Don't ask, because I have no clue, but suddenly it's started working again (this is after a week of battling with the thing). Could it be that it 'knew' I'd posted on here and got itself sorted?!?! ;-)

The BBC does list links under its iPlayer site and banner but you do not need the iPlayer application to stream radio. (the application uses Adobe Flash & Adobe AIR for TV downloads) The radio stream links may open in a console mentioning iPlayer but usually are only an ordinary FlashPlayer console.

Try for instance the Radio 4 schedule page links

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/programmes/schedules/fm
• some links will have an iPlayer symbol (there will be time limits on how long they are available)
  e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b01kksqt

• it also has a link for live streaming of that channel http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/bbc_radio_fourfm

The link will open a FlashPlayer console. I can use that even on Ubuntu that does not have AIR or the iPlayer application installed.

1. Do the two above links work for you ? (Try with IE & Firefox)
2. Does your FlashPlayer install work properly at present ?
   • Visit http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player.html WITH Firefox
   • does that work or give an y error message, what FlashPlayer version does it show
   • also try with Internet Explorer
3. Note there are several issues with Flash 11.3 on Windows Firefox and also issues complicating issues with RealPlayer software.
4. You may need to downgrade to Flash 10.3 or 11.2 as explained in flash 11.3 crashes (That in turn could impact other software)

What links are you trying to use ?

I have gone to two different Radio 4 pages - Desert Island Discs and one of the story ones. I wasn't trying to stream, but to listen again. I merely clicked on the 'listen' icon, and a new window comes up with information at the top and the bar that indicates the programme playing never appeared - as I said, the circle just continued going round and round for ever. I thought I was quite clear in my original posting that everything was working perfectly well on IE but I want it to work on Firefox, so I'm not sure what your comments concerning Ubuntu have to do with anything.

         As I've said, for reasons unknown it's suddenly started working.

Hi AliceB, It is working again that is the important information that you posted. :-)

The BBC uses more than one format and stream, and has some fairly complex rules about what content may be provided, some of which depends on the users geo-location, others are time/date related.

I was not sure whether you had

• hit a problem with their protection system
  and for instance were trying to access a steam not intended for your locale, or no longer available for other reasons.
• tried to access a stream in an unexpected format
• installed the iPlayer application and tried to use that on Radio streams

• Note also the BBC has at least two methods of listening to some archived Radio programmes when using a standard PC .

The BBC also has (or did have) a system for reporting technical problems that in my opinion leaves a lot to be desired, it is not easy to escalate from the standard replies if you do actually discover a genuine problem.

I honestly have no idea what could be going on. I'm in the UK, so that's not an issue, I've used this method to listen to programmes I've missed dozens of times (although not for a couple of months) and apart from all the various Flash and Firefox updates, nothing else had changed. Having had endless problems with YouTube and other video until the recent Firefox update, I'd imagined this must be part of the same thing. I've never previously had any problems.