Media Player Play To Error "Failed to retrieve media Information from media server"

Anonymous
2011-08-04T04:55:28+00:00

I have a Denon AVR 1912 receiver and a PC running Windows 7 w/WMP12.  When I try to use the "play to" feature I can select the receiver but get an error "Failed to retrieve media Information from media server."

I have tried to re-install WMP 12 and have tried disabling my firewall with no success.  Airplay works fine, but I prefer WMP to I-Tunes.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Music, photos, and video

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Anonymous
2011-09-09T16:43:54+00:00

The content is on the same computer.  Streaming is enabled and the receiver is "allowed." 

I am not sure if this is solved or not...but I found the solution last night after I spent the most frustrating 5 hours of my life! This is surely a windows problem. I recently replaced my HP laptop with a Dell Vostro 3450 and I suddenly found that 'Play To' feature wasn't working with my Samsung LED TV UA55C8000 .To confirm that it wasn't a firewall or format related issue I even used Samsung PC Share software on my PC to act as the DLNA server...With PC share as the server WMP12 didnt find any problems 'Contacting the Media Server' ...but with its own library it just remained stuck there, with an eventual failure message. [Point to be noted was that even when it failed to contact the media server, I could control the TV volume using the same window!]

This is what did the trick for me:

  1. Closed WMP12.
  2. Go to Services [Control Panel->System and Security->Administrative Tools->Services]
  3. Locate the service with name 'Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service'
  4. Stop the Service manually.
  5. Locate the service 'UpnP Device Host'. Stop the service and start it again.
  6. Start 'Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service' now.
  7. Close control panel and all associated windows. Open Windows Media Player...right click on a playlist and see if PlayTo option lists the TV. Try playing now...it started playing for me at this stage!

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  1. Anonymous
    2012-09-30T14:42:13+00:00

    Absolutely fantastic - I've been struggling with this for days (streaming from my laptop to a Samsung TV), and your solution worked flawlessly.

    Thank you!

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-05-13T18:08:22+00:00

    I'd like to jump in with the same complaint. I am running W7x64 Ultimate, and DLNA streaming to a Philips Streamium 2500 used to work without any hickups. Sometine, about last fall, after one of the MS Windows updates, streaming after a reboot is stuck with the symptoms already described above. Stoppin / starting the services as described will resuscitate the situation, and streaming works until the next reboot (which only happensafter one of the updates forcing a reboot).

    It seems patently evident that something on the OS side is broken, nothing to do with streaming settings in MP or the other DLNA devices (where nothing has changed).

    I wish MS would own up to this issue, investigate and get it fixed

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  3. Anonymous
    2012-04-28T20:57:49+00:00

    Thanx so much. Typical MS <removed>.

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  4. Anonymous
    2012-04-25T18:36:33+00:00

    This solution looks like a very general purpose solution that would solve a LOT of problems like this.  It helped me with connection problems to my Sony Blu-ray player with DLNA.  As soon as I stopped and restarted both of the services named in the answer above, my blu-ray player suddenly saw my Windows 7 PC and could access photos, audio, and video files.  My symptoms were as follows:  (1) from the Blu-ray player, it could not see the host PC media files and using the network diagnostic on the Blu-ray player showed the host PC name/MAC address with a "Failed" result.  (2) from the host PC, it saw the Blu-ray player, and when trying the "Play To" feature, it hung with the message "Contacting the Media Server".  Once the services were restarted, I could push ("Play To") from the PC to the Blu-ray player as well as pull media using the Blu-ray player to access files on the PC.  THANKS!

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