Sound skips when playing streaming audio

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 11 Jun 2001 6:05 am

lately when I try to listen to streaming audio files (e.g., mp3's), my Windows Media Player opens up automatically, buffers the song, then starts to play it, but keeps repeating a section over and over, only gradually inching forward in the tune. Very annoying. I've tried to set it up so that my Winamp or RealPlayer or something else will play the file instead, but it doesn't seem to "take"; Windows Media Player keeps opening up. What am I doing wrong? Was I bad in a former life? Or in this one? Halp!

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 11 Jun 2001 6:23 am

You probably have WMP as the default player for the MP3's. Make one of the other players the default player for MP3's and see what happens. This will allow you to troubleshoot and determine if something in WMP is screwed up or if the problem is somewhere else - not in the media players.

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 11 Jun 2001 6:28 am

Thanks for responding, Jack. That's why I tried to do, but it didn't seem to work, I mean the other players did not open up so I must have done it incorrectly. Can you walk me thru the steps? I have Win98.
thanks,
Jim

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 11 Jun 2001 10:47 am

Jim, I'm not familiar with the other programs, but in WMP Click on Tools then Options then Formats and you can control what is default there. e.g. if you want another to be default for MP3, uncheck the MP3 block in the WMP.

The others, such as WinAmp should have a setup to make WinAmp the default player. Shouldn't be too hard to find as WinAmp is one of those that likes to "take over" the PC and set everything up so it's in control (default player).

Speaking of WinAmp, I had downloaded and installed it a while back. I had all kinds of conflicts and a lot of problems getting the PC to act like I wanted it to and wound up uninstalling it. Some of those programs will conflict with others and cause a lot of flakey problems. Could be what is causing your problem. I'm not saying WinAmp is to blame, just that some of those audio format players can cause conflicts on some PC's.