Pipelight

Will Windows Media Player plugin ever be supported?

Asked by Jonathan Ritchie on 2014-03-18

I was wondering if Windows Media Player will every be supported. Trying to access some online courses for Clover Park Technical College, it requires MS Windows Media Player. In most cases, even if windows media player is required for a website, the totem plugin works fine, however, this school decided to have the page check for the plugin prior to loading the media source which then simply comes up with an error "missing plugin."

That being said, I was just wondering if this would see support.

Thanks guys for the great work.

Jon

Question information

Language:: English Edit question

Status:: Solved

For:: Pipelight Edit question

Assignee:: No assignee Edit question

Solved by:: Jonathan Ritchie

Solved:: 2014-03-30

Last query:: 2014-03-30

Last reply:: 2014-03-21

Link existing bug

Revision history for this message

Sebastian Lackner (slackner) said on 2014-03-21:

Hi Jonathan,

we did some tests during the last days, but unfortunately Windows Media Player is not really supported by Wine.

Its very difficult to get it working at all, it requires a lot of original Windows DLLs, it requires a Windows activation, and so on ... - but all I was able to get working is a small subset of all the features. Currently it doesn't make sense to add this plugin because its really too much "broken" to be actually useful.

To solve the problem with the website you have I would suggest to try a different method. Actually the best way would be to just add a fake plugin, which just appears as "Media Player" in the plugin list and helps to get around the plugin check. Afterwards it should be possible to just use the Totem player (at least if the stream is not encrypted).

We can probably help you with some more detailed instructions on how to setup such a fake plugin, but to figure out if it makes sense at all, it would be nice to have some test website first. Is it possible to test the detection somewhere? Or can you maybe try to find out some more details for example by searching for the actual plugin check in the JavaScript source codes?

Sebastian

Revision history for this message

Jonathan Ritchie (m-ricci-jon) said on 2014-03-21:

Hey Sebastian,

I have the Totem plugin which is listed as Windows Media Player 10, but
that doesn't seem to work. The Plugin actually does work of other sites
which require WMP. Is there something that I am required to do in order
for it to become a fake plugin?

It is actually my wife's school account that I was trying to help her with,
so i don't really have access to the account, however, there was the
Tegrity Diagnostic (http://cptc.tegrity.com/TegrityUtils/Diagnostic.aspx )
page which does not require a login. I believe that this is the exact
checks that are made.

I am able to trick it into thinking that it is a Windows 7 PC with Firefox
24; it's just the Totem WMP that doesn't seem to work.

I decided to give it a shot with installing Firefox, WMP + Plugin under
WINE Via PlayOnLinux which seems to get through most of the test except for
the Media Service which says that it cannot connect.

Thanks,

Jon

On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 6:01 PM, Sebastian Lackner <
<email address hidden>> wrote:

> Your question #245703 on Pipelight changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/pipelight/+question/245703
>
> Status: Open => Needs information
>
> Sebastian Lackner requested more information:
> Hi Jonathan,
>
> we did some tests during the last days, but unfortunately Windows Media
> Player is not really supported by Wine.
>
> Its very difficult to get it working at all, it requires a lot of
> original Windows DLLs, it requires a Windows activation, and so on ... -
> but all I was able to get working is a small subset of all the features.
> Currently it doesn't make sense to add this plugin because its really
> too much "broken" to be actually useful.
>
> To solve the problem with the website you have I would suggest to try a
> different method. Actually the best way would be to just add a fake
> plugin, which just appears as "Media Player" in the plugin list and
> helps to get around the plugin check. Afterwards it should be possible
> to just use the Totem player (at least if the stream is not encrypted).
>
> We can probably help you with some more detailed instructions on how to
> setup such a fake plugin, but to figure out if it makes sense at all, it
> would be nice to have some test website first. Is it possible to test
> the detection somewhere? Or can you maybe try to find out some more
> details for example by searching for the actual plugin check in the
> JavaScript source codes?
>
> Sebastian
>
> --
> To answer this request for more information, you can either reply to
> this email or enter your reply at the following page:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/pipelight/+question/245703
>
> You received this question notification because you asked the question.
>

--
―Jonathan Ritchie

(253) 283-3190
P.O. Box 99086
Lakewood WA, 98496

Hey Sebastian,

I have the Totem plugin which is listed as Windows Media Player 10, but
that doesn't seem to work.  The Plugin actually does work of other sites
which require WMP.  Is there something that I am required to do in order
for it to become a fake plugin?

It is actually my wife's school account that I was trying to help her with,
so i don't really have access to the account, however, there was the
Tegrity Diagnostic (http://cptc.tegrity.com/TegrityUtils/Diagnostic.aspx )
page which does not require a login.  I believe that this is the exact
checks that are made.

I am able to trick it into thinking that it is a Windows 7 PC with Firefox
24; it's just the Totem WMP that doesn't seem to work.

Thanks,

Jon

On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 6:01 PM, Sebastian Lackner <
question245703@answers.launchpad.net> wrote:

> Your question #245703 on Pipelight changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/pipelight/+question/245703
>
>     Status: Open => Needs information
>
> Sebastian Lackner requested more information:
> Hi Jonathan,
>
> we did some tests during the last days, but unfortunately Windows Media
> Player is not really supported by Wine.
>
> Its very difficult to get it working at all, it requires a lot of
> original Windows DLLs, it requires a Windows activation, and so on ... -
> but all I was able to get working is a small subset of all the features.
> Currently it doesn't make sense to add this plugin because its really
> too much "broken" to be actually useful.
>
> To solve the problem with the website you have I would suggest to try a
> different method. Actually the best way would be to just add a fake
> plugin, which just appears as "Media Player" in the plugin list and
> helps to get around the plugin check. Afterwards it should be possible
> to just use the Totem player (at least if the stream is not encrypted).
>
> We can probably help you with some more detailed instructions on how to
> setup such a fake plugin, but to figure out if it makes sense at all, it
> would be nice to have some test website first. Is it possible to test
> the detection somewhere? Or can you maybe try to find out some more
> details for example by searching for the actual plugin check in the
> JavaScript source codes?
>
> Sebastian
>
> --
> To answer this request for more information, you can either reply to
> this email or enter your reply at the following page:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/pipelight/+question/245703
>
> You received this question notification because you asked the question.
>

-- 
―Jonathan Ritchie

(253) 283-3190
P.O. Box 99086
Lakewood WA, 98496

Revision history for this message

Sebastian Lackner (slackner) said on 2014-03-21:

Hi Jonathan,

could you maybe try out the following idea:

Based on the source code the website will fall back to Silverlight if it detects that the user has a Mac computer. I just did a quick test, and by selecting

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_7_3) AppleWebKit/534.55.3 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1.3 Safari/534.53.10

and having Silverlight (via Pipelight) enabled, it indeed passes all the tests of the diagnostic page you provided.

Does that also work for the school website itself? Information on how to setup the user agent for various browsers can be found here: https://answers.launchpad.net/pipelight/+faq/2351

Sebastian

Revision history for this message

Jonathan Ritchie (m-ricci-jon) said on 2014-03-30:

Hey Sebastian,

Sorry about the late reply.

Setting it to

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_7_3) AppleWebKit/534.55.3
KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1.3 Safari/534.53.10

Actually worked. The videos are playing now. Thanks for the suggestion.

Jon

On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 8:31 PM, Sebastian Lackner <
<email address hidden>> wrote:

> Your question #245703 on Pipelight changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/pipelight/+question/245703
>
> Status: Open => Needs information
>
> Sebastian Lackner requested more information:
> Hi Jonathan,
>
> could you maybe try out the following idea:
>
> Based on the source code the website will fall back to Silverlight if it
> detects that the user has a Mac computer. I just did a quick test, and
> by selecting
>
> Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_7_3) AppleWebKit/534.55.3
> (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1.3 Safari/534.53.10
>
> and having Silverlight (via Pipelight) enabled, it indeed passes all the
> tests of the diagnostic page you provided.
>
> Does that also work for the school website itself? Information on how to
> setup the user agent for various browsers can be found here:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/pipelight/+faq/2351
>
> Sebastian
>
> --
> To answer this request for more information, you can either reply to
> this email or enter your reply at the following page:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/pipelight/+question/245703
>
> You received this question notification because you asked the question.
>

--
―Jonathan Ritchie

(253) 283-3190
P.O. Box 99086
Lakewood WA, 98496

Revision history for this message

Jonathan Ritchie (m-ricci-jon) said on 2014-03-30:

Setting it to

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_7_3) AppleWebKit/534.55.3
KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1.3 Safari/534.53.10

Actually worked. The videos are playing now. Thanks for the suggestion.

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