Off topic a bit since the issue is not uploading, but latest Firefox vers. 66.x.x does not enable the iNat player for uploaded .WAV files. Works fine with Safari and Chrome. This is an inconvenience for FF users. MP3s upload and play fine. Norm Levey
Can you please send an example to help@inaturalist.org so we can take a look? If you can add device and software info as well, that’d be great.
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Yes, here are some specifics: This issue is apparent on macOS Mojave 10.14.4 running Firefox 66.0.4. (This is an iMac accessing iNat via the web portal.) The player does not play specifically WAV audio files in this environment. However, in iOS on my tablet, FF plays WAV files just fine. MP3 files work in all browser and OS environments that I have tested.
No issues detected playing WAVs in Chrome or Safari in macOS Mojave and latest FF.
Thanks, Norm Levey
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Can you please provide a URL of an observation that has a WAV file?
Sorry about delay in responding. I had not received notifications of responses to my posts until now.
Here is one example of several:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/24986109
The file will save as a .wav and will open in the other browsers (not FF on my version which no longer it seems supports .WAV audio files.) If you need more examples let me know. NL
I can’t speak for uploaders, but playback seems to be working in Firefox again.
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FYI, I just updated FF to 67.0 running in MacOS 10.14.5 (up to date) and the iNat audio player is still not enabled for .wav files. Others’ mileage may vary. Uploading has never been a problem so far, just the player. The uploader seems to work and I can now drag and drop audio files which was a problem at an earlier date.
NL
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I think this isn’t the case for all .wav files. Here is a .wav that plays fine for me in FF 67 on my mac: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/25539447
However, https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/24986109 which is the link you posted above, does not. Until we get a file that consistently won’t play in Firefox, it’s tough to sleuth. So if you have one that can’t be played in FF, please send it to help@inaturalist.org and let us know with which device and software it was recorded.
My guess, however, is that stems from Firefox’s general issues with certain types of sound files. For example, some files recorded on Samsung phones (they’re either m4a or mp3) simply aren’t supported by Firefox. But we’ll have to dig into it a bit more to know for certain.
(moved to new topic as the last one was about sound uploads)
Very interesting. What’s bugged me is my own .wav files don’t play in FF. I have two recorders: a Sony PCM-D100 and an SD MixPre-3 and I will create test files to see which one or both. This may not be worth a lot of fuss, but thanks.
The other variable is the editing software and the settings I use in Audacity. That may be the problem.
looking at observation 24986109 (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/24986109), the sound file associated with it (https://static.inaturalist.org/sounds/38536.wav) is interesting because it is encoded at an unusually high 2822kbps bitrate, which translates to a 32-bit stereo wav file. (for comparison, CD quality sound would be equivalent to a 16-bit stereo wav file, or 1411kbps.)
when you look at Firefox’s console, you’ll see this warning message when trying to play this file from the observation page: Media resource https://static.inaturalist.org/sounds/38536.wav?1557653341 could not be decoded, error: Error Code: NS_ERROR_DOM_MEDIA_METADATA_ERR (0x806e0006).
i suspect this means that Firefox simply doesn’t know to decode very high bit depth .wav files.
i’m not aware of an easy way to identify audio files stored in iNat that are 32-bit wav files other than by downloading them to check their properties, but i would guess that any observations that have such audio files would have the same problem as observation 24986109, and if that’s true, then this seems more like a Firefox problem than an iNaturalist problem.
time to close this thread? (also time to close this related thread https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/sound-files-not-playing-in-the-inaturalist-player/6236 ?)
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