“Is my computer compatible with your downloads?” (Back to Top)
Download our test file by clicking here to see if your computer is compatible with encrypted Windows Media (WMA) files. This should launch your player of choice and start the download process, followed by a license that allows you to play the file. This test file is small and should only take a short moment to download and play. Most of the songs in our service are encrypted WMA files. Many videos (WMV) use the same encryption. Other files in our service are not encrypted and would play on any computer (such as MP3s, PDF, JPEG).
I played the test file successfully: Congratulations, you are ready to redeem music downloads in our site. If for some reason you encounter problems in our site, you might have other issues on your computer such as security settings on your browser and firewall, available java components on your browser, or lack of a 128 bit browser. Please review the rest of this document for tips on how to solve such problems.
I can’t play the test file: If you failed to play the test file above (failure to download, license, and/or play), the previously mentioned issues may apply to you as well, together with other potential issues with your player or jukebox application itself. Most of the time such issues are resolved by upgrading your player and browser and resolving issues with cookie settings. Please review the rest of this document for further instructions and problem resolution tips.
* Note: This test applies to online music and video downloads in WMA and WMV only.
"I'm having trouble finding the file once it's been downloaded." (Back to Top)
To find a file once it has been downloaded, use the Search or Find option on your computer to locate the file. To bring up the search window click on the "Start" button and choose Search, or click on My Computer on the desktop and double click on the hard drive, or press Ctrl-F. Type *.wma in the search box that appears, and it will find all Windows Media Audio files on your computer (change this to .wmv, .mp3 etc. depending on the file format you downloaded). The file you just downloaded should be amongst the files listed. You can choose "View" then "Details" to see the "Date Modified" field and look for the most recent files.
Important note: If you have not designated a folder of choice for your downloads yet, and you are using your default Windows Media Player, the player may download the file to your Temporary folder. If this happens, the file will be named with an odd numeric name while inside that folder, and you will have to move it out of the Temporary folder in order for it’s right name to display again.
Here’s how to do this:
In Windows (different versions of Windows may use a different path for this file), go to “My Computer”: C:\Documents and Settings\Your Name\Local Settings\Temporary Internet FilesTo prevent your downloads from going to the Temporary folder again, when you start the download process at the “Save” prompt, make sure to select the My Music folder specified above as your designated download folder, and check the box (if offered) for Windows to always download WMA files to that folder.2) Sort the folder by the file type column by clicking on the “type” column header. Next, scroll down to file type Windows Media Audio. When you find Windows Media Audio files, look at their “date Modified” column for the latest files modified. The latest one would be your latest download.
3) Highlight the file, and drag it with your mouse out of the Temporary folder onto your desktop. You will notice that the file name, if previously shown as scrambled numbers, now changes to the name of the song you downloaded.
4) Last, you’d want to drag it into your folder of choice for future use. We recommend you use your computer’s default My Music or My Downloads folders. In XP, the path for your My Music folder is C:\Documents and Settings\Your Name\My Documents\My Music.
“Files I've redeemed have not been downloaded to my computer.”
This problem may be caused by an irregular problem with the Internet or with a server, or it can be due to configuration issues on your computer that are preventing the download from completing. In order to resolve the latter, please read our Site Troubleshooting section above. We also recommend you ensure that your computer adheres to our System Requirements. After you have taken steps to resolve such problems on your computer, please follow the steps outlined in the following paragraph.
- First, it is important that you do not try to open and play the partially-downloaded product.
- Next, logout of your site account
- Close your browser and any other browser windows that may be open on your computer
- Open a new browser window and surf to our music site again, and from the top nav bar choose to login
- Click on My History (or My Downloads) button in My Account to see a list of all available files; since you did not complete your download, you will find an active link to your files on the History page; restart your download from here
- Use the exact same process if you lost the connection during an album download
“My downloaded songs won’t play.” (Back to Top)
First, find the file you downloaded, right-click on it, and choose to play the file with Windows Media Player. Second, you need to be online the first time you play a secure digital audio file so that the media player can obtain a license from us. Please make sure to play the file at least once for a few seconds, which means you have obtained your license. To clarify, music you redeem from our site in the Windows Media format is digitally protected and requires a license file to play. You should receive a license automatically when you redeem content or attempt to play it for the first time. However, there may be situations where this doesn't happen. For example, if the licensing server is temporarily unavailable, or if you are having problems with your Internet connection, a license cannot be delivered to you. Please ensure the following:
If you need further information on this, please email us the error message and some basic information on your computer: What web browser, OS, and player you are using along with the song title and where you downloaded it from. Send this information to: service@neuroticmedia.com
Important note: If your player is generating any other type of odd error code, please use the Search box at www.microsoft.com to find information about the potential cause for the problem and the recommended fix (some issues may be player, hardware, or Windows Operating System related).
