Hi everyone,
We have a problem is with embedded sound files on our large cultural web
site on the Main Menu at http://www.istrianet.org/istria/index.html, and
on a collection of other pages that have embedded MIDI or WAV sounds.
While I was able to finally resolve the major corruptions in the latest
automatic upgrade from 2.17.1 to 2.19 that has been brought up by other
users in this forum (I did so in my own unorthodox fashion, so won't
address those here), the embedded sound files issue which began before
worsened with the upgrade to 2.17.1, and remains unresolved in version
2.19.
First, a few background notes about our working tools (you can skip
these and go to the Second):
Our web site is unfunded and so was not created by professionals and
complex design tools. Rather, we are unpaid volunteers who have used
Microsoft FrontPage 2003 and learned what we could by the rote method.
We do not have the resources or the manpower to do a complete overhaul
of the site even now - there are about 7,000 pages and no templates :-(
- but we must keep our site on the web "as it" - hopefully, with
restored embedded sounds.
Additionally, because of several deaths and major illnesses in our group
(over 50 age group), right now I am maintaining the web project
completely alone. Also, I am a die-hard user of Windows XP Professional,
and have been a faithful user of the Seamonkey browser-mail suite going
back to 1995 and Netscape.
Unfortunately, because of the "fast track" succession of buggy Seamonkey
releases over the last several years, I've been forced to install other
browsers solely for testing against Seamonkey and for emergency
purposes. By emergency I mean accessing web site services that refuse to
accept Seamonkey! (I am not interested in "moving on" to another browser
for everyday use, but that doesn't justify ignoring a chronic problem
that has been forgotten by the programmers.)
I've had major problems with the automatic upgrade a few days ago from
2.17.1 to 2.19 (corruptions that are partially mentioned in other
threads, so I won't repeat them here).
Second, here's the current unresolved problem:
I am currently using version 2.19 of Seamonkey. However, the embedded
sound problem first began precisely when SeaMonkey upgraded from 2.0.x
to 2.1.x several years ago. With that otherwise bumpy upgrade, the
embedded sounds on our pages had no problem being heard on their online
versions in Seamonkey browser, but could no longer be heard on our PC
versions of the identical files.
I never found a fix for this one-sided problem, but found a work-around.
In most cases, the applet on our pages with background sound was
configured to hide the sound controls. I discovered that if I made the
sound control bar visible instead of hidden the sound would work on the
PC copy of the files, too. Despite this, however, I and my team-mates
decided not to change the script on our pages - too much time and work
was involved in making such changes that would have had no positive
effect on the online pages.
The problem, however, worsened when Seamonkey upgraded to version 2.17.1
not long ago. All the embedded sounds in our files that are viewed in
SeaMonkey went silent - on both our PCs and on our web host server,
regardless of whether or not the sound control bar was hidden or
visible. Moreover, even where the applet's control bar is enabled, the
online version of the files now show a corrupted sound control bar which
appears as an unusable grey rectangle.
I've checked this Seamonkey problem against Internet Explorer 8 and
found no problem at all with embedded sounds on pages viewed in IE (a
browser I particularly dislike for many reasons), whereas in Google
Chrome 28 (which I have only just installed and otherwise consider
useless to me) it has a similar, but not identical, one-sided problem as
when Seamonkey had upgraded to 2.1.x.
I've been searching for a fix for years and have found almost no
reference to this deepening problem with Seamonkey, or any other browser
for that matter. Still, I suspect that the problem may have something to
do with unresolved compatibility issues between Seamonkey and the
Quicktime plugin that is necessary to play embedded files. I say that
because when I uninstall the Quicktime plugin, Seamonkey recognizes that
it is missing and states that it is required to play the embedded sounds
on the noted page, but then reinstalling it (and often it won't even do
that) makes no difference to the results.
Have I missed an important clue somewhere? The "search" function in
Seamonkey does not work well in this forum, so please accept my apology
if this issue has been recognized/resolved before now. In any case, I
hope that someone can help me resolve this chronic problem.
Thank you,
Marisa
