Windows 7: Media players stopped playing mp3s

I use both Windows Media Player and IrfanView for playing audio and video. Today when I tried playing some mp3s from my Music folder, Windows Media Player would not play the file and I received this message: "Windows Media Player encountered a problem while playing the file." When I tried playing the same mp3s with IrfanView the player opened, the file name was there, but it showed 'no file loaded'. I was unable to find the Windows Media Player error in the event viewer, but I did find the one from IrfanView as follows:

Faulting application name: i_view32.exe, version: 4.2.7.0, time stamp: 0x4be6f0d9
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 6.1.7600.16559, time stamp: 0x4ba9b21e
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x00057ae9
Faulting process id: 0xf34
Faulting application start time: 0x01cba4c210085c44
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\IrfanView\i_view32.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: 4e8454b4-10b5-11e0-a51f-00e04d3af98b

I have never had this problem before and all other audio and video files play correctly. I already tried turning off the Windows Media Player, restarting and turning it back on. I have also reinstalled IrfanView and all the codecs are installed for both players. I hope someone can help me.

Have you tried doing a System Restore back to a date when this worked OK? If not, give that a try. System Restore can be accessed from start/programs/accessories/system tools.

Thanks for the suggestion. I did a system restore, but it didn't fix the problem. I then tried an mp3 editor, but that didn't work either. After downloading a new mp3 song, it played fine. I suppose the mp3s I have got corrupted somehow. Do you have any idea how that can happen?

No, no idea why the existing MP3's are corrupted. Do you have backups (you should) of the MP3's that you can install and use?

If these are MP3's that you've bought there could be "DRM" (Digital Rights Management) issues that are causing them not to be played.

Download and run mp3Utility

Download MP3Utility 1.80 Beta / 1.72 Build 1 Free - A utility that will help you to test and catalog a collection of mp3 files. - Softpedia

It will examine thousands of mp3 per hour and tell you if it finds defects in them.

Not all defects will be audible.

In my experience, maybe 1/2 of 1 percent of mp3s have defects according to this application, but most of those defects are not audible.

I have very occasionally seen a known good mp3 suddenly go bad. I've seen a few jpegs do the same thing. Don't know why.

Well, you learn something every day! I never knew Irfanview would play mp3's, or videos....never would have even thought of trying it!

Anyways....one thing I do with my mp3's, once I have them tagged, replay-gained, etc., is I set them to read-only status....for me, that has prevented further corruption thus far..

I use the File Integrity Verifier which can be added to foobar2000 to check my files for corruption, but I'm sure the one ignatzatsonic recommended works fine as well.

I'll try to answer all of you here.

Fireberd, I don't usually download mp3s from the internet. I'm old so am also old school. Most of my music is on purchased CDs. The few mp3s acquired from a download were either sent to me in an email or I converted them from a YouTube video. They're just a few quirky ones, like Johnny Cash singing 'I Walk the Line' in German, a Chinese girl singing 'Love Potion No. 9" in Chinese and some I probably shouldn't mention here. I never thought to make copies because I've played them many times without a problem. I have managed to find most of them again and will keep copies this time.

Ignatzatsonic, thanks for the utility link. I use a few apps from Softpedia and find them to be reliable. It is a mystery as to why a file can just screw up while it sits in a folder.

Noobvious, IrfanView is my favorite and most used free software. Even though I have a flash capture app and an swf player, both freeware, IrfanView can play those files also. Thanks for the link. I'm always looking for more goodies on the web.

It's a pleasure to visit this forum when I need help. Usually I can find the answer just by searching it, but when I have to ask a question someone always jumps in with a reply. Thanks to all of you again.