[Dr. Greg]

I just purchased OmniWeb, and cannot get it to play audio from websites. This morning I wanted to play an NPR news article, so I clicked "LISTEN" but absolutely nothing happened: no downloaded link, nothing.

So I checked plugins and they were all there (I had been using RealPlayer for audio playback in Firefox). So I restarted OW, and hello! all the plugins were gone. Never have figured that one out...they're all in the /Library/Internet Plugins directory...oh, well. Checked somewhat later, and the plugins are back. Hmmm....

Now---through no action of mine---when I click "LISTEN", a link is downloaded, but a warning comes up that my RealPlayer is out of date and can't play the link. But when I click on the link _itself_ RealPlayer plays it just fine.

And my son (upon whose advice I purchased OW) says that _he_ doesn't have to use _any_ plugin to play audio from sites...OW just does it automatically.

So now I'm thoroughly confused. I'm somewhat computer literate (an engineering professor) but I'm beginning to regret the OmniWeb purchase, since it has---so far---been kind of a pain.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Forrest]

Some more info would help. I just went to npr.org, clicked on "NPR Program Stream." I get a pop-up window (so check your ad blocking prefs and make sure you don't have them blocked) which is this URL: http://www.npr.org/templates/dmg/aud...ramStream=true

It asks if I want to use RealPlayer or WiMP. Which did you choose? You mention RealPlayer so I'll assume that and click on that. So unless your son is using some other link, he has to be using a plugin.

When I click on that, I get a SMIL file. Well, I just happened to have SMIL associated with QuickTime. So I find the file in the Finder, choose Open With and select RealPlayer. RP launches and plays the stream just fine.

If you're getting a message that its expired, you likely have two instances of RP on your system. The expired one is the default. So when your system autoruns the SMIL file, it launches the expired one.

[Dr. Greg]

Originally Posted by Forrest

It asks if I want to use RealPlayer or WiMP. Which did you choose? You mention RealPlayer so I'll assume that and click on that. So unless your son is using some other link, he has to be using a plugin.

When I click on that, I get a SMIL file. Well, I just happened to have SMIL associated with QuickTime. So I find the file in the Finder, choose Open With and select RealPlayer. RP launches and plays the stream just fine.

If you're getting a message that its expired, you likely have two instances of RP on your system. The expired one is the default. So when your system autoruns the SMIL file, it launches the expired one.

Forrest, I got no query as to whether I want to use RealPlayer or WMP. I got absolutely NOTHING. Nada. No response. Now I _somehow_ seem to have "connected" RealPlayer to audio playback. Now it tells me:

"This computer is running Mac OS X version 10.4.8.
This version of RealPlayer requires Mac OS X 10.2
with Safari installed, or Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later."

Huh?! I _do_ have Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later. And I only have one version of RealPlayer.

Thanks very much for your reply; I am still mystified.

[Dr. Greg]

Installed latest version of Real Player, and no change. I still get the "out of date" error message from OmniWeb as in my previous posting.

Do I need to do something else to update the "plug-in"?

I can play the .smil files manually, but I've got the downloads preferences set to RealPlayer is one of the trusted applications, so the .smil files should open automatically. But OmniWeb insists that RealPlayer is out of date.

[Forrest]

Get Info on the SMIL file. Choose "Open With" and the "Other..." then locate the version of RealPlayer you want to use.

And if you always want SMIL files to open with RP, choose Change All...

[troyb]

Hi Greg,

The out of date error that you're seeing is appearing because of an issue in OmniWeb, we should have this fixed in 5.5.2 which will be in beta very soon.

[Banagor]

I just want to add my small "complaint" (not really a complaint because I love Omniweb so much, actuallly) as well: Since the newest version came out, the same exact thing has been happening to me. I get the "Out of Date" message with the "OK" button. But when I click on the file it downloads to the desktop, it opens just fine. I figured it would be just a weird bug issue.

One more issue which did drive me nuts: when I did get a direct realplayer link on a page and clicked on it, it will launch a new tab in the background and try to open up Realplayer, which then fails and exits realplayer - which then starts the process all over again ad infinitum. To resolve this fatal issue, I simply had to Quit Omniweb, turn off my Airport, and then re-launch it. Then all the URL loads would fail and I could close the 50+ tabs which resulted from before. After that was cleaned up, everything was out of danger of becoming some sort of Escherian descent into Tab-hell. So, for now, I'm staying away from Realplayer links (direct ones) in the browser. :)

[troyb]

http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omniweb/beta/