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 Invalid media type 0x13BB or IPE crash in Mozilla in OS/2

November 2003

Symptoms

Cause and Cures

One cause is installing the Netscape Plug-in-Pack and TiMidityMCD, and making TiMidityMCD the default sequencer device. When TiMidity is the default sequencer, Mozilla uses it for midi files. But for reasons that are unclear, in this arrangement, Netscape's internet manager stops receiving midi files after about 10-1/2k are received. This leads to the invalid media type error. The cure is simple: make sure the default sequencer is Midi, not TiMidity. Mozilla will retrieve long midi files and play them fine via the OPL synthesizer. It won't sound as good as TiMidity, but it will work. For better sound, simple rename the NPOS2MID.DLL plugin to a different suffix, such as *.dl-. This will prevent the plugin from handling midi. Properly coded web pages will then present the Midi as a link, and you can use a helper application such as the interactive TiMidity or NPlay to handle Midi. However, some web pages may persist in saying that you need to install a plugin if you do this.

The IPE has a slightly different cause. If a player applet has finished playing via TiMidity, but the applet has not yet been closed, MMPM only keeps the MIDI device marked as busy. The wave device is marked as free -- only it isn't. And when another program tries to use it, the system traps the error. A workaround is to edit the \mmos2\mmpm2.ini file to mark the AmpMix device as share type 1 instead of the normal 3. With this change, until an applet that has played midi is actually closed, the sound card is not accessible to other programs. A side effect is that an OS/2 program ca no longer preempt another that has control of the sound card, but this is not necessarily a drawback. Some might consider it to be an improvement. It not only prevents the IPE crash, but it makes collisions that leave the sound card in an inconsistent state much less likely. The Win-OS/2 -vs- OS/2 sharing that newer sound chips allow is still supported.



W. Gregg, Invalid Media Type 0x13BB or IPE Crash in Mozilla in OS/2 (2003) (w.gregg.juneau.ak.us/ 2003/ text/ 2003k00-invalid-media-type).