Quicktime error in IE7 opening mp3, Icon with Questionmark

Question

I am having some Internet Explorer 7 (and 8 beta) browser-specific problems with a link to an MP3.

When I click the link in IE7, a new browser window opens and the quicktime plugin tries to play the file. Instead ofthe player, I see a faded Quicktime icon with a question mark in the center. alt text http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/6871/quicktimeeh4.jpg

There is nothing wrong with the file.

The quicktime player opens and plays the file correctly in FireFox3, Safari and Chrome.

I have tried on several different computers using IE7 and it always fails.

I have searched other forums in vain to find a solution. I have seen suggestions from changing registry settings to reinstalling IE (did not help).

This is the exact HTML that links the file :

<a onmouseover="window.status=''; return true;" target="_blank"name="Filename_Lnk" href="polka.mp3">
  Lawrence Welk
</a>

The webpage with the link and file both sit inside a website to which you must be logged in.

My only thought is that IE is somehow losing the session by opening the file in a new browser. FF handles this fine.

I would love to be able to tell my users how to configure IE so that this file opens in Windows Media Player instead of Quicktime.

Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

You need to reconfigure the QuickTime's files associations in the Control Panel to make it not play the MP3 in your browser.

Of course, you could post a link instead, and have them download the file and then play it - it's more likely to work.

Finally, you could use a Flash-based MP3 player, or re-encode the file and embed it in a Flash that would auto-play it.