Cannot Play WMA files from one or more sites.

soho1 · 15 Jul 2010

Problem: I am trying to play the sound "samples" from Ringtones & Downloads for Cellphones from Virgin Mobile
but nothing plays; nothing launches.

On mouseover of the play icon (a little speaker) the status bar in IE8 shows: mms://stream2.modtones.com:554/wma/539673.wma (for example).

Now, sound is working on my PC and I can listen to iTunes and Windows Media Player too. (Even at the same time, albeit strangely perverse).

I have run FixIt to check for Media Player problems and for IE problems but found nothing.

Where do I go from here?

soho1 · 15 Jul 2010

FYI, I found that websites that have non-streaming WMA files play just fine, as Windows Media pops up and plays those. So, it is something with streaming.

Jacee · 15 Jul 2010

See if they will play with VLC player VideoLAN - VLC media player - Open Source Multimedia Framework and Player

Also when you click on the little speaker, do you get this pop-up?

Jacee · 15 Jul 2010

Strange ... I can get the file to run on WMP, I know my being able to listen to it doesn't help you, tho'

soho1 · 15 Jul 2010

No. No popups.

Interestingly, the design of this particular website is different for ringtones and ringbacktones. The ringbacks require an active-X download that installs and plays the ringbacktones just fine.

Unfortunately, the ringtones are streamed and I get no pop-up for the ringtones.

Of course, I don't really care how their website is designed, what bothers me is that IE is not functioning somehow to recognize the streaming WVA and play it. A download WVA plays just fine (other sites). I don't have any other streaming WVA examples.

soho1 · 15 Jul 2010

Hmm, I downloaded your VLC Player suggestion. I am not famiiar with it but tried to stream mms://stream2.modtones.com:554/wma/540157.wma and was not able to get it to play.

Petey7 · 16 Jul 2010

When I do it I here this horrible sound. Oh wait. I selected a Justin Bieber song. No wonder.

But seriously, I'm not having an issue. I'm not using IE8 though. I'm using Chrome and can't try IE8 because I have it turned off. (well technically I could turn it back on but really don't want to). I did get a pop-up about it trying to launch WMP being a possible attack on my PC. I had to click "allow". It could be that IE8 automatically blocks it in some way, shape or form. Would you mind installing Firefox or Chrome and trying again. This is the only way I know of to confirm whether or not IE8 is the problem.

soho1 · 16 Jul 2010

They could all be horrible sounds, but I cannot tell yet.
Anyway, I installed Chrome and nothing plays, nor do any windows open.
I installed Mozilla, which popped up a window asking for an application to play the file. I pointed it at VLC, which has the same behavior as when I just try to open the network URL.... does not play.
From the VLC network URL, I at least get a message:
Your input can't be opened:
VLC is unable to open the MRL 'mms://stream2.modtones.com:554/wma/540157.wma'.
I checkd my router, but I don't see any errors there.

Petey7 · 16 Jul 2010

The horrible sound thing was a joke. You might have been joking too, but I'm not sure.

Did you try pointing it toward WMP as well? Beyond that I'm not sure what else can be done. Hopefully someone else knows the answer.

Jacee · 16 Jul 2010

Your firewall or Antivirus may be blocking the file from playing. Check your settings.