[17388] in Athena Bugs
sgi 8.3.23: netscape
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert A Basch)
Wed Nov 24 20:12:44 1999
Message-Id: <199911250112.UAA19688@aupair.mit.edu>
To: bugs@MIT.EDU
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 20:12:36 -0500
From: Robert A Basch <rbasch@MIT.EDU>
System name: aupair.mit.edu
Type and version: IP32 8.3.23 (with mkserv)
Display type: CRM
Shell: /bin/athena/tcsh
Window manager: 4Dwm
What were you trying to do?
Play an MPEG II audio file in Netscape on IRIX, by clicking
on a link to a URL with a .mp2 suffix.
What's wrong:
After the file is apparently downloaded successfully, the IRIX
soundplayer program is run and pops up an error message:
"Cannot open selected file."
What should have happened:
It should have played the audio file.
Please describe any relevant documentation references:
Examining the helper applications, under Edit Preferences, I
see that the entry for "audio/*" runs "/usr/sbin/soundplayer %s".
By default, soundplayer forks, and the parent exits, causing
Netscape to delete the downloaded file before the soundplayer
child can read it.
According to the soundplayer(1) man page, Netscape should
invoke soundplayer with the "-nofork" and "-nounique" options;
that will prevent it from forking and exiting, and allows more
than one instance to run. This should probably be set in our
Netscape mailcap file.
Note that this solution is sub-optimal, in that Netscape will
start a new instance of soundplayer for each sound file that
is loaded.
