New Mac user - problems with downloading dmg's, browser player.

Seanie M

Hi all,
I made the transition last October. 2 quirks that are bugging me are:

1) To get Quicktime to play movies in the browser (Firefox) just won't happen e.g. at apple.com/trailers, the trailer pop-up window appears but nothing happens. The latest QT plugin is installed in Firefox.

2) The 'click here to download' anything just opens the download link in the browser, with no action follow up i.e. like the pop-up dialogue box to begin downloading the attachment, programme, etc. All my dmg's are happening like this.

Tips etc. would be appreciated, as I know I am overlooking something.

TIA,

Seanie.

Bunnyhopper

Have a look in Firefox>Preferences>Applications and scroll down to the entry (under "Content Type") for "Quicktime Movie", and check that the "Action" is set to "Use Quicktime Plug-in". It should automatically have been set to that for a lot of the video types, but there's no harm in checking.

While you're in the Preferences panel have a look under "Main" and see what the settings for downloading are. I have the box checked beside "Show the downloads window" etc., so it opens that when I download something. You can also see there where it should be putting downloaded files ("Save files to").

If you have any ad blocking add-ons installed in Firefox then check that they're not blocking the videos. A friend of mine had AdBlock and AdBlock Plus installed at the same time and they were blocking all sorts of videos. Once Adblock was disabled the problem was sorted.

I also have the free Flip4Mac WMV and Perian installed (on the system, not just in Firefox). They seem to have helped smooth out some video compatibility issues.

Seanie M

Thanks for the reply bunnyhopper.

Bunnyhopper wrote: »

in the Preferences panel have a look under "Main" and see what the settings for downloading are. I have the box checked beside "Show the downloads window" etc., so it opens that when I download something. You can also see there where it should be putting downloaded files ("Save files to").

Yep, I have that as my default (to "Desktop"), but programme files are still opening in the browser rather than popping up in the downloads box. It is also happening in Safari.

I checked the QT settings, and they are as they should be (as your description above), but I can't for the life of me figure out what the hell I'm doing wrong. :mad:

Seanie.

Seanie M

OK, I have 'uninstalled' (by which I mean Moved to Trash) FileZilla, Firefox, Quicktime and iTunes as these were the only extra programmes I have installed on this machine (except for Adobe CS4) - no pop-up blockers, no malware or antivirus, nothing else.

After managing my System Preferences as best I can, and many restarts, I STILL cannot get .dmg files to download for me. I am pulling my hair out! What this means is that I can't download the programme files for e.g. latest Firefox, Quicktime, etc.

Does anyone have ANY ideas for me please?

Seanie.
(getting very frustrated and losing many hours of work)

Mr. Incognito

ah dude- i had the exact same problem when I got my apple first. download vlc player and there are a number of patches available for mac users on quickplayer.

vlc will player anything and you'll be fine.

Seanie M

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

ah dude- i had the exact same problem when I got my apple first. download vlc player and there are a number of patches available for mac users on quickplayer.

vlc will player anything and you'll be fine.

Aye, I eventually got VLC Media Player (from my Windows experience), but that currentl;y won't play in the actual browser. Will it play movies embedded in browsers the way QT usually did/does?

Seanie.

Sad Professor

Try right-clicking (or control-click) on the dmg link and selecting "save as." Does that work?

Seanie M

Sad Professor wrote: »

Try right-clicking (or control-click) on the dmg link and selecting "save as." Does that work?

Doesn't always work. I will give you a quick example.

Go to www.firefox.com to download the latest version. You must click the green 'Download here etc.' to be brought to the next page, as it is not a direct link to the file. The next page has a preview of how to install Firefox, and says 'Your download will start shortly'. It is at these moments that the dmg escapes me. The file link opens in the browser as if it is a webpage.

Now, you can click 'Stop' in your browser on the install preview page, right-click or cmd+click on the 'If your download doesn't begin...' link to get the file, but not all sites have that e.g. Quicktime.

My predicament prevails...

Seanie.

