Hi:

I can't seem to listen to internet radio. I've tried two different websites: iHeart.com and Shoutcast.com. I get no sound.

My volume is up, and I have no problem watching and hearing videos on YouTube.

The volume is up on the internet station, also.

Any ideas?

I just tried Shoutcast, and the sound works fine. At a guess, if the information in your signature is correct, your version of OS X and/or Safari might be too old.

My laptop is fairly new. I have the latest Safari. I don't use the iBook if that is what you are looking at. I am using my Macbook Pro.

Rita

Hmm, weird. It works great on my system. Have you tried from a different user account, or with a different browser?

Nope. I don't want to have to download another browser if I don't have to. Haven't tried another user account. But, that shouldn't be it, right? You heard it on Safari, right?

Rita

I wonder if I have a program conflicting with it. I wish we still had conflict catcher. I don't know how to tell if there is a conflict. I turned off the four extensions I know about, and that didn't make a difference. It is Weird!

I couldn't use Facebook before I turned off FastTube. I researched it and found out that could mess with Facebook. It did. It just caused it to crawl and I got the spinning beach ball of death. Once I turned off FastTube it worked just fine.

I turned off FastTube along with my other extensions tonight, but it made no difference. It's a mystery.




Rita

Do you use Adobe Flashplayer? iHeart told me I needed it. I thought I had it but I just have the adobe manager. I redownloaded Adobe Flashplayer and it said "Installation Successful" but I can't find it anywhere. Just the download manager.

I went to the Adobe site and it stated:

If Flash Player is installed on your computer, the following box displays the version of Flash Player and your operating system. If Flash Player is not installed, a blank box appears. I got the blank box.

You are having problems with downloading or installing Adobe Flash Player on a Mac.

Solution Then it gives me a bunch of things to do. I will do them if I have to but I am wondering if there is anything else I can do to make this easier.

I have VLC media player but have never been able to figure out how to use it. Would that be what I would use instead of Adobe? Grrrrr!

Did you download FP directly from Adobe? If not, do it now. If so, try again. In 10.6.8, the appropriate files are found in /Library/Internet Plugins. Do you have a FP preference pane in System Preferences? It's there in my system.

Hi: Yes, I downloaded it from the Adobe FP site.

I found my internet plugins but something is not right. None of the folders in my Library will open!!! Wow, simple thing turns into a big deal!

Rita

Restart and see if that helps. Sometimes, that's all it takes.

I did a restart with no help. I ran disk utility with no help.

When I pulled up the finder, clicked "option" and "go" the library was in the pull down window. I clicked on "library" and it goes to the Library for a split second and then goes back to "User". I have to do this about 3 times before the library folders will actually show up. But they won't open. There seems to be something very wrong with my computer.

I'm thinking of deleting Adobe all together to see if that makes a difference.

Rita

I still coudn't get into my Libary Files via "GO." I went to my HD and then to Libary and then Internet Plug-ins. I found something called Flashplayer plugin (this is after I deleted Adobe Flashplayer). And yet, I looked at my system prefs and there is a Flash player icon. Not sure what that is. A built in Flashplayer? Doesn't seem to work with radio internet though.

That FP preference pane is placed by FP itself. That's where you adjust (what else?) your FP preferences. Have you tried starting in Safe Mode to see if that does anything?

You said that you ran Disk Utility. Did you mean running Repair Disk or Repair Permissions? Repair Disk is likely what you want, and starting in Safe Mode runs that automatically. Do you have a stronger utility like Disk Warrior, TechTool Pro or Drive Genius.

I ran repair disk and repair permissions. Now I CAN get into my Libary folders for some reason. But the plug in folder doesn't open. I wonder if that's because there's nothing in it.

I uninstalled Adobe Flash Player. Now when I go to internet radio, it says I need a flash player. So, before I must have had one. It just didn't work except occasionally.

I don't have anything other than Disk Utility. I know you are a fan of Disk Warrior. I really should get that, I guess.

I'll try the safe mode thing.

