well intended (but misdirected) RealPlayer

[ffej2ffej]

I have RealPlayer 10.0.4.750 (gold) installed on my RH Linux machine. Sometime recently, RealPlayer decided that files with rpm as the extension are playlists for its use and not Redhat Package Managers. When I try to download an rpm file, RealPlayer opens in the web browser (mozilla) without asking or giving any chance to save the file instead.
I've looked through Mozilla's help, RealPlayer's help and web sites for both of these. Nobody seems to have encountered this problem before or else they just lived with it. Help!!!

 

[Kozusnik]

Is there an entry for rpm in...
File...
Preferences...
Navigator...
Helper Applications?

Mark

There are 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

 

[ffej2ffej]

Actually, it's
Edit
Preferences
Navigator
Helper Applications

There is an entry there for RealPlayer, but it only mentions the extensions ram and rm. The only other entry under this heading is pdf.
Here's an update. I looked on RealNetworks page and after some searching I finally found a FAQ asking about using the rpm extension for their own format despite the fact that Red Hat uses it, too. Their answer is to acknowledge that they both use the same extension and they both started it about the same time. That's helpful. Thanks a ton.

 

[ffej2ffej]

Happy ending! I found a site that sent the rpm file via ftp, so the browser didn't try to handle it. In fact, Mozilla asked me what to do with it. (Naturally, I saved it!) Oh yeah, the site is

http://www.filewatcher.com/

Thanks, Google.

 

[chipperMDW]

The thing that's noticing the rpm extenion and opening Real Player is probably Plugger, a Mozilla plugin that opens up helper programs to let you view various media types inline.

The configuration file for Plugger is in [tt]/etc/mozpluggerrc[/tt], at least on Debian. My [tt]mozpluggerrc[/tt] contains a section that looks like this:

[highlight]audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin: rpm: RealPlayer Plugin Metafile[/highlight]
audio/x-pn-realaudio: ra,rm,ram: Realaudio-plugin resource locator
audio/x-realaudio: ra,rm,ram: RealAudio file
application/vnd.rn-realmedia: rm: RealMedia file
application/smil: smi: RealPlayer
audio/vnd.rn-realaudio: ra,ram: RealAudio file
audio/vnd.rn-realvideo: rv: RealVideo file
        nokill stream: hxplay "$file"
        nokill stream: realplay "$file"

I believe that when a Web server doesn't supply the MIME type for a file, Mozilla lets Plugger try to guess the file type based on the extensions. If you deal with RedHat Package Manager files frequently and RealPlayer Plugin Metafile files rarely, you might want to look for a similar line in your config file and comment it out.


By the way, in most browsers, you can right click on a hyperlink to get a context menu that usually contains a command like "Download Link." You can use that to override the browser's choice when it wants to do something different.

 

[chipperMDW]

Also, in case you want to make the change for only your user instead of system-wide, that config file can apparently also be located in either of these locations:
[ul]
[li][tt]~/.netscape/mozpluggerrc[/tt][/li]
[li][tt]~/.opera/mozpluggerrc[/tt].[/li]
[/ul]

I expect you'll need to copy the entire [tt]/etc/mozpluggerrc[/tt] to the appropriate place in your home directory, then comment out the offending line in your personal copy. The plugin will then see your file and completely ignore the one in [tt]/etc[/tt].