Online playback problem

• Feb 6, 2016 - 17:23

I haven’t used online playback for a few months I think, but now on my AOL browser the playback arrow button is greyed out. I tried Internet Explorer 9 and that is even worse, if I select a piece the score doesn’t appear, only an empty window. It works and plays on my Android tablet, though. Does anyone know what’s happened, please?


Comments

In reply to by Shoichi

Thanks, I presume you're suggesting these could be the cause of the problem, rather than the solution. No, as far as I know I haven't changed or added any software. It used to work fine so I wondered whether the website had been changed in some way recently.

Hi Jonga,

Thank you for reporting this problem. Could you tell us which operating system you are on and which version of the AOL browser you use?

We don't support Internet Explorer 9 anymore, so you would have to upgrade your IE to 10 or 11. Another solution maybe to use the Chrome or Firefox browser.

In any case, we still have some work to throw a message when one is using an unsupported browser. So thank you for reminding us of this issue.

In reply to by Thomas

I'm using Windows Vista, AOL browser 9.8.0 revision 4346.9 and IE 9.0.8112.16421. Even though you no longer support IE 9 (and I think AOL is linked to it in some way) would that really cause the playback button on AOL to grey out when everything else seems to work all right? I haven't had problems with other websites. I don't normally use IE, but the effect there seems strange too.

In reply to by jonga

The web player relies on the availability of some minimal browser functionality (API functions). When that minimal functionality is not available, the player will grey out or even hide some functions. Such functions may be playback, full screen mode, or something else.

Some of the most popular online services have dropped support for IE9 several years ago. Google Apps dropped IE9 support in 2013 (http://googlesystem.blogspot.be/2013/11/google-drops-support-for-ie9.ht…). Even Microsoft has now dropped support for IE 8-10 (http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/7/5979573/microsoft-is-finally-killing-s…).

We decided to still support IE10 for now, because it was still possible to do for us without much effort.

So I guess it's time to drop your AOL browser and move up to IE11 or another modern web browser.

That said, we should still do a better job throwing out a message on the site when someone visits us with an unsupported browser. We'll work on this.

In reply to by Thomas

Thomas, isn't there another way to provide playback than to require the latest version of whatever browser a user has installed? As you might remember from when I was having issues with the forum, it is not always possible for someone running XP to upgrade to IE 10 or 11. One of my three computers runs XP/SP2, and since Microsoft no longer supports XP, I canNOT upgrade it to SP3, which they require before allowing an upgrade to IE11.

Backwards compatibility is the mark of a really good web-developer, and I like to think you guys are in that class. You were able to provide playback from musescore.com before IE10 or 11 existed; why can't that capability be maintained? (I'm not asking that rhetorically or sarcastically; I am truly curious to know the reason if there is one.)

Thanks.

In reply to by Thomas

Sorry to have been a nuisance, but I've just downloaded the AOL software again (it never seems clear till you've done it what revision it is) and it's now 9.8.2 revision 4346.2014, and, eureka, the playback works again! Anyway, thanks for your time and trouble.

Do you still have an unanswered question? Please log in first to post your question.