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Windows Media Player 9 crashes any time I try to access an MPEG movie from an online URL. For example, if I enter this url "http://www.brown.edu/Students/Swing_Club/Pretzel.mpg" into IE or the "open url" option within WMP, the player will open up and it says "Connecting" but crashes EVERY TIME! Moreover, I can stream all media and access .wmv movies just fine from a URL. All movies (avi, mpeg, divx, xvid saved to my hard drive play fine. I have every codec needed. I have tried uninstalling all codecs and reinstalling them. I tried rolling my system back. I've screwed around with wininet.dll and the index.dat files. I saw this thread http://www.computing.net/windowsxp/... and screwed around with all of the settings in the WMP options. Ports have never been a problem for me; neither has firewalls. Connection settings seem fine. I tried to access the .mpg file under a Guest account in XP and it does not play either. I am under the assumption that a driver is busted somewhere. I have been working at this ALL DAY and I'm just burned out, but I vow to not let this beat me. Can someone please, please help me? Many, many thanks for reading my post!
Try removing WMP from Add/Remove Programs - then in Add/Remove - click 'Add/Remove Windows Components' - remove WMP - reboot - reinstall WMP.
sLLs
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Thank you both for replying to me! Finally, some human help!! Okay, here's the lowdown:
I should have mentioned, I both reinstalled WMP9 and then upgraded to WMP11 and neither had any effect on my problem. I have rolled back WMP to version 9, just because I like that version the best.
I tried to uninstall WMP through the add/remove program list, but that really doesn't remove much at all. I think it just gets rid of some icons and access points (ie. from the Startup menu). The only real way to completely uninstall WMP is a long and arduous process that requires manually deleting files and going into the registry and removing all instances of WMP. I really have no idea how to do this, so it would be greatly appreciated if someone could guide me through the process.
I'm still thinking it's a driver gone bad somewhere....
My system is usually clean as a whistle, but I'm going to run a full virus scan, disk check and defrag. Although, I am sure this will not help me at all.
Again, thanks so much for the help! I will not let this get the best of me!!!
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Do you get an error message when it crashes?
I had this problem before and it mentioned a certain file used to play mpeg's.
If you get no error message then open up Control Panel>Administrative tools>Event Viewer and click on the Application log window...find the application error for WMP and CTRL+C all selected text under Description, then paste it here. This will help in diagnosing the problem.
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Sadly, I do not even get to experience an error message. As soon as I attempt to access an MPEG file, the entire program crashes. (Not Responding) shows up in the header of the program. I have to either remove it via the task manager or continuously close out of the program until it finally goes away. An interesting thing I've noticed when WMP doesn't shut down completely is that it takes up 99% of my CPU usage.
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I checked the event viewer and there is nothing pertaining to WMP9 in the "applications" list. No errors or warnings that could possibly be related to my problem.
I am currently looking into some reported problems with mpeg2dmx.ax mpeg2data.ax amd mcspmpeg.ax.I have the mpeg2 files, but i cant delete them... ill get back to everyone after i fiddle around with safe mode.
also, the virus scan and defrag did NOTHING!
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ok, i just deleted these from the system32 folder because they've been reported to cause problems with streaming mpegs:
mpeg2dmx.ax
mcspmpeg.ax
mpeg2data.ax
mcdsmpeg.axand i deleted them via "cmd" in dos during safe mode.
no effect.im at the end of my rope here.
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Those mpeg files sound familiar to me. I had your exact problem but I can't remember how I fixed it! I will have a think and get back to you.
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I remember doing this:
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/foru...
Deleting them probably wasn't a smart move because those files might be needed for other applications. They have probably become corrupted. Searching for those files on google got me to the above link so do some more searching and you might find another solution.
A temporary solution is to open streaming mpeg's in Media Player Classic http://www.afterdawn.com/software/v... (which is MUCH better than WMP9) or another player of your choice because only WMP9 crashed with me.
Maybe you could download the .ax files from somewhere and replace your corrupted ones?
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thanks for responding!
i've seen that link before... i dont have the mcdsmpeg.ax or mcspmpeg.ax files on my computer. i actually backed up the mpeg2 files just in case i need them again.
well, i really dont know what is the next step for me. i'm kinda stuck. any more opinions or solutions?
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I don't know what else it could be because those files were my problem and the fix worked for me but as it's not working for you I just don't know what else you can do apart from direct your web browser to open streaming mpegs with another player that works. If you need help doing that, give me a shout. I know it's probably not what you want but you can use wmp9 for all other media, just not streaming mpegs...that's if other players don't crash too!
As you deleted those mpeg2 ax files from your machine, it would seem that that is not the problem...so I wonder what is!
The only other thing that would cure the problem is formatting and having a fresh install of windows but that's a last resort! I format every few years anyway, because windows gets bunged up with so much rubbish and starts exhibiting all kinds of errors. Sometimes you just can't fix them all so a format is one way of getting rid of all those errors that linger!
Good luck!
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i have no idea how to configure IE so that .mpg/.mpeg files open up in anything besides WMP9.... i tried going through the TOOLS/OPTIONS, but i couldnt find anything.
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You need to go to my computer>tools>folder options>file types and press M on your keyboard. This will skip down to mpeg types and allow you to change the default player.
Find MPEG and MPG, click change and either find the player you want in the list or click browse to search for it if the player is not listed.
I recommend using media player classic
http://www.afterdawn.com/software/v...
or VideoLAN's VLC player
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
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thanks so much! im still not going to give up on WMP9, though. it plays mpeg and mpg just fine... but for some reason i just can not stream them from the internet...
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