Sad Professor

Try this:

Find an existing dmg file that you already downloaded. Right-click on it and get info. Make sure it says "Open with: DiskImageMounter."

Seanie M

Sad Professor wrote: »

Try this:

Find an existing dmg file that you already downloaded. Right-click on it and get info. Make sure it says "Open with: DiskImageMounter."

Confirmed. The couple of dmg's I have all have that selected as default.

Sad Professor

Do you have Speed Download or any other download manager installed?

Seanie M

Sad Professor wrote: »

Do you have Speed Download or any other download manager installed?

None, no add-ons whatsoever.

Sad Professor

And this only happens with dmgs? Do zip files download okay?

Seanie M

Sad Professor wrote: »

And this only happens with dmgs? Do zip files download okay?

Yes, .targ, .gz, .zip etc all pop up for download just fine.

Sad Professor

Have you tried repairing permissions? After that I don't know. Maybe download and reinstall the last OS X update.

Seanie M

Sad Professor wrote: »

Have you tried repairing permissions? After that I don't know. Maybe download and reinstall the last OS X update.

Hhmm, I'll have to check the permissions. On this machine, my own account is the only one (I disabled/removed the Guest account). On checking for updates, there are no new updates available, and I don't know how to remove or rollback to previous versions (having been a Windoze clone before this, I keep thinking 'System Restore').

Seanie.

Sad Professor

You can repair permissions by using Disk Utility. It's in Applications > Utilities. It might take a few minutes. Just select your hd and click "repair disk permissions."

And if that doesn't work you can download OS X 10.5.6 here:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/macosx_updates/macosx1056comboupdate.html

It's a dmg as well of course but hopefully you'll be able to use "save as" to get it.

Seanie M

Sad Professor wrote: »

You can repair permissions by using Disk Utility. It's in Applications > Utilities. It might take a few minutes. Just select your hd and click "repair disk permissions."

Running that as I type. Thanks for all your suggestions by the way.

Seanie.

Seanie M

I did the permissions repair, restarted, and the same thing is still going on. Now, I have hit upon a roundabout way of getting a dmg file to download. In the browser, call up the 'Downloads' window/box. Then, drag the address of the file (which is now in the location bar of the browser) into the download box, and it downloads the file.

HOWEVER, this will not work for those sites that do not display the download link to the file, as in Quicktime's case.

Seanie.

Sad Professor

Okay, lets try and narrow it down:

Create a new user account (in System Prefs > Accounts). And login in under it temporarily and try downloading a dmg. Does the problem recur?

Seanie M

Sad Professor wrote: »

Okay, lets try and narrow it down:

Create a new user account (in System Prefs > Accounts). And login in under it temporarily and try downloading a dmg. Does the problem recur?

Now we're getting somewhere - the problem DOES NOT recur. What does this tell you?

Sad Professor

It means the problem is somewhere in your user library folder. Makes it considerably easier to track down. Also means it's almost certainly caused by something you've installed or changed in your account.

Okay, so log back into your main user account and go to:

Users > Username folder > Library > Internet Plug-ins
(Not to be confused with the similar Library folder at the root of your hd.)

Is there any plug-ins in there? If so take them out and move them to the desktop temporarily. Then restart and test.

Seanie M

Sad Professor wrote: »

It means the problem is somewhere in your user library folder. Makes it considerably easier to track down. Also means it's almost certainly caused by something you've installed or changed in your account.

Okay, so log back into your main user account and go to:

Users > Username folder > Library > Internet Plug-ins
(Not to be confused with the similar Library folder at the root of your hd.)

Is there any plug-ins in there? If so take them out and move them to the desktop temporarily. Then restart and test.

Spot on my friend! It was the FolxNetscapePlugin.plugin file. It was the only one in the folder in question. I have it on the Desktop for now. Is it any good to me?

Seanie.
(a happy camper again!)

Sad Professor

Woohooo!

Yeah you can delete it.

You must have had Folx installed at some point. It's a download manager. I suspect you deleted the Folx app but the left-over plugin kept trying to send download links to the app.

Seanie M

Roger. Well, Sad Professor, you got through to at least one student this week!