I can't stream a specific radio programme

Question

I used to be able to stream past radio programmes from http://www.2ser.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=itemlist&task=category&id=198
The shows are listed on this page under "Shows On Demand" in date order.
About a month ago this stopped working for no obvious reason. When I click on the show I want to hear, I simply get a black box with no play button. There is an option to open it in a separate pop-up window, but this also just opens to an empty black box. Formerly there was also an option to download the entire show, but that now seems to be missing as well.
I reported this to the radio station itself, but they are satisfied that it is working at their end, and don't seem to want to help me any further :-(
I use Windows XP SP3 and my Firefox is up to date, as is my Adobe Flash. In my Firefox add-ons, I have selected "always activate" for Adobe Acrobat and Shockwave Flash.
Any advice you could give which solves my problem would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

Answer 1

It looks like the site uses JWPlayer. In Windows 7, the JWPlayer uses the built-in HTML5 video player to retrieve a .m4a file which is an "audio/mp4" file.
I don't think Firefox on Windows XP can play "audio/mp4" (or "video/mp4") without using a plugin. I think the JWPlayer script is supposed to figure that out, but maybe something changed in Firefox 36-37 and now it isn't switching to a plugin automatically.
Do you want to try disabling a few settings to see whether the site then uses a plugin? This will prevent Firefox from natively playing MP3s, but perhaps that isn't an important feature for you.
Firefox doesn't have the built-in ability to decode MPEG media. Instead, it uses Media Foundation (part of Windows) or if that isn't available, DirectShow (an older Windows technology). These are enabled by default, but sometimes are disabled by users who prefer to download MP3 media instead of playing it in the browser.
(1) In a new tab, type or paste '''about:config''' in the address bar and press Enter. Click the button promising to be careful.
(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste '''media''' and pause while the list is filtered
(3) If the '''media.directshow.enabled''' preference has its default value of true, double-click it to switch it to false.
(4) If the '''media.windows-media-foundation.enabled''' is set to true, double-click it to switch it to false.
If you changed these settings, does that make any difference? I'm not sure whether the change takes effect immediately or after you exit Firefox and start it up again.