Windows 7 Media Player - Server execution failed

Anonymous

My PC woes started a few weeks ago - I had RAM issues which I have since solved. However, during the course of trying to diagnose the memory problem, I installed and uninstalled a myriad of programs.

And now my Windows Media Player won't play, while Media Centre crashes if I go to the Music or Video sections (Live TV seems to be fine though). If I start WMP from the taskbar shortcut, the window flashes up briefly before disappearing. If I try to start it by double clicking an audio file, I get the "Server Execution Error" message.

I've tried disabling all media features in the Windows Features section, and then re-enabling. This did not work. Note that iTunes works perfectly, playing the same mp3s that are crashing WMP.

I'd really rather not have to reinstall Windows 7 Ultimate edition just for this one problem...

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Anonymous

Hi,

Welcome to Microsoft Windows 7 Answers Forum!

You may try the steps as below and check if the issue gets fixed,

Lets try these three troubleshooting methods first and verify if it is resolved.

Method 1.

Now you have to stop the Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service and check for the issue, to do that you need to follow the steps provided below.

Control Panel -- Administrative Tools -- Services. Find the Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service, open it, click on Stop to stop the service.
Close Windows Media Player 12 if it is started.
input %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Media Player\ to Windows Explorer to find the folder.
Move all files in the folder to another place as a backup.

Note: Move files in the specific folder will reset database.

Restart Windows Media Player to see if we can add files to Library now.

Method 2.

Click on Start and in the search bar type cmd.exe
Right click on cmd.exe and click on Run as Administrator
In the command prompt type the following command

net localgroup "Administrators" "NT Authority\Local Service" /add

Press enter and restart the computer

Method 3.Uninstalling and Reinstalling the Windows Media Player:

**Step 1.Uninstalling the Windows Media Player:**1. Go to Start and in the search type "Turn Windows features On or Off".

Click on "Turn Windows features On or Off".
Browse to the Media Features and uncheck the mark in front of Windows Media Player.
Restart the computer

Step 2.

**Reinstalling the Windows Media Player:**1. Go to Start and in the search type "Turn Windows features On or Off".

Click on "Turn Windows features On or Off".
Browse to the Media Features and place a check mark in front of Windows Media Player.
Restart the Computer.

Try playing the file now.

Thanks and Regards:

Suresh Kumar- Microsoft Support.

Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/answersfeedback/threads/ and let us know what you think.

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Anonymous

3 days stable now without problems. I haven't finished adding everything back yet, so I haven't been able to identify the offending programs(s) or service(s). However, I thought would give a quick update for any others still reading this and/or working to troubleshoot.

All except for one of the services has been re-enabled. That service is/was Logitech Bluetooth Service. I don't know why it was installed, as I don't have any bluetooth devices in my HTPC, but it might have been put in there as part of the install for Logitech SetPoint and the wireless keyboard/mouse I have on that machine. Regardless...shouldn't be there. I will enable it for the next few days to see if I get any lockups...but I suspect it isn't the issue. I had only 4 other non-microsoft services enabled, APC UPS service, Carbonite (cloud backup), Intel Matrix storage, and the NVIDIA Display Driver Service. Its possible that the Logitech Bluetooth conflicted with one of those services as well to create problems...obviously he NVIDIA driver could cause problems for WMP.

There are still about half the programs to re-enable, including Adobe, AVG (possible culprit, I'm beginning to suspect the "free" versions of antivirus are problematic, quicktime, Live Sync, Live Mesh. The last one, and another possible culprit, is the Windows SideBar. Seems to me I had problems with it in Vista as well and eventually just disabled it. I kinda liked the weather toolbar on my TV, but if that's the culprit...then I can at last look for other options.

So...for others having issues, might I suggest disabling AV services or at least installing a different version....possibly disabling auto-start of SideBar. I keep trying to run as many videos as possible when I can to tax the system, but some days are busy. Perhaps someone has a script that would allow for sequential launches of WMP with different files? Slightly different than just the playlist.

One other thing I am unsure of how to test is the automatic change of desktops. I mean,disabling it is easy enough, but which executable or service is responsible for this?

That's it for now. Would be nice is a MS Support tech were to chime in here...let us know that the various open articles have been consolidated and escalated.

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Anonymous

This was a fairly simple fix for me and I was able to duplicate both the problem and the fix. WMP continued to have "Server Execution Error" until I uninstalled all 3rd party codecs. I then later realized that it wasn't the codecs themselves causing the error but rather the settings I had for them. In order to reset everything back to stock, I uninstalled all codecs from my machine, uninstalled WMP and WMC then restarted, deleted the WMP folder in C:\Program Files, reinstalled WMP and WMC, restarted. Then everything worked as expected. I then reinstalled my codecs and BAM, the problem came back. It wasn't until I messed with the settings, specifically for FFDShow that my problems went away.

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309 additional answers

Anonymous

2010-01-25T15:25:57+00:00

So far the clean boot has shown promise. My only concearn was running without AV software, so I uninstalled mine and installed Microsoft Security Essentials..so that at least is up and running. I have begun the process of eliminating services and apps to try and identify the potential problem. However, since there is no sure fire way to reproduce when WMP stops responding, it will take some time as I want to give at least 24 hours for each re-addition of service/application.

