MP3 Audio tag in Gecko-based (Firefox/Cometbird) browsers

Question

I've been trying to work on a project to he able to turn loop on and off for the MP3 playing on a we page. I was using <embed> and tried changing the loop= property using a javascript getElementByID, but while the image swap would work, the song would still stay on the mode it was on at page load.

Someone else used the idea to use the <audio> tag, and made a togglefor loop=, and said it worked. I tried, and would not work. I went and tried on an example site, and it worked for OGG, but not MP3.

I researched it, and the only thing I could find was that Firefox didn't originally support MP3s due to LAME copyrights/patents, but started supporting the MP3 format in version 9. What's even stranger, is that sometimes the player controls show up, sometimes they don't. I have random other information show up on the page on load, so can't say if it's random when it shows up, or related: but even when the controls load, the play button never works, and it doesn't start on autoplay. However, in Chrome, it loads up fine.

So to condense, when in IE, it loads the text to say it's not compatible with my browser, meaning I can have an <embed> for if it doesn't work: I just tried it. Firefox, on the other hand, acts like it WILL load it, and doesn't show the alt text.

I read about some people having trouble with OGGs, talking about a MAME type, but I don't really know anything about that stuff, yet...

I'd really like some ideas on what to do about this, because it doesn't ever even show the text to say it's not supported, it's like nothing's there in FF/CB, and MP3s SHOULD be supported for the past 4 full versions, which I'm assuming is why it doesn't say it's not supported.

Answer 1

Firefox doesn't support MP3 in <audio>, precisely because it's still patented... I have no idea what made you think it's supported in Firefox 9.