When I went to System prefs just now, the FP is no longer there. I must have trashed it. Not sure what to look for in the Trash. Was it a part of Adobe or something else? I think it was Adobe because it was the red icon. Sorry to be so much trouble.

Do you use Adobe or something else? I need to download something.

Rita

I am wondering why I can listen to internet radio via iTunes without a flash player? It works just fine.

It sounds like your hard drive permissions are seriously messed up. Repair Permissions will repair permissions for Apple-related stuff, like the system itself, but not for (some) non-Apple stuff.

You couldn't get into your Library because you didn't have permission to. It sounds like you couldn't run the Flash plugin because you didn't have permission to do that either. Now that you have repaired permissions, try installing Flash again.

Okay. I will now reinstall adobe and see what happens. Thanks.

I downloaded Adobe flashplayer again. It said the download was successful. But all I can find is the flashplayer install manager. The only choice for that is to quit or uninstall adobe. I just can't seem to install the actual player. I give up.

Thanks, though.

Well, I found it. It is installed. But still no sound on internet radio stations except for iTunes radio.

Now I've noticed that I can get sound from Shoutcast Radio but not from iHeart. I guess maybe it could be iHeart. I hope. Thanks for all your help.

Hi, Rita,

I tried both and had trouble with both, but after clicking around a bit, both of them eventually worked.

No idea why.

Thanks, Artie. The iHeart works on and off for me. Sometimes their volume slider is at the bottom and I cannot get it to go higher. Other times I can and it either works or not. I had trouble with the other one at first and then later it worked for me. Maybe it's not my computer after all. Who knows? Weird, huh?

Yeah, I got iHeart to work before, but it won't work again.

> Sometimes their volume slider is at the bottom and I cannot get it to go higher.

Hitting command-shift-dash (command-minus) may work for that.

OS 10.6.8 Will the radio stations on itunes suffice? jaybass

Thanks for the tip. I didn't know about command-shift-dash.

It will suffice for music probably, but not Talk Radio. I found a talk radio stream that I can use yesterday that had what I wanted. Thanks.

You can never find the actual Flash player, because it isn't a program. It's a plugin that lives in your Web browser.

Oh, I learned something else. Thanks.

The plug-in is found in the /Library/Internet Plug-Ins folder. They are named FlashPlayer.plugin and flashplayer.xpt.

Thank you!!

In addition to looking under the hood for your plugin files, you can check Safari's 'Installed Plug-ins' menu (found under the Help menu) to see if it includes a 'Shockwave Flash' item for proof that you've got the plugin installed. In addition to the current version available, this Adobe Flash Player web page will also show the version you've got installed in a small Flash window labeled Version Information. The advantage of doing this in a Flash window is that seeing it provides implicit proof that the plugin works as intended, a handy troubleshooting aid. As a Flash user, you might want to bookmark this page, plus its link to the Flash update page you might also need.

Good to know. Thank you!

Ok, so I've been messing with my Java settings because I got scared because of what I read about the security issue. I wish I hadn't messed with them because now I can't listen to Grooveshark anymore.

I went into applications - Utilities - Java prefs and unclicked two boxes to completely disable Java. I decided I wanted to enable them again so I can have a better experience. Now when I got to Apps, utilities, etc., there is no Java prefs.

Any ideas? I really need to leave well enough alone. I'm always messing under the hood. I need to stop that.

Hi, Rita,

First thing to do is search your HD with Spotlight or whichever other app you use for "Java Preferences" to see if it maybe got moved somewhere by accident.

I think you can d/l it if you can't find it on your HD, but I'm not certain about what and from where.

Edit: Time Machine or clone?

Time Machine which I never could figure out how to use.

I checked Spotlight and search via Finder. Nothing. I also searched my Trash which I haven't emptied in a long while. Nothing.

I went back a few days just now and restored stuff from Time Machine. Still no Java Pres.

Wow. Okay, after I restored stuff from Time Machine, I used Spotlight again and found my Java Prefs!!! Thanks for the idea, Artie. I still can't find it via Apps, utilities, etc. Not sure why. But there it was and now my Grooveshark music works!

