Frequently asked questions about how to troubleshoot issues in Windows Media Player (843509)

MORE INFORMATION

Installing and configuring Windows Media Player

Q1: How do I determine whether I have the latest version and where do I download it?

A1: Follow these steps to determine whether there is an available update for the version of Windows Media Player that is currently installed:

1. Start Windows Media Player.
2. On the Help menu, click Check for Player Updates.
3. Follow the prompts if newer components are available.

Additionally, to obtain Windows Media Player updates, visit the following Microsoft Windows Update Web site:
Note To download the latest version of Windows Media Player, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
For more information about how to determine the version of Windows Media Player, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: back to the top

Q2: How do I configure my Windows Media Player to use a Web proxy?

A2: To configure your Windows Media Player to use a Web proxy, follow these steps:

1. Start Windows Media Player.
2. On the Tools menu, click Options.
3. In the Options dialog box, click the Network tab.
4. In the Proxy Settings section, double-click the protocol that you want to configure.
5. The default proxy setting is Use proxy settings of the Web Browser. Unless you have a specific reason to change it, make sure that this option is selected. To change this setting, click the option that you want to use.
6. Click OK to return to Windows Media Player.
   • The Autodetect proxy settings option tries to configure your settings automatically.
   • The Use proxy settings of the Web Browser option uses the current Microsoft Internet Explorer proxy configuration.
   • The Do not use Proxy Server option causes Windows Media Player not to use the Internet Explorer settings for proxy.
   • The Use the following proxy option is for entering the proxy server and port that you want to use.

If you already know that your Web browser is configured to use a Web proxy, click Use proxy settings of the Web Browser.

Note If you switch to a dial-up connection, you must reconfigure these settings for a dial-up connection.
For more information about the proxy settings in Windows Media Player, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: back to the top

Q3: How do I verify that I am using the correct and most up-to-date drivers for my sound card or video adaptor?

A3: Follow these steps to confirm that you have a video adaptor or a sound card and that you have a correct driver.

• Microsoft Windows 98 and Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition
  1. Click Start, point to Settings, click Control Panel, and then double-click System.
  2. On the Device Manager tab, double-click the Sound, video and game controllers branch to expand it.
  3. Click the sound card or the video adaptor, and then click Properties.
  4. On the Driver tab, click Update Driver, and then click Next.
  5. Click Display a list of all the drivers..., and then click Next.
  6. Click Show All Hardware, click the appropriate manufacturer and the model in the Manufacturers and Models boxes, and then click Next. If the appropriate device is not listed, click Have Disk, and install the correct driver from the manufacturer's installation disk. If you receive a message that states that the current driver may be a closer match for your hardware than the driver that you have selected, click Yes.
  7. Click Next, click Finish, and then click Yes to restart your computer.
• Microsoft Windows 2000 and Microsoft Windows XP
  1. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then double-click System.
  2. On the Hardware tab, click Device Manager.
  3. Expand the Sound, video and game controllers branch.
  4. Double-click the sound card.
  5. On the Driver tab, click Update Driver, and then click Next.
  6. Follow the prompts to automatically install the driver. If you have recently downloaded an updated driver, click Install from a list or specific location (Advanced) to install it.

Note You can also check Windows Update to obtain the latest Windows driver for your hardware. In Internet Explorer, click Windows Update on the Tools menu.

For more information about how to download Windows updates and drivers, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: back to the top

Additional resources

For more information about the installation and configuration, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
back to the top

Using Windows Media Player

Q1: Why can I not play RealAudio, RealVideo, or QuickTime content?

A1: Windows Media Player does not support playing back any RealNetworks or QuickTime content. Windows Media Player supports Windows Media (WMA, ASF), MP3, WAV, MIDI, AVI, and other formats. You must install a version of the RealNetworks or QuickTime player to play back media that is created in those formats.

For more information about Windows Media Player multimedia file formats, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: back to the top

Q2: How can I use my Windows Media Player with Netscape?

A2: You must have the Netscape Navigator plug-in that is automatically installed with Windows Media Player. The plug-in (Npdsplay.dll) is copied to the C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player folder during the Setup program. If this file is present, the plug-in is installed for all detected Netscape Navigator installations.

If you do not have the plug-in, you can reinstall Windows Media Player. To download the Windows Media Player, visit the following Microsoft Web site, and then install the plug-in:

After the player is installed, you may have to update your Web page to cause the plug-in table to be updated. (Your Web page address should contain "navigator.plugins.refresh();".) Or, you can type navigator.plugins.refresh(); in the Address box, and then reload the current page.

