Windows Media Player - Intermittent error when trying to play media file-Server Execution Failed

I used to be an MSFT employee on WMP and I would NEVER have associated a firewall issue with WMP not being able to launch.  Not connect to the internet, sure, but not launch?  No, I wouldn't expect to see that.

Do you have any services or plugins installed in WMP that aren't part of the out of the box experience?  That would be my first thought to investigate with this solution.

But then again, I'm no longer a 'softee so...

Thanks!

Mike Poz

Hi All,

This started happening to me a while back (windows 7), I investigated the various fixes that were floating about, however none of them worked for me.

I was interested that the resolution for a few people involved disabling a firewall, often the cause of program conflicts.

Now I don't run a third party firewall or AV for that matter (Firefox and with the no script plug in do a far better job of protection, and I have a hardware firewall), so I looked at the Window 7 firewall.

Disabled it, problem solved, no server execption errors. I rampantly ran through opening 20-30 music files/videos to check.

I re-enabled the windows firewall and added C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe to the allowed list (for outgoing and incoming), and everything is running ok.

Seems dreadfully obvious now, but it took me a good 3 hours of tweeking before trying something simple.

Some requests from the media player to your internal network/internet are being blocked and causing the hang in wmp. I guess adding the rule in any firewall app (alot of AV programs have them by default now) might do the trick.

The MS reps here ought to be a little red faced, those copy/paste replies were some of the worst support I've ever seen. I've been a systems engineer for a long time, I know the game, you were just stalling hoping the problem would go away. Re-install Windows for a media player error? Really?? What a bloody copout.

Wow, July 17th and still no solid tech support for zcd7 for 7 whole months... tI'm afraid your screen name had become an ironic eulogy to the shear lack of anything coming close to professional support in an way, shape or form. The mind truely boggles, well not really its M$ isn't it and they just don't care one iota.

myself i've had a similar problem with specifically .avi video files, the problem runs much the same also:

1. I play an .avi and WMP works fine
2. I add a second .avi to the playlist and when it comes to play the screen says 'opening' in the top left but it just hangs and gives me the same server execution BS that many have already mentioned.
3. When playing one file, then closing WMP after it finishes and then opening it again and playing another file it seems to work fine. Which leads me to think it may be a playlist specific issue (???), but don't quote me on that.

In my case this seems to be limited specifically to video files as I have tried .mkv also (I only ever play these two afforementioned file types in WMP + MP3s but they seem to all be fine). Now when I get this playlist issue i bring up task manager and there is a program running in the Applications tab called 'Default IME' which registers as not responding. I end the task and can now play a file again and if i try a playl;ist of videos the problem occurs again.

seems to me that for videos at least there is a temporary fix

i have no faith left in the human race after this ;-)

Hi zcd7

I have Windows 7 64 bit and have for months struggled with a very similar problem to the one you report. When I start a video file WMP opens (it's the default) and plays the video. If I then stop the video playback and click on another video file the computer appears to hang for at least 30 seconds before the dreaded server execution message pops up. I have tried all the solutions offered by microsoft techies, to no avail.  Today I opted to see if the WMP Library might be the cause of my problems. So I started WMP and set the View to Library. Under Tools, Options, I chose Library and un-ticked everything, followed by Apply and then Close. Next I returned to the WMP Library and chose the Video Folder. I selected all my videos listed in the folder and then did a right-click and chose Delete, making sure that I only deleted the files from the Library rather than the Library and the computer. I closed WMP and restarted the computer. For the first time ever I can now go into my video folder and not matter how hard I try to overload the machine by quickly double-clicking on various video files one after the other they all start straight away with no lag and no server execution message. I have noticed that over the remainder of the day the WMP Library has gradually been restocking itself with my videos but that does not seem to be impacting on the WMP any more. Time will tell if this is the perfect solution. I am not sure whether to go back into WMP Tools Options to re-apply the various items I un-ticked in the Library tab, but for now I am going to leave things as they are. I hope this posting will help at least a few of the many thousands of people who have been let down by WMP.

Hi Mary

To a non tecchy like me this whole thread is utterly depressing, as a great deal of it is beyond me and apparently it doesn't work anyway.  I'm not going to shoot the messenger - you must get fed up with working for MS and the abuse it brings upon itself.  It's a shame the great billionaire doesn't realise that charity begins at home - taking care of the victims/users of his software would spare humanity a lot of suffering.

Life's too short, guess I'll go investigate what Apple are up to.

Best wishes

Pete

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