Good news! I'm happy I had the afterthought; I don't run TM, and it's generally pretty far from my mind.

> But there it was....

Where?

In Spotlight! I couldn't find it in the Finder or anywhere else. But it popped up in spotlight. I was able to check and uncheck the boxes. Where it's hiding other than that I don't know. I couldn't see a status bar to let me know where it's hiding. Just glad I found it. Made a world of difference. If I decide I want to uncheck the boxes, I will use Spotlight again. If it's missing again, I will go to Timeline and get it!! I didn't see it in Timeline, I just picked a day that was before I started messing with it and hit "Restore." That brought it back.

Thanks again, Artie!

If you select 'Java Prefs' directly from Spotlight's results pulldown menu, you won't see location information. If you select Show All, the top item in the Spotlight pulldown menu after you enter a search term, you'll get a regular window with search results showing file/folder paths in the bottom margin when you select an actual file or folder in the list (not all search results qualify, like Safari history items etc.).

Wished I known that yesterday!! It's not showing up again. Maybe I will have to go back into Time Machine and try to retrieve once more. Thanks for that valuable info.

Rita

> It's not showing up again.

Grooveshark?

If it's really gone, you may have some other problem - don't ask me to even guess - that needs to be addressed.

I can now find the prefs if I have my external drive plugged in. Otherwise I can't. Even though I restored it. So not sure how that all works. Grooveshark is an online music site like Pandora.

Rita

You misunderstood me, Rita; I meant did Grooveshark work when you couldn't find your Java prefs?

What's on your external drive, and can you listen to Grooveshark without it being plugged in?

Oh, okay. Grooveshark did work after I found the java prefs via Spotlight even though I couldn't find them again on my computer. Yes, I can listen to Grooveshark without my external drive. You would think I wouldn't be able to since I can only find the prefs with my external drive plugged in, but it works anyway. Not sure what you mean by what's on my external drive. I mean, I got my prefs back via Time Machine on my external drive. Sorry, hope all that makes sense.

Rita

OK, so your external drive is your Time Machine drive and that's all that's on it?

Maybe all the pieces are now in place for somebody other than me to make some sense out of what's going on.

It's okay, Artie. I will just use the Time Machine if I need to. At this point, I don't. I restored the Java stuff but I can't find it. But, it's working. Go figure!

My time Machine backs up everything on my computer every few minutes.I need to take the time to do a time machine tutorial as it confuses the heck out of me. But, I'm lazy.

Rita

As designed, Time Machine does its backups every 60 minutes or 3600 seconds. Unless you have been fiddling with the settings with a third party utility or from the command line.

Starting with Java 1.6.0_37, there is no Java Preferences app any more. It's in the release notes for the OS X Java update:

"This update also removes the Java Preferences application, which is no longer required to configure applet settings."

So if you have a version of the Java Preferences app on your computer, it's an older version, intended for an older version of Java. I have seen scattered reports that you can run it on modern OS X systems and change the settings, but it doesn't actually do anything.

All I know is that some radio websites won't run unless I use Java. Click-to-Flash doesn't do it. I can't remember where I got the Java, if I downloaded it or it came with Adobe Flash when I downloaded that. But I needed Java to play the music.

I may have fiddled with something but not by a third party.

You missed tacit's point, Rita... You can't find Java Preferences without your external being plugged in because the OS X 10.8.3 you're running uses a version of Java that no longer uses JP (Java, incidentally, came with OS X...was not a d/l.), and whichever version of JP you're finding on your external has nothing to do with what's on your internal, i.e. changing its settings does not affect your Mt. Lion installation. (That's along the lines of what I was looking for when I asked what's on your external. It sounds like you've got some earlier version of OS X than 10.8.3 on it. )

What apparently got you back up and running was the restore, but it looks like we'll never really know what happened.

(And, by the way, ClickToFlash has nothing to do with Java...Adobe Flash, only.)

