Strange Flash MP3 player problem in Firefox/Win

[carl67lp]

We're using the Flash media player solution from jeroenwijering.com (and yes, I could post the problem there, but my boss is convinced that it's not a player-related issue). We use this player for online college exams; in some cases there are just 8 or 10 audio clips, but on one of our exams we have 20-22 clips.

The exam works fine...except in Firefox on Windows, where there is a very odd problem: If you play the clips top to bottom (that is, in order), you're fine--all the clips play. But if you play bottom to top, the first clip so accessed (last in the group; say, question 50 of 50), the play button turns to pause (as it should), but there's no playback--the scrubber doesn't move, and there's no audio.

This is repeatable behaviour.

We're using the latest download of the Flash Player as well as the latest Firefox.

Is there anyone who's seen behaviour like this? I'm absolutely stumped. My boss thinks it's a memory leak issue, but I don't have enough background knowledge on this.

Help!

(I'm happy to add more details as needed, up to a point--we're dealing with college exams, of course.)

 

[carl67lp]

Here's another little wrinkle to the situation... If you do nothing but scroll down the page, and then return to the top, if you play the very first clip, you again get the problem.

It's as though there's an invisible "stack" (programming usage) that's getting populated incorrectly.

 

[Shadow2531]

Did you try it in Firefox 3 beta? FF2 might have a bug that's already fixed in FF3. Did you compare the behavior with Opera, Safari and the latest Opera 9.5 snapshot ?

I'd double check just in case there's a bug with the player itself. IE might be hiding the bug in some way and FF (and perhaps others) might just be exposing it.

The exam works fine...except in Firefox on Windows

By that, did you mean that it works fine in FF on other operating systems? Or, are you just testing on windows right now?

Did you have a link where we can test? Or, can you set up an example with fake data etc.?

 

[carl67lp]

Did you try it in Firefox 3 beta? FF2 might have a bug that's already fixed in FF3. Did you compare the behavior with Opera, Safari and the latest Opera 9.5 snapshot ?

I'd double check just in case there's a bug with the player itself. IE might be hiding the bug in some way and FF (and perhaps others) might just be exposing it.



By that, did you mean that it works fine in FF on other operating systems? Or, are you just testing on windows right now?

Did you have a link where we can test? Or, can you set up an example with fake data etc.?

It works fine on Firefox 2.0.0.12 on the Mac; not so for the same version on the PC.

I haven't tested it with FF3 beta. I *think* we checked with Safari, but I'll have to double-check. I have to admit we don't do much checking with Opera; our userbase doesn't use Opera much, if at all.

But yes, Firefox on OS X 10.5 works swimmingly.

 

[Shadow2531]

It works fine on Firefox 2.0.0.12 on the Mac; not so for the same version on the PC.

Hmm. Same flash plugin version on both pc and mac? Is the PC version of FF using any extensions or anything that might interfere?

Maybe try forums.mozillazine.org

 

[carl67lp]

Hmm. Same flash plugin version on both pc and mac? Is the PC version of FF using any extensions or anything that might interfere?

Maybe try forums.mozillazine.org

I'll take a look at the forums, for sure. My boss found the "limit"; anything over 15 audio clips and the problem arises.

And yes, latest Flash plugin on both systems. Nothing else installed (it's a testing box).

 

[carl67lp]

Well, the resolution has been found...sort of. After much searching on the Web, I came across the Firefox forum thread where people were discussing a similar problem. That led me to an Adobe thread that discussed things in more detail.

Turns out it's an issue with Flash Player version 9. I downgraded to version 8 and everything is fine.

I think Adobe is aware of the issue but I don't know when or if a resolution will come from them.

 

[Shadow2531]

I see.

On a side, the latest version of flash 9 (115) crashes on certain sites and takes the browser (all browsers) with it. It's been broken since december. The only think to do is downgrade to 9r47, but it has security vulnerabilities.