Windows – I can’t play MP3 files directly on Firefox

audiofirefoxhtml5mp3windows 7

I have a laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium installed, which I had to reinstall recently due to hard drive problems. Before that I had no problems using the native Firefox MP3 player to play audio files directly. If I clicked a link to a MP3 file, it would open in a new tab and start playing. But now, a window pops up asking me if I want to open it (with Windows Media Player by default) or download it. If I go to about:config media.windows-media-foundation.enabled is set to true, so it should work properly. There's no problem with my MP3 codecs since I can play MP3 files directly on Windows without problems. Here's the song I'm currently trying to play, and which I could play before reinstalling:

http://www.vocacionpasionista.com/Novedades/Un%20deseo%20de%20paz.mp3

I really need to get it working again, is there any way to do it?

I'm using Firefox 24 btw.

EDIT:

According to this blog post both MP3 and H.264 are decoded through Media Foundation.
I can play H.264 video, so I guess it's just a MP3 problem. I can't play MP3 audio on Web pages with the HTML5 tag either.

EDIT 2:

It's not working on another laptop with Windows 7 Ultimate x86 either, but it works in the desktop of a friend of mine also with Win 7 x64 and Firefox 24.

Best Answer

Have you tried to set the default program to open .mp3?

Go to Tools > Options > Applications and search .mp3

You will get two results, Go for the one with the type <audio/x-mpeg> and select Firefox as default...

... funny thing is, I don't have it. Rather, I have the QuickTime 7.6.9 plugin instead. Maybe that is your problem, as I haven't heard of Firefox having a default media player.

Your post refers only to Firefox for Android and Firefox OS, not Firefox for Desktops (that I assume you're having, due to the windows-7 flag). Although, the beginning of the post does refer that the feature is present on the Nightly builds of Firefox...

UPDATE: After some searching, I found this post on Stack Overflow (Why doesn't Firefox support mp3 file format in < audio >). As it turns out, Firefox has only support for HTML5-based .mp3 files.

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