By way of clarification, that apparently applies only to Lion (maybe) and Mounty.

Java for Snowy, v 1.6.0_51-b11-456, still uses /Apps/Utils/Java Preferences.

Actually, as of Lion, Java does not come with OS X, so if Rita's MacBook Pro is more recent than of Snow Leopard vintage, she would've had to have downloaded it.

For OS X 10.7.3 and above when an app requests Java you are still offered the option to download and install it, but in this case it is from Oracle not Apple. Whether you install "automatically" or manually Java is downloaded from http://www.java.com/en/download/index.jsp. The current version is Java 7 Update 40. When it is installed a Java Preference Pane is added to System Preferences. Clicking on that preference pane opens a new window with five different settings tabs: General, Update, Java, Security, and Advanced. The Java tab allows users to…

My Macbook Pro came with Lion and then I upgraded. Maybe that explains it. I also downloaded Adobe in the past I think, and it still didn't seem to work so I ditched it. I could never find it. I redownloaded it recently. Anyway, now I know why it was on my external drive. On my external drive I have Time Machine, my hard drive, Lion and Mt. Lion!!

Rita

Right. That's the preference pane that I have, but I can only get it from my external drive. I could download it again and put it on my HD but I'm not going to unless I have to. Things seem to be working now.

Thank you.

Thanks for setting me straight, but I'm confused... Did Lion come sans Java from the get-go, i.e. 10.7.0, and, if so, how does


fit in? (The 10.7.3 part, I mean.)

And am I understanding correctly that even though Java is now d/l'ed directly from Oracle, Apple updates it?

As I recall it worked this way. Prior to the release of Lion, Apple announced their intention to drop the Apple developed version of Java in favor of the Oracle version. This made all kinds of sense because Java on the Mac had always trailed the official Java release because Apple had to have the Oracle release in order to port it to the Mac (and frankly have other programming priorities). Lion and Mountain Lion did and do not ship with Java in the box, but if you launch an application like NeoOffice, OpenOffice, Moneydance, etc. that require the Java Virtual Machine to run, Lion, Mountain Lion, and I assume Maverick will throw up a screen indicating Java is not installed and offering to download and install it. In 10.7, 10.7.1, and 10.7.2 downloaded Java was still downloaded from Apple and I have no idea if it that was the Apple version or the Oracle version. By the time 10.7.3 was released Oracle was offering Java for Mac on their web site and in OS X 10.7.3 or later the OS X "Do you want to install Java" prompt is directed to Java.com which transparently detects what platform you are on and downloads the appropriate version. There is another page on the site where you make the choice.

This new neatly gets around the delay in new Java releases for Macs and makes Java security updates arrive days quicker. Additionally it frees Apple of the cost of porting Java to the Mac. IMO it is unfortunate Java is not supported through the App Store and has its own update notification system. Personally I wish Apple would allow Java to be distributed through the App Store so it could take advantage of Maverick's automatic update feature. There are some Java apps in the App Store, why not Java itself?

Thanks for the explanation; it answers most of what I was up in the air about except for how the Apple Java updates fit into the picture?

(You've made a good point about Java and the App Store; I wonder whether it's an Apple or Oracle decision?)

The following is a simplified and condensed version dealing with that aspect of Java:

Java is a programming language/software platform allowing software development on any one platform (read: OS), and running it on any other platform with minimal adaptation (via a platform specific 'virtual machine'). This makes it ideal for web based applications, but also generates security issues. Originally developed by Sun Microsystems, proprietary Java is currently owned by Oracle. Apple provided the required adaptation for Mac OS X through version 6, including any updates. This adaptation made use of the Java Preferences utility, but was no longer included by default with Mac OS X starting with Lion in the summer of 2011, after Apple had decided to discontinue development of its own virtual machine. That was taken over by Oracle, which made its version 7 for Mac OS X available early 2012, including the relevant updates. Version 7 uses a System Prefs panel for settings etc. Both Apple and Oracle versions will run on current Macs, and may be present concurrently. At this time Apple is still providing security updates for its version 6.

