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mp3 time length bug

  • 26 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 77 views
  • Last reply by djjaybird

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seems the reading of lengths of mp3 files is wrong in the newest public version of firefox, please refer to the screen shots.. firefox, edge, chrome.. site: www.djjaybird.com every browser has a small difference, firefox is completely fubar.. the image uploader is not working on this page; please see: www.djjaybird.com/chrome.png www.djjaybird.com/edge.png www.djjaybird.com/firefox.png

firefox is the best, please fix this so i don't abandon it

seems the reading of lengths of mp3 files is wrong in the newest public version of firefox, please refer to the screen shots.. firefox, edge, chrome.. site: www.djjaybird.com every browser has a small difference, firefox is completely fubar.. the image uploader is not working on this page; please see: www.djjaybird.com/chrome.png www.djjaybird.com/edge.png www.djjaybird.com/firefox.png firefox is the best, please fix this so i don't abandon it

Chosen solution

STUB 49.0 Fixed the issue. Thanks for your help :D

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All Replies (20)

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images: chrome, edge, firefox

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Do you recall what was the last version of Firefox where this worked correctly?

When I look at the page, I can't tell how the length is calculated. Firefox isn't actually downloading the audio first to compute that (the audio tag is set to preload="metadata") so... how is it supposed to know??

When I try Google Chrome, it just downloads the whole track immediately instead of trying to fetch metadata only. Cheater. ;-)

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it's all javascript.. that is why it should migrate flawlessly.. idk the version number but it work before i upgraded to this newest build. Did you guy change how you handle audio under html5? My script was designed to pass an OGG to mozilla browsers since at the time, MP3 was not supported

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the only data "fetched" is the time length, everything else is stored mysql

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accessing this link shows the standard html5 player "fetching" the wrong duration: http://www.djjaybird.com/data/.onelove.mp3

ogg files on the other hand work flawlessly: http://www.djjaybird.com/data/.onelove.ogg

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notice on the mp3 once the play bar gets to 4:39 it hangs even though the total time it's reporting is 46:40

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Firefox behaves strangely when I try to play the MP3 stand-alone. In particular, it doesn't show the same kind of file retrieval in the Network Monitor that the OGG file shows. I'm not sure what is going on there.

I have attached the screen shots. The content length difference may be due to compression differences, I'm not sure how much that influences the computation of duration.

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firefox JUST got the ability to play MP3's, due to licensing issues with the codec it was design around ogg.. the team needs to get on this, it's not a localized problem

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and stop trying to say it's my fault please, it's not.

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djjaybird said

and stop trying to say it's my fault please, it's not.

No, it's not you, I see the same thing.

djjaybird said

firefox JUST got the ability to play MP3's, due to licensing issues with the codec it was design around ogg.

When did that change? I thought on Windows Firefox still uses the Media Foundation libraries from Microsoft to decode MPEG audio/video, as it has for a couple years now.

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I believe in THIS current version it's new

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Firefox 48 was released today, it has the same issue.

Firefox has been able to play MP3s on Windows Vista and later since 2013, but something might have changed in how it extracts duration information from MP3 files.

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you may be right, but iirc mozilla opted to use ogg b/c it's open.. mp3 has to be licensed.. no firefox ever played mp3's natively.. must had an add-on app or a webplayer based in silverlight or flash..

hence why amazon video recommends chrome since firefox needs silverlight

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djjaybird said

you may be right, but iirc mozilla opted to use ogg b/c it's open.. mp3 has to be licensed.. no firefox ever played mp3's natively.. must had an add-on app or a webplayer based in silverlight or flash..

Okay, we're getting off topic, but... Open formats are preferred, but Firefox can play MP3s in the built-in HTML5 audio/video player when there is operating system support for the MPEG decoding step. That started in 2013 on Windows; it took longer to get going on Mac and Linux.

hence why amazon video recommends chrome since firefox needs silverlight

Firefox recently starting providing DRM add-ons from Adobe (Primetime) and Google (Widevine) to support Netflix and Amazon video as part of the migration away from requiring Silverlight. See: Watch DRM content on Firefox. Haven't tested them myself.

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i know for a fact when i coded my site in 2012 that firefox DID NOT support mp3 codecs natively.. that is not the issue, the issue is incorrect data being displayed by the software.. not my error, this is a bug.. not sure why the new version chooses the mp3 instead of falling back to the ogg file as per my script instructs..

i have no flash back up either, it's all html5

Modified by djjaybird

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It's a regression in FF46+. A bug report has been filed: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1291543

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djjaybird said

the issue is incorrect data being displayed by the software.. not my error, this is a bug..

When I play MP3s on a couple other sites, such as SoundCloud, the durations display correctly. One odd thing I notice when playing onelove.mp3 in VLC is that it initially detects the bitrate as 32 kb/s instead of 320 kb/s. (See attached screenshot.) If Firefox uses a similar method of determining the bitrate as VLC, that might cause problems.

not sure why the new version chooses the mp3 instead of falling back to the ogg file as per my script instructs..

Firefox will try the sources in the order you write them to the audio tag, so that's why it plays the mp3.

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soundcloud uses proprietary audio services, thanks for submitting the bug Oxylatium. This thread is going nowhere and this is a REAL problem, I appreciate it

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jscher2000 said

djjaybird said
the issue is incorrect data being displayed by the software.. not my error, this is a bug..

When I play MP3s on a couple other sites, such as SoundCloud, the durations display correctly. One odd thing I notice when playing onelove.mp3 in VLC is that it initially detects the bitrate as 32 kb/s instead of 320 kb/s. (See attached screenshot.) If Firefox uses a similar method of determining the bitrate as VLC, that might cause problems.

not sure why the new version chooses the mp3 instead of falling back to the ogg file as per my script instructs..

Firefox will try the sources in the order you write them to the audio tag, so that's why it plays the mp3.

incorrect, all mp3's are directly exported from steinbergs cubase pro 8.5, stop trying to pass blame.

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I hope this gets fixed, although you're talking about at least another 8 weeks before that kind of update would be pushed out, so in the meantime, you may need to code around it.

I do think my test on SoundCloud was valid. I played their MP3s stand-alone in a separate tab, the same way I played yours. The first screen shot is the media playing stand-alone. The second shows how to use Firefox's Network Monitor to launch the mp3 in its own tab after it is pulled in by SoundCloud if you want to try it yourself.

https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Tools/Network_Monitor

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