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General discussion

Windows Media Player Crashing in OSX.3.9

Nov 19, 2005 7:38PM PST

Dear Gurus,

I can't open the Windows Media Player in OSX.3.9 (the program icon just bounces on the dock but never opens) and if I try to view streaming WMV video over the web (using either Safari or Firefox) my web browser crashes and I have to force quit the program.

I never used to have this problem. I was cruisin' along just fine and then it simply fell into my lap one infamous day while DL'ing various WMV files. I downloaded Flip4Mac right around the same time so as to try and get WMV files to play in QT. Currently, though I can play the WMV files in QT independently, I still crash my web browser when trying to stream them over the web.

It occurred to me that I might be misremembering: perhaps installing Flip4Mac is what triggered the problem. I uninstalled Flip4Mac and disabled the Flip4Mac internet plugin and then re-instantiated the WMV internet plugin... but nothing changed. Media Player still wouldn't open and any streaming WMV content crashed the web browser.

So right now I'm completely stuck and don't know what to do. Windows Media Player doesn't work and I can't stream any WMV files over the net. This doubly sucks because I'm not living in the US right now and stay plugged in to certain programs via the web... no more Daily Show...

I would be very grateful for any help anyone could offer.

Thanks in advance,

Patrick

Discussion is locked

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Media Player
Nov 19, 2005 10:10PM PST

Completely uninstall Windows Media Player. Get rid of everything that is connected with it, including preferences. Do a search for any remnants of it, trash them. Completely remove Flip4Mac, a much better program in my opinion, and remove all traces of it.
Download a fresh copy of Windows Media Player and reinstall it.

Hope this helps

P

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Thanks!
Nov 20, 2005 5:53PM PST

Woohoo!

Although for some strange reason the video's a bit choppy from Comedy Central (despite noodling with the player preferences) everything else works fine.

So, thanks! I really appreciate it. I'd genuinely thought I'd already properly uninstalled before, but I don't think I actually hunted all the files down using the finder like you suggested.

Thanks again,

Patrick