No MP3's playing in any player when clicked as a link

Title should be.....No MP3's playing in any player when clicked as a link...sorry

Hi,

Any help is much appreciated.

Brand new computer, installed everything myself, with no issues.

2.4 Core 2 Duo
2GB Ram
250GB HDD
256MB Video Card
XP Home SP2 all updates

The problem is the on websites that contain a link for an MP3 file, when I click on the link Windows Media Player 11 opens, and looks like it is going to play the file, but it never does.

Oddly enough, when I had Quick time running in the BG it would open and reuse the same window(option unchecked in IE Options) in QT and also attempt to play however no sound comes out either. I also had selected Windows Media Player as the MP3 player of choice so I'm not sure why QuickTime was opening.

MP3's selected as files to play work fine.

I have Windows Media player, Realplayer, Quicktime, and SoundMax installed

SoundMax is the sound card drivers and is running in the Systray along with Quicktime.

Any idea's what is causing this? I'm sure it's just some setting I "m overlooking.

Thanks

 

Hi, barry2616.

Let's see if I can get a "2-out-of-2" with this post.

When you click on an MP3, IE probably opens WMP11 because that is your default program for playing MP3s. If you give the MP3 file several minutes (especially if you're on a dial-up connection) to finish transferring to your computer, then WMP11 might start playing the MP3.

If I understand correctly what you have said above, I suspect the links you clicked for MP3 files wouldn't play because the MP3 files had not been completely downloaded to your hard drive yet.


I don't know if the method above will make it easy to save an MP3 to a permanent location on your hard drive. (I suspect IE might save the file as a temporary file before WMP11 will play it.)

Therefore, I suggest the following.


Please right-click on a web site's link to an MP3 file and then select "Save Target As..." to download the MP3 file to your hard drive at a location where you want it placed.

After the MP3 file has been downloaded to your hard drive, I expect you will be able to play it by clicking/double-clicking the file on your hard drive (not the link in IE).

==========

CAUTIONARY EDIT: BTW, I am assuming/hoping you are getting these MP3 files from trustworthy sources so you are not duped into downloading/running a virus/trojan dropper. (That's another reason not to left-click on those MP3 links which might not always be MP3 links.)

If you do not have your computer configured to display file extensions (such as .mp3, .txt, .exe, etc.), then please read on.

To be on the safer side,

1. Click Start > All Programs > Accessories > Windows Explorer.
2. Click Tools > Folder Options > View tab.
3. UNcheck "Hide extensions for known file types ".
4. Click the Apply button.
5. Then click the "Apply to all folders" button and confirm.
6. Then OK your way out and exit out of Windows Explorer.

If your computer is configured to always display file name extensions, you are less likely to accidentally click on a malicious executable file that you had thought was an .MP3 file. Just remember to always check the file extension before clicking/double-clicking.

 

Yay..I was hoping you'd reply as you were very helpful with my previous problem.

I don't think I went into enough detail and gave you all the info I should of regarding this problem, sorry about that.

As I was typing this up, I actually fixed the problem.

This is the short story:

WMP is setup as my MP3 player.

Links that are MP3 are opening in QuickTime and when they open they reuse the page I clicked the link from. (Very frustrating as the page goes away!) And I had unchecked reuse page option.

If I close QuickTime from running in the background, the link does open in WMP however it does not play.

I am on cable and the files are less than 1MB...very odd. And when I saved the link to my desktop...it saved in less than a second..but yet still did not play in WMP.

Your suggestions were good, however I had tried that and ensured WMP was set as MP3.

While typing up a reply, I decided to uninstall WMP11 and go to 10...but 10 doesn't work on XP......so I decided to reinstall WMP11 and now it works fine!!!!!! Crazy Bill Gates!!!

So anyways...looks like just uninstall and reinstall of WMP11 did the trick.

I appreciate your response though Mailman...hopefully I can help you out if you have a PC problem

Thanks again!

 

You're very welcome.

Thanks for your detailed fix follow-up too.

I can run WMP10 on my computer so I know it can work on some Windows XP Home SP2 machines at least. I seem to recall reading about people having troubles rolling back from v11 to v10 though so your experience in that regard may be a common issue.

Anyway, I'm glad you fixed your issue. We'll call our record a 1.5 out of 2.

Good luck! ...and please don't turn the volume on those headphones up too high.