Having Problems With Embedded Music Playing?

[Update: Okay -- I have a working theory on what's happening, with a possible fix -- this only applies to people who have Internet Explorer 7.0 -- what I think happened is that the default settings for IE 7.0 cause the embedded music to not play; for IE 7.0 users, try this out:

1. In IE 7.0, Click the "Tools" menu, then select "Internet Options."
2. Click the "Security" tab.
3. Click the "Custom Level" button.
4. Scroll through the list until you find an item that says something like "Display Video and Animation on webpage that does not use external media player" -- see if it says enable or disable.
5. If it says disable, click "enable" and see if that does anything. You might need to restart your Internet Explorer.

Let me know in the comments if this works for you, and I'll post a fresh followup entry sometime later on. -- Joe]

Hi folks -- a bunch of you have written in to tell me that you've been having problems hearing music embedded in Journal entries.

I thought I had an explanation for the problem, but I was wrong. So I need your help.

Now, the way you're getting music in your Journals involves uploading a music file to your FTP or other online storage space, then pointing to it using an HTML tag trick.

OneStrangeCat has a tutorial, as well as some other folks.

Here's an example of HTML that should work (the filename is a placeholder -- this is a non-functional example):

<P><IMG height=1 width=1 loop=infinite DYNSRC="http://members.aol.com/journalseditor/[SOME-FILE-NAME.mp3]" autostart="true">

<br>Click to Play <A href="http://hometown.aol.com/journalseditor/[SOME-FILE-NAME.mp3]">[SOME-FILE-NAME.mp3]</A></P>

The DYNSRC tag is what makes it work -- it stands for Dynamic Source, and it says to your Web browser, "Pull in and play some dynamic content." It can be audio or video, and you just point to its location online.

Also note that autostart is set to "true," so it will play in the background invisibly (which, to be honest, drives me nuts, especially when I have a bunch of windows open and can't figure out where the sound is coming from).

(The rest of that HTML is just a hyperlink to the actual file.)

Now, there's two things you need to know about the DYNSRC tag:

1. It only -- ONLY -- works in Microsoft Internet Explorer (which includes the browser in your AOL software). It doesn't work in Netscape, Firefox, or any other browser. That's because it's a proprietary, IE-only tag that Microsoft implemented.

2. People who care about HTML standards say "Don't use it." That's because it's not standards compliant, and it doesn't work with all browsers. When you start having special tags that only work in certain browsers, things start spiraling out of control (we saw some of this when IE and Netscape were competing for the market).

I know most of you guys are using IE and you don't care about HTML standards -- you just want to hear the music. Which is fine.

Now, I'd thought that since we just started getting reports recently, and that since more and more people are upgrading to Internet Explorer 7.0, that maybe IE 7.0 dropped support for the dynsrc tag.

I asked the guys out in California to do some testing, and I was wrong -- IE 7.0 still supports the dynsrc tag.

So, I need your help. I need your examples of blog entries in the wild where embedded music playback isn't working for you, so we can take a look. I also ask you to supply the following info, and take the following steps:

1. What's the direct link URL to entry where the music is embedded? (If you put it in your All About Me section, let me know.)
   
   
2. What Web browser (with version number) are you using? To find this out:
   A. Click Start > Programs > Internet Explorer. This will open up the standalone IE browser.
   
   B. In the Help menu in the top menu bar, click "About Internet Explorer" and tell me the version number. It'll be something like "Version: 6.0.2900.xpsp_sp2..." -- we just need the front part of that.
   
   
3. Since your standalone IE will already be open -- if you visit the blog entry using the standalone Internet Explorer, do you hear the music?
   
   
4. If you try going directly to the music file by pasting the URL in your browser window, does it open up a helper program and play?
   
   
5. If the music file isn't in your AOL FTP or Hometown space, but is stored somewhere else online, does it work?
   
   
6. Are you having any other problems browsing the Web or hearing music/sounds on your computer?
   

It would probably be best if you send me an e-mail at JournalsEditor with the info above -- it would be a lot for a comment (and it will really help us figure things out.)

Even if we figure out this problem, we've got to find easier and better ways for you to embed music into your Journals -- there's no reason why you should have to jump through hoops to do it.

It may be something as simple adding some third-party music player services to the allowed whitelist, so if you know of any that you'd like to use, let us know.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol journals, embedded music, dynsrc