Blogger Videos Won't Play In Firefox

I recently created a pseudo-blog on Blogger that features a number of videos. Everybody else said there was no problem, but one friend of mine said they wouldn't play on his laptop. I asked him if he was sure he had Windows Media Player installed, and he said he did. But one thing is different about his computer from everybody else's: he's running Firefox, not IE or Chrome. I'm not saying that that's the problem, of course. So what should I check on his computer to try to fix this?

 

I just looked at his computer. He's got both Chrome and Firefox installed. In Chrome, there's no problem, the videos play perfectly. But in Firefox, all the videos say they need a plug-in. Looking at his plug-ins, all seem irrelevant except for a set of I think 50 in "General Purpose Plug-ins". But that set is set at "Always Activated", so that can't be the problem, so I guess maybe he's just plain missing some plug-in he needs. Is this ringing any bells among the cyber-cognoscenti?

 

No, oddly enough, he isn't. I don't know what to make of that.

 

Is it possible to view the videos without a Blogger account?
I so, post a link and I will check if they play in Mozilla Firefox.

 

50 "General Purpose Plug-ins" - just no, each plugin should be quite specifically for one task, as should all the other Add-ons. Take notes, grab screenshots and use about:troubleshooting to get some data.

 

Thanks Eldon, I just sent you a PM on this.

Thanks satrow, I'll call my friend and over the phone try to talk him through getting some screenshots for me.

 

Hi Eldon, thanks for the PM, I'm replying here as part of the process of reporting if and how the problem is solved.

So he needs the Flash Player Plug-in. OK, a couple questions, please pardon if they're ignorant:

1. From behavior that I think I recall seeing, I thought both Windows Media Player and Adobe Flash Player play all the widely-used file formats, no?

2. The Flash Player Plug-in is a plug-in for a specific browser (e.g., Firefox) and is a distinct thing from Flash Player itself, then? In other words, he needs to have Flash Player installed AND he needs the Flash Player Plug-in for Firefox installed?

 

1. No

2. the Flash Player Plugin for Firefox is the Flash Player, for Firefox.

 

1. Right. I'm thinking of RealPlayer.

2. I hadn't realized that there is a different version of Flash Player for Firefox than there is for Chrome, but I see Wikipedia says that the version for Firefox and IE is called Shockwave Flash. OK, got it, thanks.

 

Chrome has Adobe Flash built in.
Firefox has a unique installation as does IE. In Windows 8 and 10 Windows Update updates Flash for IE.
Firefox requires a manual update.

 

To get back to your original problem, why your friend can't play your Blogger videos in Mozilla Firefox...
Has he installed the Flash Player Plugin, and are the videos playing?

If not, here's the direct download link.
http://download.macromedia.com/get/...ensing/win/install_flash_player_20_plugin.exe

From your other thread, I know you made the videos with Windows Movie Maker and saved them as .wmv files. Blogger should play them using Windows Media Player. Right? No. In the past Youtube* videos had the file extension .gvi which were basically .avi files with extra info. It seems they are now .flv files, and that's why the Flash Player plugin is required.
So, even though you uploaded .wmv files, they where converted to .flv files.

* Notice Youtube at the bottom when playing the videos? Blogger & Youtube are both owned by Google.

 

Nope, not being a "copterhead", he's not all that concerned about it.

I forwarded it to him with gentle encouragement to use it.

A few years ago, I used to download YouTube videos with RealPlayer, and what I would get as a result, whether or not it involved file conversion by RealPlayer, was flv files.

But lately I've been downloading YouTube videos with YouTube Downloader, which, whether or not it involves file conversion, USUALLY gives me mp4 files, but I THINK has occasionally given me an flv file.

Regardless, I still had a couple flv files left over from downloading from YouTube a few years ago, so I actually uploaded wmv, mp4 and flv files to Blogger, and they all played. I undstand that Blogger also supports mov files, and I believe some other video file formats.

So since you say that YouTube is actually using flv files, I guess it's YouTube Downloader that's at least usually converting them to mp4. But why "usually", instead of always? Maybe I'm wrong about occasionally getting flv files when using YouTube Downloader.

1. Yeah, I guess they would probably use the same file format then.

2. The Google juggernaut is part of the corporate Brave New World, Eldon, and we're just their epsilons.

 

These video formats are supported by YouTube.

• .MOV

• .MPEG4

• MP4

• .AVI

• .WMV

• .MPEGPS

• .FLV

• 3GPP

• WebM

https://support.google.com/youtube/troubleshooter/2888402?hl=en#
Whether all of them are supported by Blogger, is anyone's guess.


What format you are downloading, depends on the downloader you use, and the settings you select.

So true. We will never know what goes on behind the scenes.