October 25th, 2006

Offline mode silently prevents you from streaming media content

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

Into Windows Media Player (version 9 if you’re keeping score at home), I type the URL of an MP3 file (poor man’s podcast) and get the error message “The download of the specified resource has failed.” On this dialog there two buttons: Close and Web Help. Close closes the error dialog, of course. Web Help does nothing. Turns out the real problem was that I was in offline mode. Go to the File menu and uncheck “Work Offline”. So if you get the “The download of the specified resource has failed.” error, check that you aren’t accidentally running in offline mode.

Working backwards, I’m guessing that the Web Help button didn’t work because I was offline. Which is kind of ironic, because the only way to get help is to have already fixed your problem…

Category
Old New Thing
Topics
Tips/Support

Author

Raymond Chen

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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