Windows Media Player won't play my music any more!!!

NiamhEile

It hasn't worked for ages! I put all my CDs onto Windows Media Player years ago and loved having all my music in the one place, I used to plug my speakers into my laptop and have my music on it was great. Then all of a sudden it wouldn't play the songs anymore. I open WMP, then click on a song, and a red circle comes up beside the song with a white 'x' in it, and then a message comes up: "WMP encountered a problem while trying to play this..." - or some other such stuff... So anyway I am almost completely computerly illiterate! So does anyone know what might be the problem? I'd love to be able to play my music again, I have so much stuff on it! Thanks in advance for any replies.

mordeith

Are the song files still in the original folders that you ripped the CDs to?
Usually My Documents\My Music

NiamhEile

Hi thanks for replying! Sorry for delay. Yes I think they are in their original folders, though I can't be sure as I am rather computer illiterate and don't really remember what I did at the time! One thing that might be relevant (or not, I don't have a clue) is that when I turn my computer on, a little message box comes up entitled "RUNDLL" and it has a big red circle on it with a white 'x' inside, and says: "Error loading C:\WINDOWS\system32\rpwatlcx.dll The specified module could not be found." Then is has an 'OK' button to press. It's been there ages, I've no idea what that means...

Overheal

Computer literacy must never be under-valued.

Right click on the track you are trying to play and choose the option Open File Location and see what you find out.

Spear

NiamhEile wrote: »

Hi thanks for replying! Sorry for delay. Yes I think they are in their original folders, though I can't be sure as I am rather computer illiterate and don't really remember what I did at the time! One thing that might be relevant (or not, I don't have a clue) is that when I turn my computer on, a little message box comes up entitled "RUNDLL" and it has a big red circle on it with a white 'x' inside, and says: "Error loading C:\WINDOWS\system32\rpwatlcx.dll The specified module could not be found." Then is has an 'OK' button to press. It's been there ages, I've no idea what that means...

I can't find any reference to rpwatlcx.dll being a valid Windows component. It has the look of a randomly named file normally used by worms/trojans. You should do a malware scan.

marco_polo

Agree it could be virus related.

Just in case the startup message is something unrelated, could you post up all the details in the error message, any error codes etc.

donaghs

The file does sound suspicious. Have you tried doing a virus or malware scan?

I presume your PC can do other sounds, and that it isn't a software audio drivers, or hardware issue?

As a workaround, if your music is in MP3 format you could download and install another player like VLC or Winamp. VLC is free, it may lack in snazzy features but is also very good for playing movie files.

If you're using vista you could try running this repair of system files from a command-line:
sfc /scannow