Notification of missing plug in?

Hi, I'm not sure this is the correct place to post this but I could not find anywhere else I recently viewed a webpage that had music on it. The music plays fine on other browsers. I contacted the webpage author to report this and he thinks it may be Opera is missing a plug in. Ok, but which one? How about enabling Opera to auto report a missing plug in and suggesting which one to use? If this is already implemented then it does not appear to be working

This is already a feature in Opera 11.50 and newer. We will suggest plug-ins and offer to install them.

Ok, but it didn't.... I presume that is what you meant? That some sort of notification would pop up on the screen pointing out which plug in is missing? Or have I misunderstood?

Originally posted by kevanf1:

That some sort of notification would pop up on the screen pointing out which plug in is missing?

No, but when you click the "Missing plug-in. Click here for more info" box a dialog would appear with an option "Go to Webpage". Select the "Go to webpage" option and then Opera will take you to the plug-ins instructions page. However, it will automatically direct you to install the missing plug-in.

For example, if Adobe Shockwave is missing then "Go to webpage" option will take you to http://www.opera.com/docs/plugins/installation/#shockwave and will display steps to install Shockwave Player. So you can understand that Adobe Shockwave Player is missing.

Well that would be perfect. The trouble is I am not getting a Missing Plug in box or anything!!!! All I know is that in this particular case the music is not playing on the webpage. It does on other browsers. I get no error message, no pop up telling me I am missing a plug in.

So now what?

An example of a page 'in the wild':



Of course anyone that can read (English) will figure out there is a quicktime element missing, but most time the text would be "watch this". No sign of a popup here; a bit of a comfort is that IE shows a missing image symbol and QTWeb browser a question mark, a tiny bit more informative.

I too visit a website which has a webpage that is set up to play mp3 music. If I use IE to visit this webpage the mp3 music plays well. But if I use Opera I don't hear any of the mp3 music.

Because there isn't a message telling of a missing plug-in, I went ahead and checked the plug-ins installed to make sure one that handled mp3 music was installed. The plug-in that seems to handle mp3 music is Quick Time Plug-in 7.7.1, which is installed but perhaps isn't set correctly??

I'm basically asking the same question as the original poster because none of the posts presented solve the problem I'm encountering.

I have given up. I am very sorry to say this, and I do not mean it in a nasty way, but I am disappointed at the level of help I have had from these pages. I feel as though I have been treated like an idiot even though I have nearly 20 years of experience at a technician and managerial level in computing.

I am simply stating how I feel in the hope that things change. Sorry guys.

Hi kevanf1,

I'm sorry you don't feel treated right. There should be a popup if a plugin is missing, but - as you mention in your post - you page doesn't give one. Can you tell us which page you are referring to? It's easier to find out then what goes wrong in your case.

One thing you can also try is disabling Opera Turbo (the 'dial'-icon on the left of your statusbar).

PS. Your problem fits better in the general 'Opera Browser' forum, so I'm requesting a move.

Thank you GeekK, your is a far better way of answering a question.

I'm afraid I can no longer give the web page that I was having this problem on. It was a one off, I couldn't listen to the sound and it wasn't an important one. So I just accepted that I couldn't listen. It would have been good to find out why though...

Ah, Opera Turbo. I don't have it switched on anyway, sorry.

If it's better in the general area then please go for it.

Again, thank you for your attempt at answering my question.

The problem is he's dealing with a plugin that has no visual display on the page. He can't click what isn't there, so there's no pop-up.

Originally posted by sgunhouse:

The problem is he's dealing with a plugin that has no visual display on the page. He can't click what isn't there, so there's no pop-up.

Exactly!!! :-) Thank you

This was actually the most important part of my registering this problem. The website is immaterial, yes, I accept it would be good to know what the missing plug in was and if I knew the website somebody may have been able to dig and find out what it was. But, for me, the most important thing is the fact that Opera does have this problem whereby there are obviously some plug ins that it simply does not give any pop up for.

I imagine there are relatively few Opera users who will bother to join the community and notify others of these problems. That majority who don't bother are highly likely to simply ditch Opera and go back to Firefox or even worse, that other major browser that I cannot even bring myself to say Anyway, this means fewer people using Opera and fewer people reporting problems which ultimately means those guys and girls on the Opera development team not being able to compete to as high a level as the other aformentioned browsers

Moved to Opera browser, though I'm not sure it'll get any more notice here than it did in the other forum ...

Missing a plugin? just click on "install missing plugin" in arrow in the circle and once dumped at the beginning of the Opera plugin page do exactly what?? without any idea which of the plugins on that page is the one needing to be installed. Come on, that is so stupid my eyes cross if I think too long about it and how it could just be kept that way. At this page "http://www.directhit.com/ansres/The-Screensavers.html" there is nothing at all beyond the huge arrow-circle when clicking on a video. It works in Chrome, IE8 & Firefox. (Yes, yes, there some kind of problem with some kind of a player) Apparently sharing the secret html request that provokes this graphic is too difficult to deal with at this time, was and maybe will be too. Fair enough, if it's too hard, it's too hard, BUT on the Opera plugin page why not place a working example of each plugin that says audio or visually or however appropriately "the WhatEver plugin is functioning correctly", and perhaps, if possible, a standardized graphic that says the WhatEver plugin is not installed or is installed but not working, if it's not; instead of just another circle-arrow graphic? Is that reasonable?

What is so difficult about simply having a pop up saying something like this?

"You appear to be missing a plug in here. If you are unable to find the plug in you need then please press this button."

That button simply sends a log off to the Opera developers telling them all the details they need to implement the missing plug in or, to allow the end user to install it themselves. It can't be that hard after all, Microsoft have been able to do this in the past...