Here's the problem:

A music file downloads succesfully but when I play it, by launching it on the site, or using one of my media players, instead of the expected track, I get electronic noise. Typically, it sounds like an extended beep, with repeat interruptions. I delete and find a similar track to download, but each attempt gets the same result. There is no warning that it's a corrupted file, and I select the same song from different hosts, with varying file size and titles, yet I can't get it to play right. What's happening?

This has occurred in the past, and I put it down to an aberration, but again this morning, I experienced multiple attempts with different songs, and all I can imagine is that there is some code in the track or in the transfer that garbles the sound.

Anyone have experience with this, or suggestions on how to overcome this problem?

Thanks.

It could be a couple things. If your using the LW player try using a different one. In LW go to Tools>Options>Player, untick the box and click apply. You may need to restart LW for the changes to take affect. Now songs should play in your default player. The LW player isn't very good.

It could also be a codec problem. You may want to try VLC media player, it has the codecs built in and will play most file types. More info on codecs and other players in this thread: CODECs list for Movies /Alternate players / Video help forums.

Or it might be that the songs you've downloaded are fake. The network is full of them, but you can learn to avoid them and find good ones. Look up the files with Bitzi before downloading to help sort out the bad ones.

See: Recognising Fake files

And for tips on finding good files, see: How to find music..

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