Pretty much everytime i try to play any kind of video file using windows media player i get: Windows Media Player has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience message. This problem started when i upgraded my windows media 9 to 10. But even rolling it back didnt help me. All other media players i have work absolutely fine and i have: Real Player, Media Player Classic, Quicktime and bunch of others. Normally i would use them to play to video files but without Windows media player i cant stream certain video files so please help me.
Tech Stats:
Pentium 4 2.40 GHZ
512 MB of Ram
DirectX 9.0C
ATI RADEON 9250 PCi

Unistall WMP and reinstall it. That usually works. Good luck!

I tried that but it doesnt do anything for me. I even tried rolling back wmp 10 to wmp 9 but that didnt help either.

It seems to be a problem with most versions lately

Did you flush your Internet caches? Go to Internet Options and clear everything. A friend had a similar problem but once he flushed his caches, it worked. If not, post back.

Hi,

I'm a newbiie but found this whilst i had problems with Media player 11. Here is how i fixed it. After uninstalling, reinstalling and finding you can never fully remove your library by running uninstalls i realised it must be something in my profile which was causing the problem.

N.B. THESE ACTIONS WILL COMPLETELY REMOVE YOUR LIBRARY MEANING YOU WILL HAVE TO REBUILD IT FROM SCRATCH.

In this example i will be using the C:\ drive as my home drive where Windows is installed.

Make sure you have set hidden files and system files to show.

You will first have to stop all the media sharing processes, to do this hit CTRL, ALT & DELETE click the processes tab and order them by name by clicking Image Name. Scroll down to 'W' and stop all the processes begining with wmp. There are 3 or 4 I think. It will pop up a warning after each time you attempt to stop a process just click yes.

Navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\user_name\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Media Player in explorer.

Rename the file Currentdatabase_***.wmdb. to Currentdatabase_***.bak (*** being the library version mine was 360.)

I also deleted all the other files in here.

Once you restart Media player your library will be blank. You will need to remove all the directories in the library that you are sharing or else the offending video file will once again be in your library and you will be at sqaure one. Luckily I knew that the offender was an AVI file and I removed the particular directory from my library. Codecs are a nightmare in WMP 11.. I now convert all avi's to WMV using VLC. Go Here To get instructions of how to convert using VLC.. I did this to get streaming working on my Xbox 360.

The conversion takes about 20 minutes for a 110 minute movie.

Hope this helps.

I ended up having problems with WMV and in the end i ended up coverting all my WMV files to AVI

It seems that when i add more than one wmv file to the list it errors out.

I hope this is the definitive answer! I joined just to put it on the net so that someone might find it on a search at some time!

Do you get this error report, even on other media players and when opening folders? You may even find some types of media file will play ok.

This is caused by a codec problem. e.g. the xvid codec. Changing the xvid.dll file alone will not cure it! It is a confiiguration problem and is really hard to find an answer to!

What you will need to do is load a new codec pack. The one I used is totally free, has no ads, spyware or viruses and will probably improve your PC. It cured mine after hours of searching the net'.

http://codecpack.nl/klmcodec.htm

It will load the latest codecs onto your PC and also excellent software to play all kinds of media files. Once it has been loaded you will find Windows Media Player works ok and folders no longer crash.
You can then opt to use the new applications or stick to your old ones.

Hi,

I had this problem as well. I found that an SD card that I always leave in my computer's card reader was the problem....remember to disconnect all removeable memory too if you get this problem... Strange since the SD card is blank & formatted!!

This was the definite answer to me!!!! I had a lot of codec packs but WMP never worked, after unistalling all the old packs and installing this klmcodec immediately everything worked fine!!!
Thanks a lot!

This answer fixed me too! The SD card had only 1 backup file on it which was not in use but with the card removed WMP returned to normal. Bizaar!

Thanks

This is one reason I use WinAmp for my multimedia! It prompts you for each removable storage media if it is to be used. Once you select yea or nea, they it does its job seamlessly!!

Never use WMP. Piece of junk AFAIC!

Best,
-- Andy

VLC Media player is free and works great with just about every format

Hi, Thanks Andy, I'm just getting into WinAmp and no doubt will very soon move over completely.

Cheers

Go to windows update update everything and Microsoft net framework 2.0.

What card did you have before the ATI RADEON one 9250 pci only. install latest driver for card, and disable intel integrated graphics.

I get sometimes a constant moving without pressing keyboard, mouse, or anything whilst playing game.
Does that happen to you as well. Just asking ???