Help- Audio files won't play in PPT any more

  • Thread starter Thread starter Glenn
  • Start date Start date
G

Glenn

When I go to "Insert", then "Movies & Sounds", then "Sound
from file" and select either an mp3 or wma file, only
about 25% of these files will play in my slide show now.
For the rest, the slide show just stays quiet.

Prior to updating Windows for Sasser virus last week,
about 90% of audio files would play in my slide show.

I have tried deleting and redownloading the audio files,
but still they won't play.

What might I be doing wrong?
 
Geetesh:

Thanks for the follow up.

Yes, all my wma & mp3 files play properly with Windows
Media Player. After my wma files did not play in PPT
slide shows, I "reripped" the CD's directly to mp3 format
but I got the same result. No error messages, just muted
audio.

I am not familiar with "MCI settings" but I will search
for info on how to check them and how to change them, if
possible.

Any further suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks .. Glenn
 
All versions of Windows (including PowerPoint 2003 to a large extent) use
MCI - MCI basically is the player technology before Windows Media Player,
known as just Media Player.

To launch Media Player, go to Start Menu | Run and type mplay32 (in Windows
XP) - this will bring up the old Media Player which PowerPoint uses to play
media elements. You'll want to check if all your MP3 and WMA files work with
this player.


--
Geetesh Bajaj, Microsoft PowerPoint MVP
http://www.indezine.com

Texture Triumph
http://www.powerpointed.com/001100/012/
 
Geetesh:

Media Player correctly plays my wma & mp3 files that won't
play in PPT slide show.

Very bizarre, but I have one wma file that I ripped which
plays properly during PPT slide shows, yet all other wma
tracks from the very same CD that were all ripped at the
same time (using WMP 9) do not work in PPT slide shows.

Also, I tried a couple of mp3's from Kazaa and they work
properly in PPT slide shows too.

I'm stumped.

Thx .. Glenn
 
Geetesh:

I think you're on to something. The wma filename that
will play in PPT slide show is only 3 characters long.
The others are longer and won't work.

The peer-to-peer mp3's that work in PPT slide show are in
a different folder hierarchy with shorter names, so the
full path name is much shorter.

I will test this tonight and let you know what I find. I
suspect there is a maximum character count for the path
name which I have been exceeding.

Many thanks .. Glenn
 
Geetesh:

After some trial and error, you were right. My path names
wree too long which caused the problem of the audio not
playing. I found that a pathname of 118 characters long
end-to-end still worked, but another pathname of 123
characters long did not. Therefore the limit is likely
close to 120 characters.

Shame on me for my messy folder hierarchy. I have since
cleaned it up, and the wma & mp3 files are playing just
fine in my slide shows!

A huge thanks for your suggestions and patience.

Regards .. Glenn
 
Glenn, glad it worked for you.

What I usually suggest is that you place all your sound and video files in
the same folder as the presentation even before you insert them within
PowerPoint. This also makes things easier if you need to copy or move the
presentation from one computer to another since you can just copy the entire
folder.


--
Geetesh Bajaj, Microsoft PowerPoint MVP
http://www.indezine.com

Texture Triumph
http://www.powerpointed.com/001100/012/
 
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