We need your help. We have a WEC user who cannot play videos with the WEC FLV Player using Internet Explorer version 6. However, Internet Explorer version 6 plays the video just fine in our tests. So we are trying to understand what the issue could be. If you are running Internet Explorer version 6 please help by doing a simple test. Just go to this page:

http://www.vinehosting.org/index.php?id=980

Then reply to this post and tell us if the video plays or if the page just shows a loading message without ever displaying the video (wait for up to 1 minute). If you can also provide the full version number of your browser (like IE 6.0.2800.1106) and the version of Windows (Windows 2000, XP) you are running, that would help too.

Thanks for your help!

In Christ,
Mark

Thanks for posting this, Mark. I'm the user who reported the problem, and it's not just on one computer or network. We've had problems playing the videos on the networked computers at the offices of the Desert Southwest Conference of the UMC, but I also can't play them on my home PC and my mother can't play them on her notebook in another state (both using IE 6 -- they always work fine in FireFox). Some details:

Using IE (6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254) on my home PC (XP Home Edition SP2, cable modem w/ Linksys WRT54GL router), when I try the "test" video at http://www.vinehosting.org/index.php?id=980, I see only "STATUS...loading files, please wait" and nothing further. The same thing happens on the "stock" UMC vids on our own site, here's a link to the same one: http://desertsouthwestconference.org/visitor/intro_resources/videos/igniting_ministry_videos/rain/
I also experience the same problem at the sermons page at the Ginghamsburg.org site.

On a server at the conference center (Windows Server 2003 R2 SP1 - IE 6.0.3790.1830), I *can* play the test video on the VH site and the sermon vids from the Ginghamsburg site, but not the vids on our own desertsouthwestconference.org site.

Other computers at the conference center have mixed results with the videos from these three sites, but the most interesting one is my Communications colleague (and the primary webmaster of our site), whose computer has IE 7.0 (XP Pro SP2), and it *does* play the test VH vid and the Ginghamsburg sermons, but *not* the two vids on our site.

My contention is that there might be a problem specific to our installation, but then that doesn't explain why several other computers outside of our conference center can't seem to play any of the vids from any of the websites when using IE 6.

David Topping
Computer Systems Manager
Desert Southwest Conference UMC

Worked for me. XP Pro SP2, IE 6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254, WMP v11.

Peter (and others yet to reply) -
I'm assuming you're "worked for me" refers to the test video on the VH site, but please clarify if the same video on the DesertSouthwestConference.org site (see link in my earlier post) also works for you.

Thanks,
David T.

Both worked for me. (Though you're right that I hadn't tested both originally.)

-Pete

Both videos on the links above played for me. I have IE6.2900.2180 on Windows XP Pro v5.1 and have Flash 9.0 installed.

Is the latest version of flash installed on the trouble computers? I have seen that be a problem sometimes. Usually upgrading resolves the problem.

I have Flash 9.0 on my home computer and the same on the server at the conference center. I'll check the versions on my wife's, my mother's, and my colleague's computers, all of which have problems with this extension. The Flash version issue was one of the first brought up by Mark.

David T.

I am trying to view this from work, and I am certain that the computers do not have the latest versions of Flash. I can't even watch CNN videos!

Anyway, is there a way to design WEC tools like this to recognize that the visitor does not have the latest version of Flash? I have been to websites and you see the "Please install the most recent version of ActiveX"... why not have something like that come up on visitor's screens so the videos work?

Jason,

Well, if you are using the WEC Flash players, you should get this exact message if you do not have Flash installed:

You do not have the Flash plugin installed, or your browser does not support Javascript (you should enable it, perhaps?)

Perhaps we have an error in that part of the code. Are you sure you were using a WEC extension to play the video?

In Him,
Mark