Windows Media Player Troubleshooting Tips

Updated: December 23, 1998

Here are some tips to help resolve some of the problems that may come up when playing streaming media content:

Content won't play at all

Server may be down, the content may have been moved, or the URL to the content is wrong.
When the content is embedded in the HTML page, it may be set to play only when the user clicks on it.
Network congestion could cause the player to time out; keep trying.

Audio will play but video won't, or video will play but audio won't

Make sure that the PC playing the content has a sound card to play the audio.
Most likely, the content being played uses a codec that isn't installed on the client's system. The best way to ensure that clients get all of the codecs currently supported is to have them re-install Windows Media Player from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/mediaplayer/download/default.asp .

Content plays, but the quality is really poor

Content served by Windows Media Technologies is created for specific bandwidth ranges. If the content is created for a 28.8 Kbps or 56 Kbps connection but Internet traffic is heavy, the Windows Media Services server will start to drop the frame rate (frames per second) to compensate for increase of network congestion. Try again when the connection is better, or be sure to select content that's targeted for the bandwidth you have available.
Content is compressed for play over constrained bandwidth networks using codecs . The content creator's codec selection greatly influences the quality the user sees or hears. For example, if the content creator prioritized audio quality over video quality or frame rate, the user may enjoy the audio but be frustrated by the video performance issues. It's all about managing bandwidth.

Content plays, but there are pauses in the playback and the player says "buffering" on it (in the external player)

The client is most likely experiencing network congestion. The client buffers because it is waiting to receive more data to play back. Try again when the network is less congested, or select content that is authored for lower bandwidths.

In an illustrated audio presentation (slide show), some of the images seem to have been dropped

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 will be skipped and it will appear to the user that the presentation is missing an image or images.

In an illustrated audio presentation (slide show), some of the images have blocks on them where the graphics appear smeared or fuzzy

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 will be skipped and it will appear to the user that the presentation is missing an image or images. That's why the Windows Media Services Tag Author incorporates a still image codec called Loss Tolerant JPEG. It sends the JPG image down to the player in 16 chunks instead of one big chunk. That means that if some of the data is lost due to a poor network connection, only parts of the image will be poor instead of the whole image being dropped.