HTML5 audio and "error occurred" - VBR may be the problem

[acroyear]

On SubFire for Chrome, on my work box, I recently started getting lots of "An error occurred while playing this file", and internally in the console, a MEDIA_ERR_NETWORK event fired. At first I was, of course, trying to blame SubSonic or my work network, or even perhaps Chrome 41, or some combination of all of that since the same file played without issue at home and on an alternative network I can access in the building.

Turns out there was a fix I can do. I found out the problem files were all of variable bitrate. They were all purchases, either from Amazon or from Bandcamp. When I turned on transcoding so that the files came to me resampled at a flat rate of 128, things are much more stable.

just an fyi,
Joe