Cannot Watch BBC News or Sport Players

When I click an embedded video in BBC News or Sport, the viewer opens with the title picture but the loading symbol spins forever and the video doesn't play. It's the same with both my Vaio laptop and Samsung netbook, each with Windows 7 and all system requirements. All software is up to date (with a fresh install of Adobe FlashPlayer 10).

My normal connection is wireless via a new BT Home Hub; switching to ethernet or Vodafone 3G dongle is no better. My BT download and streaming speeds are better than the minimum requirements. Running with McAfee antivirus and firewall disabled makes no difference. Nor does the time of day, so it's not the BT's evening streaming cuts. The N150 is brand new with minimal software, so I rule out conflicts. Cookies and caches are clean. Neither of the computers has a problem with any other video, whether from hard drive or external, whether on Flash or Media Player, including BBC material.

Searching the internet shows that I'm not alone, but I can't see a solution not covered above. I commented on the BBC website and was surprised to receive a reply, but it only suggested what I've already described.

By contrast, my wife's office Dell laptop, running Windows XP, plays the troublesome BBC content at home with no problems.

All this seems to point to some incompatability between these particular BBC players and Windows 7, but I'm flummoxed. Any suggestions would be very welcome.

Gornot said:

Which browser do you use to access the website and those vids? Have you tried an alternative browser?
Also, if you're using an add-ons that blocks ads, disable it first and reload the page, see if the video plays then.

Default browser is IE8. I also tried Google Chrome with the same result.

Very few add-ons (Adobe, McAfee, Java and one called 'Discuss'). I tried disabling each of them, also with no success.

By the way, ITN has a full programme facility which looks to be very similar to the BBC News Player. I have no problem watching that.

Thanks for your interest.

I kept at it and re-examined all the settings in Adobe's Flash Player Settings Manager. In the Global Storage Settings Panel, I ticked "Allow third-party Flash content to store data on your computer" and "Store common Flash components to reduce download times".

Cured!

A quick experiment showed that both boxes had to be ticked for it to work. Fair enough, but it's strange how having these items unchecked doesn't seem to affect any video apart from the refurbished BBC sites.