Register MMS protocol in Firefox

Update: Surprisingly this post (originally posted in January 2005) still seems alive 3 years after my post. I should warn that I have not tried this method with Firefox versions later than 1.0 and have only tried it on Suse Linux Personal 9.1. If you need help please post a comment and I will try to help. I no longer use Suse and have since moved to Ubuntu (currently using Dapper LTS since I don't have time or need to update often) but will try to help as much as I can. Please see the comments on this post to see if someone has already tried to achieve what you want to.


Update Oct 20 2010: I received a comment (http://ossandcad.blogspot.com/2005/01/register-mms-protocol-in-firefox.html?showComment=1287565834207#c2838694970893156635) on this post that links to a solution at http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=31890&start=343. I have not tried this solution so your mileage may vary.

MMS stands for Microsoft Media Services and as the Microsoft site says it is a proprietary streaming media protocol. This means that Internet Explorer (IE) has this protocol registered by default but Mozilla Firefox will need some tweaking before it lets you play mms:// streams.

I have tested this on Mozilla Firefox 1.0 (rpm version = MozillaFirefox-1.0-2.1) on Suse Linux Personal 9.1 and also Fedora Core 3. I believe this method will work on other versions of Mozilla Firefox and Linux OSs but have not tested them. Also the method suggested here is per user alone and not per install. I have included mplayer as the multimedia application that will play the mms:// stream. I assume that you have mplayer installed properly and able to play mms:// streams. You can try other media players but I have not tested others.

NOTE: Entering values/names/url's should be done without quote marks.

1. In the URL bar of Firefox type "about:config".
2. You need to create two new values as follows:
1. Right click in the Firefox main window, click on "New" and select "String".
2. In the text box that pops up type "network.protocol-handler.app.mms" for the preference name. Click OK.
3. For Value enter "/usr/local/bin/gmplayer". This is where my gmplayer is installed. If you have it in a different location, type that in for the value. To find where gmplayer is installed on your computer enter whereis gmplayer in a console. Enter the value that the "whereis" query outputs. Click OK.

1. Right click in the Firefox main window, click on "New" and select "Boolean".
2. In the text box that pops up type "network.protocol-handler.external.mms" for the preference name. Click OK.
3. For value enter "true". Click OK.

At the end of this process you should have these two new values (type mms in the filter text box in the about:config window)

- Preference name: network.protocol-handler.app.mms
Status: user set
Type: string
Value: /usr/local/bin/gmplayer

- Preference name: network.protocol-handler.external.mms
Status: user set
Type: boolean
Value: true

Now go to a site that provides mms:// streams and test. If this does not work, then I would suggest that you test to see if your default player can play the mms:// streams. Pass the URL of the mms:// stream to mplayer directly using the command line/GUI. If it plays then try a different profile in Mozilla Firefox and see if that works (you can create a new profile by using either the" firefox -P" or the firefox -ProfileManager" commands).