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Newly made embedded mp3s won't play, they are grayed out.

I have a website where I share recordings of my piano playing with family/friends. I use blogspot to link to the audio files that are in a public folder on Dropbox. I have used the same html for 12 years, but suddenly the copied links from Dropbox won't work embedded - the controls are greyed out. I've spent 2 hrs trouble shooting.

The old links still work. But the new links won't. I've tried different browsers, my phone, etc. I can't figure it out. I would be so grateful if anyone could help me.

my website is: [link removed as per Community Guidelines]
this a link directly to the audio file: [removed as per Community Guidelines]

If you try the newest entry posted today you can see the one that doesn't work. Try any other one and it will.

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Jay

Hi @AFrench, change dl=0 to dl=1 forces the file in the shared link to automatically download to that person's machine.

There is also the option to change it from dl=1 to raw=1 for the file to actually preview on the Dropbox site.

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Megan

Hey @AFrench, welcome to our Community and sorry to hear you're having issues with this.

Are you referring to the old Public folder feature which was deprecated on September 1st 2017, or a normal shared link to a folder?

Just to make sure we're troubleshooting the right thing here, could you check if you can preview those files normally through a web browser on your device? I tested the link you provided, but it seems I couldn't access it.

It sounds like you might be creating a shared link with "can edit" permissions. Can you try to create one with "can view" and try again to see if this works?

If it doesn't then feel free to send me a screenshot of how the grayed out controls look like on your end.

Keep me posted, and we'll take it from there!

AFrench

HI Megan, thank you for reaching out to help me with this. Given how long ago I created my Public folder, I assume it's one of those old folders that have been deprecated. For the permissions my Public folder, I have it set to Anyone With Link can view it.

You can see the problem by going to this link: [Removed as per Community Guidelines] The audio (an attempt to link to my latest file, plus a test I did) at the top doesn't work. The ones further down the page do.

AFrench

It looks like all I had to do was change the dl parameter from dl=0 to dl=1. What is that parameter and why did it change?

Jay

Hi @AFrench, change dl=0 to dl=1 forces the file in the shared link to automatically download to that person's machine.

There is also the option to change it from dl=1 to raw=1 for the file to actually preview on the Dropbox site.

AFrench

so the problem was that the file was just not downloading?

Jay

Yes, that is possibly the issue that you experienced with those files.

Mark

AFrench wrote:
What is that parameter and why did it change?

Its worth remembering that Dropbox isnt a hosting platform. They have often done changes to the way things are shared via links to stop people hosting. The changes to links is something that has happened before, and almost certainly will happen again.

I'd strongly suggest trying to look at a proper hosting platform if you want to keep things up and running.