WMP11 can't play .asf?

[ChiSholm]

I have a video cam that records videos into .asf files and they playback fine on the video cam but when I transfer the files to my pc to play on WMP, the file plays for a few seconds with video/audio fine but after that I get an error saying "Windows Media Player cannot play the file. The Player might not support the file type or might not support the codec that was used to compress the file.". Why is that so and how can I resolve this?

[Baldrick]

Have you tried play the asf files on another computer? Same problem?

And try play with vlc media player and see if it works any better(it has builtin decoders). If still similar problems then it could be something wrong with the asf files and you might have to "repair" them using for example asfbin.

[ChiSholm]

Hmm just downloaded vlc media player and it works ! I find it very strange that WMP behaves this way since it can play the start of the file but not the whole thing.

Upon second thought, I'm wondering if it's my WMP that's corrupted because I've recently encountered this problem which didn't used to be there. I tried playing a file with WMP11 but got this error ""windows media player cannot play the file. the file is either corrupt or the player does not support the format you are trying to play" only when I drag the WMP window to my extended desktop.

I know that problem is not with the file because I used to be able to do this just fine with the same file. I'm not sure what has changed. I've actually tried reinstalling WMP but no difference.