[Stoney]

... and the browser hangs if I click on Amazon's Music Sampler.

When I click on the "RealOne Player" sound clips at Amazon, I get a spinning beachball at "connecting" and the Player needs to be force quit. Similarly, if I click on Amazon's "Music Sampler," I get the browser (Firefox latest) hanging and "not responding" according to Activity Monitor.

I managed to tweak something a couple of weeks ago that solved it, but I can't remember what. Now it's back. I tried uninstalling flash, reinstalling Quicktime 7.30, and RealPlayer 10 and 11 beta including trashing all their prefs and support files.

RealPlayer works on streaming radio, and that "welcome" clip plays fine. It is something about the Amazon site or the codec "3.0" that they use (a dialog appeared when I clicked an Amazon "RealOne" clip the first time after RealPlayer installation, so I selected "download" something with a name like "codec 3.0" ).

I am able to listen to the Windows Media clips, which now open in Quicktime Player thanks to a third-party plug-in.

This problem occurs in Firefox, Safari (both the latest), and Internet Explorer.
I'm using OS X 10.4.11.

Any help? I've been at this for hours.

[Stoney]

Update: most clips work fine....

I tried Real Audio clips other titles on Amazon, and found they worked. I tried 8 on the "best seller" page.
An example of one that doesn't work is this old title:
Amazon.com: The Best of Jennifer Warnes: Music: Jennifer Warnes

Anyone else have trouble with the Real clip on that page?

I'm thinking this may be some incompatibility with formats of older titles on Amazon.

[Stoney]

Here is an example that freezes RealPlayer 10 and 11 beta at "contacting", showing the titlebar "Hurl.exe."

http://www.amazon.com/gp/music/clips..._sam_ra001_001

Others report that it does work. Also, other pages on Amazon work. So I assume there is something about this MIME type or encoding that causes a conflict on my system.

But, I've removed all internet plugins (root and user Libraries), and reinstalled RealPlayer after deleting all remnants of it. This didn't help. Safe boot just led to a complete failure to handle the link (I assume all plugins were disabled on safe boot). The relatively untouched Admin user account has the exact same problem.

I'm at a loss.

[TETENAL]

Hangs at first, but works eventually. Be patient.

[Stoney]

I wish! I can wait 5, 10 minutes. I can't even bring the affected application (be it RealPlayer or Music Player in my browser) front-most. Only way out is to force-quit using right-click in the dock (which says "Application Not Responding") or Activity Monitor.

[Stoney]

Has anyone else seen this problem?