my blog page for more details on this issue:
http://www.basicblackandpearls.com/BasicBlack_and_Pearls/Band_Blog/BandBlog.html

Good Luck!

I have five macs and they all have about same programs etc. ONE of them refuses to play embedded Quicktime movies with Safara. Chrome and Firefox works fine.

Apple told me to use one of the other browsers than Safari. That was the fix !!!?????

This is a "program" bug

Found a solution that did it for me: My little snitch configuration denied all connections for WebKitPluginHost. Changed it to "allow all connections" and now everything works 🙂

Apple told me to use one of the other browsers than Safari.

So, it seems Apple does know about the problem.... There are a lot of things I like about Quicktime X, but this problem is NOT one of them.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to know if a server has Webkit enabled until you actually hit a site and you try to access a media file. And, unless you use one of the processes described in the blog, you don't have a choice but not to use Safari on those sites.

Maybe with this acknowledgment, in means Apple is working on a solution that does not require a web browser dance to listen to mp3s on the web...

Finger crossed

The fix for me is: when I come across an embedded mp3 that won't play, I manually drag the timeline slider from the beginning to the end of the file, then press the "play" button. This seems to work for me every time. Not as elegant as just clicking a link and automatically playing a file - but it's an easy workaround until whatever's going on gets fixed. Somehow, dragging to the end resets the file in some way.

It does seem, that for these improperly working embedded files, shutting down Safari, repairing permissions (always Java files getting repaired), then re-opening Safari - will allow it to work normally only ONCE. Then it's all broken again unless I use the workaround mentioned above - or quit Safari and repair permissions again (not very useful since it only allows the embedded file to work normally the 1st and only time until permissions repaired again).

I might add that I don't have problems with all embedded mp3's. Stream from Amazon works normally, for instance.

Here is an example file that was not working for me (from an earlier post in this thread), that will play when I apply the workaround mentioned above.

http://channel1.soundfolder.com/system/tracks/279/original/LOOP003.mp3

Forgot to upgrade my system details. I'm on 10.6.5, using MacBook Pro 2.8GHz (not PPC as shown in previous post)

That's a good tip, wbfx - Thanks.
works perfectly for direct links like that, or did when I tried too 🙂

when such links fail to play, they always begin to cache, then stop for no obvious reason. This seems to shake os x up & make it look properly.

We downloaded Audacity and re-saved the our mp3s. Did not let iTunes touch the new files. Seems to work fine.

I dont think this is a Safari/Firefox/Explorer/whatever issue.
I used iMovie and iDVD to create my movies, "Shared" them, used iWeb to create my pages with the movies. My problem is that some movies play no problem, others are just a "Q" with a question mark inside, no play options. I use Safari browser on my iMac. When I sue my windows laptop using Explorer, and go to my website, I get the exact same results - some pages show the enigmatic "Q" instead of the movie window.
I agree that Apple has really dropped the ball on this one. Surfing thru the user forums I have read where people have contacted Apple about this, and it appears that this problem has been going on for a few years
Some people are using/resorting to very complicated (complicated to little old me) ways of publishing their videos and sites. Using different FTPs (whatever that is), recoding and compressing their videos, playing with QT code, etc This is really all insanity!. One year ago I threw my PC in the recycle pile and bought a Mac, and I am still a Mac fan, appreciate the attention to the end-user simplicity. BUT this is ridiculous! It needs to be addressed and corrected! Apple - wake up!

Hi All,

The Q with the Question Mark - I hate it.

*There are a couple ways to fix this issue*. (had to "repair" some of my sites to work again) The QT v10 creates a sample html file when exporting movies with the "Share for Web" option from the file pull-down menu. You can replace the code from this sample file into your existing web pages.

The second way is to download some other sample files and code as provided by apple here: http://developer.apple.com/search/index.php?q=quicktime Checkout the samples shown in the right-most column.

Not saying you should HAVE TO fix this since Safari 5 can't read it - but at least you can.

Mark

Ever since I installed snow leopard and updated (to one of the versions since) I can not get any quicktime movies to play in Safari. MP3 works fine, but any type of quicktime gives me that **** question mark over the logo. I have repaired permissions and reinstalled quicktime 7 and anything else that seemed reasonable but no luck.

Anyone know what might cause this? It's a real pain because I have to jump in Firefox to view any kind of video that uses quicktime. not ideal when trying to work. I've seen other posts around the web claiming that the way the video is embedded is the problem, but this is every site I visit.

thanks

I've just started to use Iweb and have been having the same problem.

The way i've managed to get around it, and i know this might not be ideal for everyone, is to embed my videos as a widget from youtube, and embed any music as a html object using soundcloud. Both of these services are free, and as they're embedded it does load quicker than inserting the files too.

ephemera wrote:
Found a solution that did it for me: My little snitch configuration denied all connections for WebKitPluginHost. Changed it to "allow all connections" and now everything works 🙂

Yes! That fixed it for me too. I guess I'd inadvertently told Little Snitch to deny all connections for WebKitPluginHost.

Thanks so much! I'd been wracking my brain about this, and spent nearly an hour on the phone with Apple Care, all to no avail.

Hi!

I've been reading this thread. I too have a problem with the upside down question mark in Quicktime in Safari.

What is the Little Snitch? How do I do this fix. Please advise. Thanks!

Little Snitch is a Network Monitor that stops uninvited outgoing connections. http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html You enable Webkitpluginhost in the allowed connections. This didn't work for me.

As others have said I believe it to be iTunes 10 and I think it may be a deliberate 'DRM' thing?

I tend to use Camino and this problem occurs (as well as with Safari 5; Chrome; iCab; Opera; Omniweb; Firefox & Seamonkey.)

I couldn't get an MP3 derived from iTunes to load so I searched for a pristine MP3 version, didn't use iTunes and it now loads in work PC from the same server the iTunes one wouldn't??

Audion from Panic is now free and manipulates MP3, it runs in 10.6.7, so I am going to experiment with it. http://www.panic.com/audion/

regards