Using Firebug to download songs from Myspace
Ah yes, one of our favorite things (Firebug) can be used to workaround song downloads on one of our most least favorite sites in the web world - Myspace.
There have been previous solutions all over the place for downloading any song off of Myspace, but just about every solution has been blocked with time. Up until now. Thanks to the power of the Firebug extension for Firefox, grabbing your favorite tunes from Myspace is just a few steps away.
Important! Please respect your band's music! As a supporter of music because of how essential it is to many designers including myself, use this method sparingly. (Myspace isn't exactly "Top Quality" anyways.)
Step One: Get the Plugin
The first step is to make sure you have the firebug plugin installed and updated for your version of Firefox. Once that's set, you're ready to begin.
Step Two: Visit bands Myspace
Head over to your intended artist's Myspace page and bring up Firebug by going to tools, firebug in the menu, or simply clicking the check mark in the right corner of Firefox (or, because this is Myspace, it could be a red X listed a huge amount of code errors.)
Use the built in Firebug search to find "mp3". It will bring you up to some object tags, which you'll need to expand. You'll than see a big jumble of code, with the most important line being the last one.
-
<object id="mp3player" width="450" height="345" border="0" viewastext="" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab##version=8,0,0,0">
-
<param value="11906" name="_cx"/>
-
<param value="9128" name="_cy"/>
-
<param value="" name="FlashVars"/>
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<param value="http://lads.myspace.com/music/musicplayer.swf?n=aHR0cDovL211c2ljLm15c3BhY2UuY29t&t=X5Zw5I1tk54a71P8fMKJnQpbddbteD70Bam4bAWgd138M7RoPCuAfR7wzr/fsgpfKGkaeSgeDo0YPqml+4bScg==&u=LTE=&a=0&d=ODcyODg0M14xMTY5OTI1ODIz" name="Movie"/>
-
<param value="http://lads.myspace.com/music/musicplayer.swf?n=aHR0cDovL211c2ljLm15c3BhY2UuY29t&t=b1pN2eEzKrfYSxiB3wpe7+tiOJu6RzW2wb6jQlg9FgUxR3uOdV3DAmdr70WCbHHgGcWYd8QGfT9uCuk7nGie1A==&u=LTE=&a=0&d=ODcyODg0M14xMTY5OTI1ODIz" name="Src"/>
-
<param value="Window" name="WMode"/>
-
....
-
<param value="1" name="SeamlessTabbing"/>
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<embed width="450" height="345" align="" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" name="mp3player" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" quality="high" src="http://lads.myspace.com/music/musicplayer.swf?n=aHR0cDovL211c2ljLm15c3BhY2UuY29t&t=CiRg+LmSa1H6QjcC+e/TykKN4oRCt5Wyh9/7FNXMWo10RIGfM43EsgYN1sQsI2PnwmL8Ibq3JeypyvLUDqe6CA==&u=LTE=&a=0&d=ODcyODg0M14xMTY5OTI1ODIz"/>
-
</object>
We're concerned with the embed code. Copy the "src" and paste it into the address bar.
Step Three: Using Firebug to pull the Url
Once you've pasted the url of the media player into your address bar, hopefully you've advanced to the page. You should now be seeing a blown up version of the mp3 player for your intended band. With Firebug open, select the "Net" sub-tab and then click a song from the player.
Because the Net inspector watches sites load in real-time, the inspector will refresh with a few different things. They will include album artwork, a hit counter, some random token, and the url to the mp3 file itself.
By rolling over each area, you'll be able to see the expanded url. The url to the media file will most likely start with "http://cache...". Copy this url and you're all set.
Step Four: Getting the Mp3
You will most likely need to paste your newly copied url into an html page so you can right click to "Save Target As..". If all went well, you should be able to download an Mp3 which will have a random string name, but it should be the file you were looking for.
Update: I think I've found the problem with many of your downloads. Even with the player still open, the random tokens have a time bomb I believe which causes them to expire quickly. Therefor, if you haven't downloaded the file fast, you'll end up with a small and useless download instead of the real thing. I think the timebomb may be 30 seconds, so try to get your downloads started fast. If it fails, just try again.
