Windows Media Player + Safari = trouble.

[absurdio]

So M$ ruins the day again.

Until recently, any time I came a cross a site that had Windows Media content, Safari would give me a little error message saying that it lacked some plugin to open the content in Safari and asking me if I wanted to try to play the content with Windows Media Player, instead. I'd click "okay," WMP would open outside of Safari, and it would play fine.

That was alright, but it was a nuisance. Besides that, it was inelegant, and, really, why would any of us be mac users if we weren't sticklers for elegant simplicity? So I went looking for the neccessary but missing plugin. Failing that, I thought I'd just redownload WMP and reinstall it to get the newest version and all that. Indeed, Microsoft's site says: "New plug-in support added for Internet Explorer, Netscape and Safari enables playback of Windows Media files right from the browser," which sounded exactly perfect. So I did it.

And it's true! Now Safari doesn't give me that error message, anymore! Now, when it comes to WM content, Safari just crashes! Phenominal! The cursor turns to the colorwheel of doom, nothing works, and nothing improves. So what the hell.

Can anyone tell me what the hell is going on? I know there are alternatives to WMP out there, but I really just want this to work (after all, why shouldn't it?!)
Thanks.

 

[slooksterPSV]

Sorry, but as far as everyone knows, Windows Media Player is the only one that supports as WMA & WMV. You could try using a different browser such as FireFox. Try repairing permissions and disk aid and that. Or you could just use IE for Mac.

 

[HarfMac]

Forget WMP

As you know there are many other players out there. Utilize them. I am running XP Pro and just decided to delete WMP and use iTunes and Quicktime. Also, get rid of Internet Explorer and use Firefox.

Isaiah

 

[rainman::|:|]

Unfortunately, not everyone has the option of abandoning WMV files. The player just sucks, for Mac or PC... and plugin support has always been troublesome. I didn't know they claimed Safari compatability, i'll try that.

edit: oh, i remember this, it was released a year ago... i was excited when i read the safari support, but since the update, is simply downloads WMV files and opens them in WMP, automatically... it's not embedded.

paul

 

[absurdio]

Yeah, that's what used to happen. Safari would at least recognize what was a WMV file and then tell me that Safari couldn't open it. Then it'd just open WMP, as you said, all not embedded.

Now it crashes. I'll try repairing disk permissions and all that, but I like everything else about Safari, so I'm gonna keep using it, regardless.

 

[igucl]

WMP always works fine on my system, and I haven't done anything special to it. I don't know what to tell you. Just thought I'd say that this problem is not universal with macs.

 

[Sayer]

Look in /Library/Internet Plug-ins and check the "Windows Media Plugin" file (click on it). Should say Version: 9.0 at the end of the info text.

You might have gotten an older version of the installer. It seems these really Giant Software Companies have no clue how to offer downloads except for forcing users to click through 15 different sequential webpages where you must specify exactly *which* download you need - even though browser user agent sniffing would instantly narrow that part down, that would be EASY.

Then look in the Applications folder for a "Windows Media Player" folder. Try running the player and seeing if it wants to update anything. In the Help menu is an update option.

It just sounds like you got a bad install or an incorrect version installed, somehow.

Unfortunately after all that, you may still get errors from the dumb thing but it should not be crashing. Such is the result of Giant Software Companies.

 

[the_cheat]

I had this problem while trying to listen to xfm so I did a web-search and found this page. I managed to get media player working as a plug-in by going into Safari's preferences, unchecking 'enable plug-ins' in the security tab, quitting Safari, then opening it again and re-checking the 'enable plug-ins' box. I hope this solves the problem for some people.