Help / Player
Why don't the fast forward, rewind, or volume control buttons on the Player work?
When you listen again to a radio programme on BBC Player, you should see a range of control buttons in the left hand "Now Playing" area of the page.
For speech-based programmes, you can fast forward and rewind in 1 minute and 15 minute increments.
For music-based programmes, is it only possible to fast forward in chunks of five or fifteen minutes. This is due to copyright restrictions and the BBC's agreement with the music industry.
Why aren't the control buttons working?
Some users have reported that the Player control buttons (play, pause, rewind and fast forward) do not always function correctly when listening to a BBC Radio.
This problem can occur if you update your browser to a newer version or are using a newly installed browser on your computer. The control buttons are enabled by the RealPlayer browser plug-in, and will not function correctly unless this plug-in is correctly installed to the necessary places.
For instance, if you installed Firefox after installing RealPlayer, you may find that you are unable to fast forward or control the volume on BBC Player for radio shows.
To fix the problem, you may need to reinstall RealPlayer. Doing so will reinstate the necessary plug-ins for all internet browsers found on your computer.
To be sure that your RealPlayer is correctly set up, we recommend uninstalling Real from your machine, rebooting, and then re-installing using the latest free version available here.
If this does not help, try following the tips from Mozilla here, or use an alternative browser.
Advice for Mac users
Unfortunately, the fast forward and rewind control buttons will not appear on Mac systems. This is due to a compatibilty issue with RealPlayer and Mac web broswers.
When listening to a music-based programme on the Player on a Mac using Safari, you should still see a fast forward button which can be held down to advance through the show. Look for a small black triangle.
When listening to speech-based programmes, you should see a full "slider" bar which allows you to fast forward or rewind to any point in the stream.
If this does not answer your question sufficiently you may find more help on the pages linked to from the right hand side.