The lesson here
Firebug is a powerful script that every developer should be using, and Myspace is a horribly coded site. 
Note: One of our readers pointed out that the Myspace player page must remain open when you attempt to download the song, otherwise the token will expire and the download may not work.
This Article has been Updated
We've updated this article for those of you who have been having trouble. Please refer to the new post if you're still stuck with downloads.
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I love firebug. It is invaluable when debugging JavaScript. Come firebug with the web developer toolbar and you have some awesome power.
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It works just as well, and with slightly more ease, for Pandora too. Just follow the request with an MP3 like file size and you’ll be presented with an octet-stream; save as MP3 and rename accordingly.
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I am stuck at step four. How do you paste the url into a html page?
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I used wget as step four:
wget –load-cookies= “url”
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It looks like a snazzy device, but I’m having big issues with this whole MySpace thing (I hate the site, but some of the music is SO GOOD!).
I can only ever download a 14 byte mp3 file, that of course, doesn’t work. And I followed your (clear) steps exactly. Can you enlighten me?
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I too cannot get this to work. When i load the url to get the mp3 file i get a page that says access is denied. does this still work?
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Two things: Are you keeping the player open when you attempt to download? If the token expires, that’s when you’ll get a super small download that is not the song you’re looking for.
And it should still be working, as unlike other methods, this is pulling urls from the flash, so even if it changes, Firebug will still be loading the urls from the player’s xml.
And @YO - Copy the link and paste it into a notepad file and save it as link.html, open it up in a browser and right click, save as.
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I also get the access denied if i paste the url into the address bar. When I paste it into a text file, and save it as html, and open it with firefox or ie7, I get a white page, with the url written in text. I can’t do anything with it. What am I doing wrong? please help…
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I’ll test it again tonight and see if it still is working, but it should be.
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i got it in the notepad document, you have to put the html tag so that it comes up as a link in your browser. just put:
link tag
where “link here” is the url and link tag is the text that you click. now load the notepad document in your browser click the blue text and it’ll prompt you where to save your file and what to call it.
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oops sorry meant to put
my resume
put that without the period after href
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Did you get it to work Angel?
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yes i got it. u have to put {a href=”link”}text{/a}
but with instead of {}. then right click and save as.. in your browser
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I am still confused all of this. I now understand to put it in Notepad, but when I paste it into mozilla, the page just shows the link and nothing to click on.
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when you put it into notepad you have to put it into html code like this:
<A HREF=”mp3 url”>text</A>
put the url where it says mp3 url and whatever you want it to say in text and save it as link.html. wen you load it in a browser you should see a link. right click it and save as wherever u want.
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Thank you for your help. The download says that it is starting, so hopefully it will work because it has said that it is starting for awhile now. Maybe my computer is just slow.
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Thanks Angel, it works for me to now… Sometimes I get the 14b file at first, but if I try again, it usually works…
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I tried doing that and the page comes up after i click the link saying cannot find servor
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getting accesed denied for some reason
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I did everything right and it showed up in my desktop but when I try to open it in iTunes it doesnt work.
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u dont click the link to access it u have to right click the link and select save link as then name it wutever
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I have tried to download the songs, but I am not having any luck. When I use Internet Explorer and save target as it just make a noise and does not download. When I use Mozilla the download just stays at the “starting” status.
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I have spent so much time on this and im still not getting it. im pretty sure i did everything right, but when i right click save link as, i enter in the name of what i want it to be and press save…but nothing happens. any suggestions?
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ya whenever I go to right click and save as it just makes a noise like you cannot do it
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Didn’t get a chance to check the method today, but I’ll have an update tomorrow.
It should be pointed out that if you have no html knowledge, this method is not for you! I have noticed this has been posted at random forums and stuff, but if you don’t understand html, your not going to understand the method above.
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I’d like to know if this is still working for the people who said it was because I’ve exhausted every method suggested on this page several times (using several browsers) with little success.
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I got it to work.
I had a html page open in notepad and was ready to paste just the address in my anchor tags.
Copy the entire url as AJ has said above. But there is one key thing you must do. The song must still be playing, so you have to be a little fast.
Start playing the song, copy the url, and quickly open up the html page in the browser. Right click and save. As long as the song is still playing, you’re good to go. When the song stops, you’re out of luck and you get the access denied.
I was able to download two songs this way, so it is still working.
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Sorry AJ. Didn’t see that you updated the article.
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I got it to work for me. I play the song, then attempt to open the song url in another tab. While the other tab is loading, I quickly go back to the music player and click the song I want to download. The download box comes up and then I save it. Simple :).
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everything goes fine EXCEPT when i try to download it stays on starting and nothing else.any ideas ?
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It actually works!!!!!!! whenever you get to the oversized mp3 play, copy the Cashe link, like stated.
Already have notepad open with this typed in
text
erase “mp3 url” and paste the Cache link! save as link.html, then open it and you can download the song
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to download the full quality song, in the URL the address of the song will be something like
“std_slkdjflksdjflksdjg.mp3″
replace ’std’ with ‘full’ and ur done
=)
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I must be doing it wrong because I can’t even find a link that says “http://cache”! They all say “http://mediaservices.myspace.com”.
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Works!
Many thanks
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pleaseee does anyone know what this means i do everything right and than its about to start downloading and it just stays on startin and if i press pause thanresume for the download it will say downloading but the bar wil not load up.
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i did everything right but it says starting still and won’t download.
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I had some trouble with this and am pretty good with html. I eventually got it to work, this method definitely works.
My mistake was pretty stupid and maybe others are making the same.
I was too slow on my first attempt. On subseqent attempts I was updating the url in the html file and saving it, but forgot to refresh the html page in my browser so I was constantly getting a zero length file (too slow result).
So if you are having trouble dont forget to:
copy url from firebug
paste into text/html doc
save doc!
refresh html page in browser!
right click link (it should be blue not purple)
Thanks to whomever put this together. I was able to get a song that I would have paid for but it has not been released yet.
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You can also do a similar thing with Bebo bands by simply viewing the source of pages with the “Bebo mp3 button”!
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yay it works! thank you lord!
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wow! use gmail when you get to the “save link as…” stage. just send yourself an e-mail with the links and keep replying to them with the new url’s.
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You may use direct sound recorder to record from MySpace or any other web-site. But I suggest you to use a stream ripper software.
The following page mentiones stream ripper software that allows to download not only MP3 music streamed through the HTTP protocol, but also through the RTMP protocol
http://stream-recorder.com/forum/showthread.php?t=320
After reading it you shouldn’t have any problem downloading mp3 songs from MySpace.
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i’m doing everything right
i get the cache url open it and i get a page that says access denied.
What do i do?
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Wow! Thank you all for the comments. Using gmail is very easy for someone without html skills to do - and just as someone suggested, typing in “full” instead of “std” gives you a full (128) quality song.
I’m an audiophile, and because of this hack I have been able to download songs that haven’t been released yet. Thank you all so much!
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Sorry guys, this is not a support form! If you are not getting it to work, either keep trying or forget about the method, because most people are having success.
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Yes it worked! Finally after many tries. Thank you so much.
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Hello everyone. For those of you that need a link to turn into something you can right click and save as. You are welcome to use this small php script I created.
http://caseybritt.com/parse
Just paste the link that you want to be able to click into this form and hit GO! and voila you have a link. Feel free to use this and share it with your friends. Hope it helps.
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Yays! It worked for me no problems! Thanks you =D
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wow, talk about having to be quick with the mouse…that time expires on that file name real fast..way less than 30 seconds
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It seemed to last at least 30 seconds for me. Everyone just seems to be having different results.
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Works for me! Thanks a MILLION!
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PS. Thanks a million to you casey!
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man, you gotta really want to copy the music if you are using this method… it takes some real effort to do this. the most aggravating thing is that firefox keeps crashing - using firefox version 2.0.0.1 on winxp pro, version 2002, serv pack 2; p4 @ 2.8 ghz w/1.24 gb ram
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I have still had absolutely no problems. The method works without a hitch.
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man i still cant get this to work. my dl status is just starting. ive done everything stated and nothing to show for it any suggestions?
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This is how I got it to work. When I say the page load up and the song started, I looked for the biggest file size, and that is the cache link, I would quickly copy the link, open Mozilla then edit my own webpage put the hyperlink in, save it then open the html file and right click save as, most of the time it starts right away, sometimes it takes a few secs. Try that
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“I would quickly copy the link, open Mozilla then edit my own webpage put the hyperlink in, save it then open the html file and right click save as”
sorry i’m kindda slow in the head can you explain again what you ment, i’m stuck at the starting status…
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Yo guys it is working!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!@!@!@!!
i used the wm recorder like someone said above,
and after i installed the program and clicked the song
the wm recorder done all the job for me it was so easy
but it’s only a demo.
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Hey I got to work by accident.I accidentally messed up and that was the right way to do it.YEEEEEEEEEEEAAAh!
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It took a while for me to get the hang of it, but as of 3/2, this method works. Thank you so much!
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Casey’s script works like a charm i just copy and paste and bam it works
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So does following the directions
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wow this actually works! although i copied the link and used a downloader instead of putting the link on a browser.
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This is phony, it doesnt work
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It works fine, people just don’t know how to read directions.
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holy crap real easy way as stated by someone above (excuse me for not naming you)
When you get the cache file paste it in another page
go back to the page you got the link from, click the song you wanted
a download pops up… click ok, very simple
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** the cache URL not file
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how do i open up the notepad page that i saved my html onto and load it onto my browser?
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I was trying, using “Live HTTP headers” plugin.. i managed to get the url for the mp3 with a valid session.. but none of my methods worked when i tried to save the mp3 file. “Save Link As” method after giving it in a new html file really worked. yeppii..
thanks a lot….
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It doesn’t let me copy the mp3 player url in firebug. Any help?
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Ok, I was able to use this hack and it works very well, except I ran into a myspace page that uses an ESNIP player and it did not quite work for that. Wondering if anyone has any ideas.
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!!FIGURED IT OUT!!!!
THE NEW TECHNIQUE THEY ARE USING FOR mini.swf with calls to cache01-music01
they call a generic mp3 link with these parameters:
bandid
songid
token
and some other garbage..
all of the stay the same but from request to request i noticed that the token changes. I assume that once their server hands out an xml with a token… ti makes the file available only ONCE for that token… so if the mini.swf requested the file before you can put it in the browser and download it (which is impossible for you to do) then that ONE call to the file is made and is now un-accessible
how to get around it…
as above… find the xml that fives all the info… there will be a token tag in there… refresh that page until you get a new tag… use that tag (which is now a new one) to call the new link to cache01….
it works 100% of the time.
good luck…
ps… dont ask me any questions because i wont come back to this site any time soon… ciao guys
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After so many tries.. It finally works!
Thanks a whole bunch.
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lol! it worked! this procedure MAY TAKE SEVERAL TRIES, so if you encounter a problem, don’t fret. it does work, as it did for me.
important thing is the, TIME BOMB, which requires you to copy the URL (from Firebug’s net stub) as fast as you can into a d/l manager (i prefer this over pasting onto an address bar)
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It works! THANKS A BUNCH!!!
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quick question so a site could pretty much destroy this method downloading the files if they were to make the cache control private,must-revalidate,no-store,no-cache. I was just wondering b/c im trying to use this same method on purevolume but they are a bit trickier. ive looked at it a bit but haven’t come up with anything. i think i need more then one head trying to figure it out
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I Keep Getting The 14b One…any suggestions?
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i tried to download a song from a website and I only got a quicktime bar without a download box…
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alright, then after that i can just go to file > save page as > and add .mp3 to it and it works just as good without the time bomb, which is pretty cool… that might just be mine, i dunno.
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This is so so so sweet. Thanks
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guys, u r great!!!
It couldn’t be more clear, thanx for the guide. Now I have the song, I couldn’t get from anywhere else.
thanx again
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WORKS FOR ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!..WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO!!..ezy pizzy!:D
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yay it finally worked for me!!!!
Im just having trouble doing it with other songz lol…….
but the dude who gave the url http://caseybritt.com/parse/
had a huge part in my success so all kudos to him and AJ…or whoever posted this tutorial
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don’t work for me
“error loading xml document”
the site is http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=81610410
help me please
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