One additional note, I received an WMP application fault this morning, but it did not seem to cause the further issue of "Server Execution Failed"

Log Name:      Application

Source:        Application Error

Date:          1/25/2010 5:57:22 AM

Event ID:      1000

Task Category: (100)

Level:         Error

Keywords:      Classic

User:          N/A

Computer:      Athena

Description:

Faulting application name: wmplayer.exe, version: 12.0.7600.16415, time stamp: 0x4a98ae4b

Faulting module name: tsmf.dll, version: 6.1.7600.16385, time stamp: 0x4a5bdb2b

Exception code: 0xc0000005

Fault offset: 0x0001a4f5

Faulting process id: 0xfc8

Faulting application start time: 0x01ca9db5849d8335

Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe

Faulting module path: C:\Windows\system32\tsmf.dll

Report Id: cb489614-09a8-11df-8a11-00508db60eb4

Event Xml:

<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">

<System>

    <Provider Name="Application Error" />

    <EventID Qualifiers="0">1000</EventID>

    <Level>2</Level>

    <Task>100</Task>

    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>

    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2010-01-25T11:57:22.000000000Z" />

    <EventRecordID>4424</EventRecordID>

    <Channel>Application</Channel>

    <Computer>Athena</Computer>

    <Security />

</System>

<EventData>

    <Data>wmplayer.exe</Data>

    <Data>12.0.7600.16415</Data>

    <Data>4a98ae4b</Data>

    <Data>tsmf.dll</Data>

    <Data>6.1.7600.16385</Data>

    <Data>4a5bdb2b</Data>

    <Data>c0000005</Data>

    <Data>0001a4f5</Data>

    <Data>fc8</Data>

    <Data>01ca9db5849d8335</Data>

    <Data>C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe</Data>

    <Data>C:\Windows\system32\tsmf.dll</Data>

    <Data>cb489614-09a8-11df-8a11-00508db60eb4</Data>

</EventData>

</Event>

It was proceed by this error 2 minutes earlier:

Log Name:      Microsoft-Windows-CodeIntegrity/Operational

Source:        Microsoft-Windows-CodeIntegrity

Date:          1/25/2010 5:55:35 AM

Event ID:      3002

Task Category: (1)

Level:         Error

Keywords:

User:          LOCAL SERVICE

Computer:      Athena

Description:

Code Integrity is unable to verify the image integrity of the file \Device\HarddiskVolume1\Windows\System32\l3codeca.acm because the set of per-page image hashes could not be found on the system.

Event Xml:

<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">

<System>

    <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-CodeIntegrity" Guid="{4EE76BD8-3CF4-44A0-A0AC-3937643E37A3}" />

    <EventID>3002</EventID>

    <Version>0</Version>

    <Level>2</Level>

    <Task>1</Task>

    <Opcode>102</Opcode>

    <Keywords>0x8000000000000000</Keywords>

    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2010-01-25T11:55:35.834960900Z" />

    <EventRecordID>193</EventRecordID>

    <Correlation />

    <Execution ProcessID="5032" ThreadID="4744" />

    <Channel>Microsoft-Windows-CodeIntegrity/Operational</Channel>

    <Computer>Athena</Computer>

    <Security UserID="S-1-5-19" />

</System>

<EventData>

    <Data Name="FileNameLength">53</Data>

    <Data Name="FileNameBuffer">\Device\HarddiskVolume1\Windows\System32\l3codeca.acm</Data>

</EventData>

</Event>

I have also noticied a significant number (as in thousands) of errors w/ regards to ShellHWDetection in the past several days....but not in the past 24 hours.
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Anonymous

2010-01-23T14:10:57+00:00

This has happened on a few of my machines on multiple occasions. My workaround is to use something like Media Player Classic so I can still watch my videos without constantly having to reboot. I'd say it happens on almost a daily basis.

I suspect it has something to do with either "non-standard" codecs...I usually install K-Lite or CCCP...or with Media Player not being able to handle my large library of video and audio files. (WMP simply isn't equipped to serve all the videos of the internet, especially subtitled and progressive formats such as .mkv, .mp4 & .ogm)

Similar problems seem to occur with previous versions of Media Player and Windows....as other posts are about the net in Vista and WMP 11.

It is frustrating, but I understand that there are a number of complex issues that can combine to fail media players. What would probably help the support folks is for WMP to be a little more verbose with its error message. "Server Execution Fail" is just too generic sounding of a response.

I will try the clean boot method...but I also dislike the time involved with this troubleshooting method. My computer is meant to be up and running 24/7 serving files to the rest of my network, recording TV shows for me, and keeping me connected when I am not at home. Clean booting and stepwise addition/removal of individual services is not the best way to address this problem because sometimes I go 2 days or more w/o any problems on a normal boot, and sometimes I get the error messages right away. Running the machine for 2 days in a clean boot is a little annoying b/c then the machine isn't running all the software I want it to run....but I think you get the picture. More verbose reporting from the event logs is a must, or at least from WMP itself, since it is so interdependent with many other services.

Since some folks seem to be getting this error message on brand new machines...it would hint that there are either multiple causes OR WMP was broken out of the box. While I appreciate the additional steps for troubleshooting (and I will report back with my findings in the next 24 hours), I also think that it may be useful to ask what kind of video (.avi, .wmv, etc.), its source (download from web, streaming from pay service, recorded tv, etc.) , additional codecs installed?, playback on local machine or over network.... This problem seems to run pretty deep, and I think the WMP folks will need more info to finally squash this bug.

On another note, I used 3rd party codecs and WMP on Vista for a couple years without the message...but as the codec packs are constantly updated, and are open source in nature....I think they have the possibility of causing problems.
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