Forum Discussion

DD716TED's avatar
DD716TED
Explorer
Feb 21, 2023

Windows Media Player problems

Just fishing for ideas as I have exhausted and worn out my fingers searching the inet for solutions... I am running Windows 11 and have been using Windows Media Player to play numerous playlists I have created over the past few yesrs in my shop and on the patio..with no problem..UNTIL THIS WEEKEND...

Now whenever I select a Playlist to start as I have done many, many times before, I get the following message on my screen...

"Couldn't open Dion (name of song) - as we can't get at your storage right now. Wait a bit and try again"...

Both the Media Player Program and the song/playlist is on the same SSD drive (c).

Any ideas or should I trash Media Player and try something like Groove
(sp) music.

Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.. Travel and stay safe..
  • Matt_Colie's avatar
    Matt_Colie
    Explorer II
    Feb 21, 2023
    DD716TED,

    You are talking about Windows11 here....
    I is my duly considered opinion that all bets are off.
    In my case a similar problem was caused by the system storing things other than where I told it to do so. In that case, when I went looking for the file (picture, song or cartoon) the system could not find it because it was not where it thought I should have put it. But NO, I put it where I wanted it and it got even with me by not wanting to even look there.
    I don't love Windows. The offerings in Linux still have issues.

    Matt
  • MNtundraRet's avatar
    MNtundraRet
    Navigator
    Feb 21, 2023
    Has the media player been updated? Maybe it is looking for the list in the cloud.
    Would it help to open the Media player first and see if it has a choice of where to find the song list.
  • wa8yxm's avatar
    wa8yxm
    Explorer III
    Feb 22, 2023
    DD716TED wrote:
    Just fishing for ideas as I have exhausted and worn out my fingers searching the inet for solutions... I am running Windows 11 and have been using Windows Media Player to play numerous playlists I have created over the past few yesrs in my shop and on the patio..with no problem..UNTIL THIS WEEKEND...

    Now whenever I select a Playlist to start as I have done many, many times before, I get the following message on my screen...

    "Couldn't open Dion (name of song) - as we can't get at your storage right now. Wait a bit and try again"...

    Both the Media Player Program and the song/playlist is on the same SSD drive (c).

    Try to get at the song Media can not play by other methods.

    I was listing to an expert yesterday.. Chief engineer for a broadcast comany (Smile FM) talk about both physical (Spinning platter type) and SSD hard drives..

    One of the things he talked about with SSD drives is Defraging.. Back in the spinning platter days we often Defraged to both free up "lost" sectors and speed the drive... Worked well.. But with SSD drives he advised DO NOT DEFRAG.

    Seems they only do so many Read-Writes. and defragging a modern drive is millions/more like billions, of Read Writes (possibly Trillions on one of my SSD Drives) and Well... DO NOT DO IT.

    For one thing since there is no spin on an SSD. it goes instantly from "Sector" to "Sector" so the physical location of the sectors does not slow it down.. No need to de-frag... EVER.

    Any ideas or should I trash Media Player and try something like Groove
    (sp) music.

    Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.. Travel and stay safe..
  • MrWizard's avatar
    MrWizard
    Moderator
    Mar 06, 2023
    Can you go directly to song , if you open my computer and search for it by name? instead of clicking on a playlist,
    "Video Lan Player" known as VLC Player , is a free media player that i have used for many years, it will play your windows playlist unless its corrupted
  • DD716TED's avatar
    DD716TED
    Explorer
    May 09, 2023
    Windows 11 Media Player Version 11.2303.10.0... Not a big deal but frustrating with Win 11 Media Player.. I am able to make my own playlists with no problem.. However within a day or two, not only are my Playlists listed, but there are playlists that have been made for every other album / artist in my 500 GB External drive...I got around this by naming my playlists starting with 0000 whatever and they now appear first, but why are thousands of other playlists generated? Just a curious mind wants to know... Lesson learned..should have bought my new computer loaded with Win 10 instead of having to learn / suffer with Win 11..
  • Latner's avatar
    Latner
    Nomad
    May 09, 2023
    MrWizard wrote:
    Can you go directly to song , if you open my computer and search for it by name? instead of clicking on a playlist,
    "Video Lan Player" known as VLC Player , is a free media player that i have used for many years, it will play your windows playlist unless its corrupted


    X2 I was having issues with windows10 and media player and started using VLC, no problems now.
  • 1492's avatar
    1492
    Moderator
    May 09, 2023
    I don't use Windows Media Player, but prefer the free open source VLC Player on most all version of Windows since it first became available. Easier and more intuitive in my opinion.

    It comes with its own codecs built-in, so can play most any type of media file. You can make and save Playlists.
  • wa8yxm's avatar
    wa8yxm
    Explorer III
    May 09, 2023
    1492 wrote:
    I don't use Windows Media Player, but prefer the free open source VLC Player on most all version of Windows since it first became available. Easier and more intuitive in my opinion.

    It comes with its own codecs built-in, so can play most any type of media file. You can make and save Playlists.


    #MeToo

    What's more VLC has a codec that lets it play video recorded on my DVR which does not use a standard Codec.. alas. I no longer use those very nice DVR's but a new Spectrum DVR POS.

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