"The “license approved” window keeps popping up when I try to play the song." (Back to Top)
Your browser or the song file may not be communicating properly with your media player. This is common with Netscape and Windows Media Player or Winamp and Internet Explorer. The solution is to simply close the license window and press play on your media player itself.
"The song plays for a few seconds, and then it stops and continues to do so throughout the entire song." (Back to Top)
If this happens the first time you play the song, it may mean that it is opening the song file as it is downloading and trying to play the file faster than you are downloading it. This happens with dial-up connections because you are not getting enough of the song data to play the song before it catches up with the data coming in from the Internet. To avoid this situation download the song completely before starting to play it (or try playing it again upon completion of the download process).
If you have already completed the download process in full and are playing the file off your computer and it is doing this: This could mean a busy processor which is caused by too many applications running at once on your computer. To fix this, try exiting out of some applications on your computer to free up some processing power for the media player.
“How can I resolve file license corruption issues?” (Back to Top)
If you are running into licensing issues for secure WMA and WMV downloads obtained from our site, these will be displayed in license windows generated by your media player (mostly in small windows, although some players will show you the error inside a large browser window). Corruption of secure file licenses may cause one of the following errors to be displayed when you try to play a secure WMA or WMV file:
There are several possible causes for such problems, including:
To work around these issues, we highly recommend you backup your licenses onto a storage medium before making any of the three changes mentioned above to your computer. Next, when you are ready to try and recover your licenses from storage, make sure you first upgrade your browser and your player to the most up-to-date versions available.
Also, since you are entitled to multiple licenses with every redeem, it is easy to back up the encrypted files only (on a CD-R or DVD), move them to the new computer or hard drive, and then obtain licenses for them again. To obtain licenses again, you must:
“Do you support iTunes and Mac users?” (Back to Top)
Mac currently does not support the playback of secure Windows Media files (the WMA music format or WMV video format), with but a few exceptions: There are a few configurations of MAC OS and Windows Media Player that may still work if you have not updated your OS and WMP recently (or, if you are running Windows on a Mac computer), but by and large, secure WMA files will not obtain licenses successfully on MAC.
MP3 songs, m4v videos, and other non-encrypted, in-the-clear online download formats (PDF, JPEG, etc.) will work on MAC just fine, as would non-encrypted (no DRM) WMA and WMV files.
Note: Secure WMA files are not compatible with iPod or iTunes (including iTunes player on PC). Encrypted WMA files cannot be directly converted to any other format. Most of the online music downloads in our service is in encrypted WMA, with MP3 being the exception (all be it a growing portion of the site though). However, WMA files you redeem can be burned to a CD several times and/or moved to WMA-supporting portable devices.
“How can I use my music with an iPOD?” (Back to Top)
iPODs and iTunes use a proprietary file format (AAC coupled with proprietary encryption), and do not recognize protected WMA files. As a result, you cannot directly transfer the songs you downloaded in secure WMA format to your iPOD. You must first burn an audio CD (in CDA file format – a regular music CD) and then save those songs back into your personal computer’s iTunes library (import and convert to AAC format), then transfer them to your iPOD. Follow the following steps:
“How long does it take to download a file to a computer?” (Back to Top)
The time required to download a file to your computer depends on the size of the file (i.e. is it a single or a multiple track album, a video, etc.) and the speed of your Internet connection.
Typical download rates for a 4 minute WMA music track of 3.5MB size are:
28.8k modem = 20-25 mins
56.6k modem = 10-15 mins
ISDN = 5-10 mins
Cable / DSL / T1 = less than 1 min
Your ISP can provide you with information about the speed of your connection. In many cases you can also right-click the network icon on the bottom right of your desktop and see what your present connection speed is. The connection speed number is normally displayed as the number of Kilobytes per second. The math to use with any give file is simply dividing the size of the file by the number of KB your connection allows per second. The result is the number of seconds (or minutes, as the case may be) it will take the file to download.
"I have a problem that is not covered in your help section." (Back to Top)
If you encounter a problem that you don't understand, please email us at service@neuroticmedia.com with information about the problem and tell us what media player, OS and browser you are using.
Copyright © 2007 Neurotic Media, LLC and/or its suppliers and licensors. All rights reserved.