While Apple's main version adaptations (e.g., Java 4, 5 and 6) tended to lag far behind those from Sun/Oracle (often more than a year), it was a tad quicker on the draw with security updates. Those became an issue as soon as malware developers started to target Java, and in the Mac community interest in them peaked with the 2011-2012 Flashback trojan outbreak affecting 600,000+ Macs. Apple chose to respond relatively quickly, within about half a year from the start of the infestation, but within days after it becoming widely known. The current setup with Oracle providing the most functionally advanced Java (v7 and up) for Mac OS X is more responsive and faster, even though Apple may disable Oracle Java updates if it considers them problematic, and the user still must choose to apply updates (it's neither automatic nor mandatory).

Does this make sense?

Java is not part of, and doesn't come with, Flash. (Java and Flash were invented for different purposes by different companies; Flash is currently owned by Adobe, whereas Oracle owns Java.)

Usually, the computer will prompt you to download Java if you need it. However, Java is a bit of a security issue, with vulnerabilities that can be used to make a smoking ruin of your computer, figuratively speaking. For that reason, Apple no longer ships computers with Java, and they recommend you not use the Java Web browser plugin or use sites that require Java. In fact, if you enable Java in your browser and then don't use it for a certain length of time, I believe it disables itself again to prevent security problems.

> Does this make sense?

Absolutely! Thanks.

(So Apple's updated Java v 6 is "equivalent" to Oracle's Java v 7?)

No, the Java version numbers are the same across platforms/OSes, and indicate different functionalities not unlike different OS versions. So there is both an Apple and an Oracle Java version (1.)4, 5 and 6 to name just a few, but there is only an Oracle Java version 7, because Apple didn't develop one. Apple's version 6 is equivalent to Oracle's version 6, but the latter isn't available for Mac OS X. And as I mentioned above, Apple's version releases trailed Sun's/Oracle's by quite some time.
[The Java platform consists of several program components, including a development kit (JDK) for Java developers and a runtime environment (JRE) for client computers. The JDK and the corresponding JRE have the same version number too, regardless of platform.]

Altogether there have been eight (somewhat oddly numbered) main versions of Java, the most current of which is 7. Each version has multiple minor updates. Since these versions differ in functionality, certain Java apps may only run on a particular version. This is both possible and practical, because different Java versions (read JREs) may be present simultaneously on a particular computer, and apps pick a compatible version from that list.
Because of this, depending on your needs as defined by the Java programs you want to run, you may have to have several Java versions installed at the same time. The 'old' Java Prefs utility will list them under its General tab, and allow you to turn each on on or off at will. Presumably, the new System Prefs panel will do the same (I can't check right now*). Regardless which one you use, this setting will affect which Java programs can run.

Things got a tad more complicated now this choice may have to be made for both security and functionality reasons. The former is critical for web based apps accessed via your browser, something you should be extremely reluctant to do. I wouldn't want to run any Java app on the web with anything less than the most current version of the latest JRE (Oracle's v7) and only when I'm 200% sure the server is clean and safe. Security is much less of an issue when running local Java apps** present on your Mac, as long as they don't require internet access, and your Mac is clean.

*) Likewise, I have not been able to verify if the current Java System Prefs panel allows both Apple (e.g., 5, 6) and Oracle (7) versions to coexist, but I'd expect that to be possible.

**) See this post in the Lounge's Cyber-Security thread for examples.

Whew!!! I think I've got it (including understanding why Apple is maintaining Java 6 for Lion and Mounty, as well as Snowy, users, which contributed greatly to my confusion).

Many thanks for the time and effort you put into making a complicated subject understandable.

My 2 cents here, for what it's worth: I use my iPod Touch as an internet radio using an app like Tune-in Radio and connecting it to my wireless network. I put it in an iLove boom box. Might run better as an app than through a browser, like it worked ok in iTunes. Any iPod that can connect to a wireless network can be an internet radio, and you are not confined to your computer or its speakers.