Note You may experience some problems with streaming media content in Netscape Navigator 6. The plug-in architecture in Navigator 6 has been redesigned, and this causes compatibility problems with existing plug-ins. Microsoft knows about the issue. No workaround is available currently. The Windows Media plug-in remains compatible with earlier versions of Netscape Navigator and other browsers.

For more information, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

back to the top

Additional resources

For more information about the most common player issues and questions, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: back to the top

Solving playback problems

Q1: Why does streaming content not play?

A1: The server may be down, the file may not be in a supported format, the content may have been moved, or the URL to the content may be wrong. If you are using Netscape Navigator 6, you may be experiencing problems that are caused by a redesign of the plug-in architecture in that browser. This redesign has resulted in some loss of backward compatibility. In these situations, there is nothing that you can do. If the content is embedded in a Web page, try to click the player's video screen. Sometimes, network congestion may cause the player to time out. Continue to try, or try again later, when the network is less congested.

For more information, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: back to the top

Q2: Why can I play content from some sites but not from others?

A2: Your computer may be behind a firewall that has not had the appropriate ports opened for use with NetShow Services. However, if a server has HTTP streaming enabled, Windows Media Player can take advantage of its protocol rollover capabilities and receive the file through HTTP instead of through the typical, and optimal, streaming protocols. That is why you can receive content from some sites but not others. For consistent results, encourage your administrator to open the appropriate ports on the firewall to permit streaming. Other issues that might prevent you from being able to play the content include the following:

• The media may not be created in a supported format.
• You may not have access to the appropriate codec that is required to play back the file.

Note Digital Rights Management (DRM) features may prevent some content from some sites from being displayed.

For more informationabout Windows Media Player multimedia file formats, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For additional information about Windows Media Digital Rights Management (DRM), visit the following Web site:
For more information, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
back to the top

Q3: Content plays, but there are many pauses, and the Windows Media Player displays a "buffering" message.

A3: The player is probably experiencing network congestion. This means that there is not enough available bandwidth to stream the selected file. When you are using a TCP connection, the data in the player's buffer is used to supplement the stream until the buffer is used up. As soon as the buffered data is gone, the player pauses, replenishes the buffer, and then resumes playing by using the new buffer to supplement the playback stream bandwidth. This cycle continues until network conditions improve. Try again when the network is less congested, or select content that is authored for lower bandwidths. Another option is to make sure that the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is the only protocol that is selected in the Options dialog box. To set this option, click Options on the Tools menu. This option reduces buffering, but it has the adverse effect of dropping data if there is high congestion or insufficient bandwidth. If you are located behind a firewall, you may not be able to use UDP as your protocol.
back to the top

Q4: I can play media content in Windows Media Player, but the quality is poor.

A4: Content that is served by Windows Media Technologies is created for specific bandwidth ranges. If the content is created for a 100-Kbps or 300-Kbps connection, but Internet traffic is heavy, the NetShow Services server starts to drop the frame rate, or frames per second, to compensate for increased network congestion. This scenario may cause the video to be jerky and irregular.

Try again when the connection is better, or make sure to select content that is targeted for the bandwidth that you have available. Even if your connection can handle higher bandwidth, playback may work better if you select a lower bandwidth during periods of heavy network traffic. You might want to try increasing the buffer time for playing back streaming media.

The audio or video quality may also be poor because of the content creator's compression choices. To compress content for play over constrained-bandwidth networks such as the Internet, mathematical algorithms that are named "codecs" are applied to the content. The content creator's codec selection greatly influences the quality that you see or hear. For example, if the content creator prioritized audio quality over video quality, or frame rate, you may enjoy the audio but be frustrated by the video.

Use the Mplayer2.exe program to test the media content. To start the Mplayer2.exe program, click Start, click Run, type mplayer2, and then click OK. If the MPlayer2.exe program can correctly play the media, look for network and performance configuration issues in Windows Media Player.

To change the buffer setting, follow these steps:

1. Start Windows Media Player.
2. On the Tools menu, click Options.
3. In the Options dialog box, click the Performance tab.
4. In the Network Buffering section, click Buffer, and then type 30 in the text box. (60 seconds is the maximum.) This setting may improve playback. However, when you increase the buffer time, the system must wait while the player fills the buffer before it starts to play streaming media.

For more information, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: back to the top

Q5: My video looks bad. It has random flashes of pink or green, or has spots.

