Handling of incorrect MIME types

dtobias · Post by **dtobias** » March 25th, 2005, 5:46 am

People are always blaming problems caused by their own faulty Web development on browsers that simply do what they have told them to do, in accordance with Web standards, rather than attempting to guess what they really meant. What they're really saying is "I'm too stupid to use correct coding, configure my server right, and think things out logically when I plan and structure my site, but MSIE somehow blunders through it all and does something resembling what I think I might have really meant to do... however, Firefox actually follows my idiotic instructions and shows the world how lousy my site is... Boy, that Firefox really sucks!"

denomolos · Post by **denomolos** » March 25th, 2005, 5:57 am

There is no target specified for the link, and maybe I could install extensions to make this work better for myself, but I can't force visitors to my site to install extensions. So extensions are really not the answer here.

dtobias · Post by **dtobias** » March 25th, 2005, 6:05 am

If you give the URL of your page, maybe somebody here can figure out what's opening the extra window there. Maybe there's a "BASE" tag or something.

denomolos · Post by **denomolos** » March 25th, 2005, 6:08 am

dtobias wrote:People are always blaming problems caused by their own faulty Web development on browsers that simply do what they have told them to do, in accordance with Web standards, rather than attempting to guess what they really meant. What they're really saying is "I'm too stupid to use correct coding, configure my server right, and think things out logically when I plan and structure my site, but MSIE somehow blunders through it all and does something resembling what I think I might have really meant to do... however, Firefox actually follows my idiotic instructions and shows the world how lousy my site is... Boy, that Firefox really sucks!"

Who is this directed at? Maybe you don't read too well, but I did configure my server correctly. So now I'm getting the supposedly correct behaviour but it's still lousy as hell compared to how IE does it. A surfer clicks on a link for a WMV file and gets a blank browser window with absolutley no indication what's happening with the file. Most users will be completely confused. So now you're gonna tell me that this is because I'm a lousy webmaster? No, it's because of the poor way that Firefox handles this issue. So stop repeating this canned response that i've heard about a dozen times throughout this thread. Unless you want to show me a "properly configured" server where Firefox can play a WMV file like IE does, then be my guest.

dtobias · Post by **dtobias** » March 25th, 2005, 6:59 am

Once again, maybe if you showed your URL, others could look and see what you might be doing wrong. I know that plenty of other sites have WMV files that don't cause unnecessary extra blank browser windows to open, so it's got to be something you're doing differently in your site.

Thumper's Evil Twin · March 25th, 2005, 7:15 am

dtobias, you have focused on one unimportant part of his post. His main issue is that MSIE is able to seamlesslessly handle links to .WMV movies and play them as they are downloaded; firefox can't do this because of the separation between the way it handles plugins and helper apps. This is a perfectly sensible observation, and your attitude towards him isn't helpful.

- Chris

denomolos · Post by **denomolos** » March 25th, 2005, 10:17 pm

dtobias wrote:Once again, maybe if you showed your URL, others could look and see what you might be doing wrong. I know that plenty of other sites have WMV files that don't cause unnecessary extra blank browser windows to open, so it's got to be something you're doing differently in your site.

I can't give you the URL because it's in a members-only website. But I set up a test page on the same server. Here is a page with a couple WMV video links on it.

http://67.18.206.138/WMVtest.html

Go ahead and compare how IE and Firefox play the files and tell me if you think the way Firefox handles these files is a good thing. And yes, the server is configured with the mime type for WMV. I used an .htaccess file with the following line in it:

AddType video/x-ms-wmv wmv

dtobias · Post by **dtobias** » March 26th, 2005, 5:20 am

OK, you have a point. Sorry I was snappy before. I don't know why the Mozilla browsers go to a blank page (not actually a new browser window, but a blank page in the current window) before launching the WMV, rather than simply using it as an external helper app; this, and the fact that it doesn't stream the videos before they finish loading, are probably caused by WMV using proprietary Microsoftisms instead of standard methods of launching applications, so that only MS's own browser can interface with it in a fully smooth manner. Other formats such as QuickTime are handled more smoothly by Mozilla/FF.

Thumper's Evil Twin · March 26th, 2005, 11:07 am

You really don't know what you're talking about.

The difference is IE's handling of helper apps. As soon as it gets a link which is registered to a helper app, it hands the URL to the helper app. Firefox downloads the file and hands the file to the helper app. This isn't rocket science, and there are more than enough zealots around here already without screaming murder every time IE does something more efficiently than Firefox.

denomolos: the bug is https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=137339 if you want to keep track of it.

- Chris

ojintoad · Post by **ojintoad** » March 26th, 2005, 8:42 pm

On OSX Firefox the file loads directly into Windows Media Player. No blank page loads. Is this relevant, or are we only discussing in terms of windows firefox users here?

Thumper's Evil Twin · March 26th, 2005, 9:09 pm

The blank page isn't the issue. The issue is that the whole file is downloaded first, rather than being downloaded by the media player as it plays. The blank page *is* site-specific and can be worked-around already while its own bug is being worked on.

- Chris

Digitale · Post by **Digitale** » March 27th, 2005, 5:40 am

My experience is that in case of Windows Media the best cross-browser solution is to use metafiles.

First create file that contains:
<ASX version="3.0">
<ENTRY>
<REF HREF="http://67.18.206.138/ZooTest1.wmv"/>
</ENTRY>
</ASX>

Save it with name "zootest.asx"
In your web page use <a href="zootest.asx">ZooTest</a>

Don't forget to add MIME type.
AddType video/x-ms-asf .asx

Now when you click the link, browser only loads the asx metafile sends it to
Media Player which then takes care of the video loading.

Introduction to Windows Media Metafiles
www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/ ... mmeta.aspx

dtietze · Post by **dtietze** » March 29th, 2005, 3:45 am

Hi!

I'm having the inverse problem with a few Web sites (NOT ones I run myself, so changing MIME configuration is not an option): The site returns MIME type application/octet-stream (or, in one case, even just "BIN") as MIME type for PHP pages. FF prompts me to download the file or open it with a helper application, giving me no option to just say "I don't care what the MIME type says - just display it in the browser).

Saving the file locally and opening it in the browser also doesn't work - FF will again prompt me where to save it.

Does anyone have an idea for a fix/workaround for this problem? (other than mailing webmaster@stupidsite.com and telling them their server's misconfigured - in 90% of the time, if you get a response at all, it will be along the lines of "we tested it with Internet Explorer and it works").

Dan.