733812 - Trying to play music on Soundcloud.com results in downloading the mp3 file, rather than playing the music in the browser

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Web Compatibility :: Site Reports, defect)

Description

[Jason Smith [:jsmith]]

Steps:

1. Go to soundcloud.com
2. Select a song to play
3. Click the play button for the song

Expected:

The song should play in the browser, resulting in audio being heard.

Actual:

A download is initiated to download the mp3 file for the song. Once downloaded, the mp3 file can be played to hear the song. However, this is unexpected behavior - you should be able to play the song in the browser.

Device:

Samsung Galaxy Nexus

Build: Fennec Native 12.0a2 Aurora

Comment 1

[Kevin Brosnan [Ex-Mozilla]]

This is a website bug. We don't play mp3 due to patent issues.

Comment 2

[Reuben Morais [:reuben]]

(In reply to Kevin Brosnan [:kbrosnan] from comment #1)
> We don't play mp3 due to patent issues.

What if we used jsmad to decode and play MP3?

Comment 3

[Kevin Brosnan [Ex-Mozilla]]

We can't ship a mp3 decoder without paying for the patents. It does not matter which language the decoder is written in. The website using mp3s could use jsmad.

Comment 4

[Reuben Morais [:reuben]]

(In reply to Kevin Brosnan [:kbrosnan] from comment #3)
> We can't ship a mp3 decoder without paying for the patents. It does not
> matter which language the decoder is written in. The website using mp3s
> could use jsmad.

IANAL, but I wondering what's the difference here. Would the website have to pay for the patents? Is this an exception to the "source distributions are allowed" rule?

Comment 5

[Jason Smith [:jsmith]]

Additional Notes:

If I change the user agent in desktop firefox to iphone and try to play music on the mobile soundcloud site, I get the same behavior as I get on fennec native (downloading of the mp3 file). Weirdly enough, with the default user agent in desktop firefox, I can play music directly in the browser. Why is this the case?

Comment 6

[Jason Smith [:jsmith]]

Nominating for kilimanjaro, as this relates to mp3 support needed for a tier 1 app.

Comment 7

[Aaron Train [:aaronmt]]

See comment #3.

Comment 8

[Jason Smith [:jsmith]]

(In reply to Aaron Train [:aaronmt] from comment #7)
> See comment #3.

Right, I know that. I'm nominating this bug as this falls directly in-line with kilimanjaro bug 748351.

Comment 9

[Aaron Train [:aaronmt]]

This should work with OMXPlugins enabled, but having tested just now on mozilla-inbound (08/20), there is some other issue preventing playback from starting. My guess is some site client issue here as the Play button goes from Pause back to Start on tap.

Can we get outreach to Soundcloud?

Comment 10

[Aaron Train [:aaronmt]]

Fixed via bug 783927.