A5: This problem is typically associated with some video adaptor drivers that have difficulty with DirectDraw features that Windows Media Player uses. Frequently, you can update the drivers for your video adaptor to correct the issue. If this issue is not corrected by upgrading the video adaptor driver, run the DirectX Diagnostic tool to test DirectDraw functionality.

For more information, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

If this problem still exists, follow these steps to change the video options for Windows Media Player:

1. Start Windows Media Player.
2. On the Tools menu, click Options.
3. Click the Performance tab.
4. In the Video Performance section, select a lower Hardware Acceleration setting.

back to the top

Q6: Audio will play, but video will not, or video will play, but audio will not.

A6: Make sure that your computer has a sound card to play the audio. If you do have a sound card, the content that is being played probably uses a compression codec that is not installed on your computer. To make sure that you have all the codecs that are currently supported, reinstall Windows Media Player. To download Windows Media Player, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
This issue may also occur if there is not enough bandwidth to play both audio and video. You may receive sound even though the video is not present because audio requires less available bandwidth.

For more information, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: back to the top

Q7: I cannot hear the audio on some clips, but on other clips, I can.

A7: This problem may involve many issues, very few of which can be corrected in the player. To verify that the problem is not a player problem, follow these steps:

1. Verify that you have correct and up-to-date drivers for your sound card. Unexpected behavior may occur if you use incorrect or out-of-date drivers.
2. Some video adaptors cannot play audio content that was created by using an 8-kilohertz (kHz) or 16-kHz sampling rate. To determine whether this is the problem, determine the sampling rate that is used in the Advanced Systems Format (.asf) file. To do this, follow these steps:
   1. In Windows Media Player, open the streaming media file that is causing problems.
   2. On the File menu, click Properties.
   3. Click the Advanced tab.
   4. Examine the list of codecs being used to see if you can determine the sampling rate for the audio. If the rate is 8 kHz or 16 kHz, this may be the problem.

For more information about Windows Media Player multimedia file formats, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
back to the top

Q8: I can hear audio, but it hisses, pops, sounds scratchy, or sometimes drops in and out.

A8: Verify that you are using the correct and most up-to-date drivers for your sound card. NetShow Services uses standard Windows compression codecs to compress and decompress the audio. Poorly implemented or incorrect sound card drivers may cause problems with compressed audio. You may not know that you are using bad or mismatched drivers because all the system sounds that are included with Windows are uncompressed audio files. You can typically play these files correctly, even with bad or mismatched drivers. This problem is not unique to NetShow Services. Any multimedia program that uses Windows sound codecs and compressed audio files probably exhibits similar behavior.

Some sound cards cannot play audio content that was created with an 8-kHz or 16-kHz sampling rate. To determine whether the sampling rate is the issue, examine the sampling rate that is used in the .asf file. In Windows Media Player, open the "problem" streaming media file. On the File menu, click Properties. The sampling rate is listed next to Audio Codec. (For example, the rate may be 44 kHz.) If the sampling rate is 8 kHz or 16 kHz, this rate may be the cause of the problem.

For more information about Windows Media Player multimedia file formats, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
back to the top

Q9: When I try to play a file or play from a link, the player generates an error message. How do I troubleshoot a specific error message?

A9: Windows Media Player may generate many different error messages when you try to play back media.

Visit the following Microsoft Web site for a list of the most common error messages and the steps to resolve them:
back to the top

Q10: In an illustrated audio presentation, or slide show, some of the images have blocks where the graphics appear smeared or fuzzy.

A10: This is probably caused by network congestion. Illustrated audio presentations are created from still images. If too much of a JPG image's data is lost because of a bad or congested network connection, the image is skipped. An image will appear to be missing from the presentation. This scenario is why NetShow Services Tag Author incorporates a still-image codec that is named Loss Tolerant JPEG. This codec sends JPG images to the player in 16 pieces instead of 1 big piece. If some of the data is lost because of a poor network connection, only parts of the image are poor instead of the whole image being dropped. When the connection is better, try again, or make sure to select content that is targeted for the bandwidth that you have available.
back to the top

Q11: I receive an "Access is denied" message when I try to use Windows Media Player for Windows XP to play streaming media.

A11: If you are a limited user on a Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition-based computer, you cannot receive streamed media through Windows Media Player. You receive an "Access is denied" error message.

For more information about how to resolve this problem, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
back to the top
Q12: I can play media content in Windows Media Player, but the performance is poor.

A12: This may happen if you do not have the latest version of DirectX installed for your operating system. For more information about the latest version of DirectX, see the following Microsoft Website: