Cannot play WMA files

[Sarah Desmarais-Carson]

At that time it did. As of October it stopped. I'm looking again.

 

[OregonLGUser]

As we've all discovered there are a number of aspects to playing DRM protected WMA audio books we've checked out of the library. MP3s are a breeze. Just Use OverDrive Media player. Here's what I've had to do to play WMA audio library books.

1) Check out the WMA audio book via the Web on your PC.
2) Go through the 3 step process to load and download the checked out audio book into OverDrive Media on your PC.
3) Connect your Android device to the PC via a USB cable
4) Choose TRANSFER in OverDrive Media to transfer the WMA files to your Android device
Your Android device must be recognized by OverDrive Media
If the transfer fails with an error message then your Android device does not have appropriate digital rights and is not going to play DRM protected WMA files - period.
5) Assuming your Android device is recognized by OverDrive Media as a compatible device and the transfer was successful then you can play the WMA audio book on your Android device using MortPlayer Audio Books app from the Google Play store. It's just as good a player as OverDrive Media player is for MP3 audio books. MortPlayer Audio Books will also play your MP3 audio library books. During the transfer OverDrive Media player puts the audio book in your Music folder on your Android device. You can change the location if desired once the files are transfered. Your player just needs to know where to find the files.

Now there is a big assumptions here. Your Android device must be recognized by OverDrive Media player and MortPlayer Audio Books as having digital rights for playing DRM protected audio books. If OverDrive Media player can't transfer the WMA audio book to the device then MortPlayer Audio Books will not play the book even if you transfer the WMA files from your PC to your Android device using File Manager or ES File Explorer. Both players are checking for digital rights and expiration date. If either of these is not right the player won't play them.

Compatible devices:
LG Optimus G Pro - no
LG Optimus G - no - (Android version 4.1.2)
Samsung Galaxy III - was the last time I used it before it was stolen
Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus - no
Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 - YES - (Android version 4.2.2)
Old Sony Eriksson Xperia Arc S - no - (Android version 4.0.1)
You'll have to try every phone or tablet you've got until you find one that is compatible. My Note is the only one I currently have that works. It's not really very handy for playing audio books. It's too big. But hey, I can listen to WMA audio books from the library on it.

 

[baparham]

This just happened to me. I was using MortPlayer Audio Books via Overdrive Media Console on PC->transfering to device (and have been for a few years) to play .WMA audio books on my galaxy S3, then when ATT pushed the 4.3 update on me, MortPlayer no longer plays the very same audio books that I was listening to the day before.

Obviously, .mp3 works, but that means that most books that use .wma only can't be checked out anymore.

I am not sure what happened in the 4.3 update, but perhaps some new DRM business in the kernal messes with MortPlayer.

Hopefully a resolution is found for this...its sad that I can't listen to audio books anymore :-(.

Cheers,
Brad

 

[monor]

i had the same problem and struggled for long but i have finally found a player on Google play store that can do this for free. It is called Xplay music player. I hope this helps

 

[Corrado Toscano]

Yes this work well, thanks monor !!!

 

[Snorfle]

Just wanted to post here to let everyone know I figured out a kind of solution to this problem (that will work on phones with Android 4.3+, or really any version), but it's not pretty. Apologies for the novel-length post...

After...
a) being able to get the files onto my HTC One M7 (running KitKat) using the Overdrive Media Console, but then having every player I tried (including the XPlay one mentioned upthread) have it either not play at all or come out like gibberish
b) struggling with various programs (wondershare, aimersoft, blahblah) that claim to remove DRM or convert WMA to MP3 and for various reasons never getting it to work

The only option I found was an old school method I heard about for converting DRM-d Audible files from iTunes --> MP3 on Windows, where you basically make the computer think there is a blank CD-R in the drive to "burn" the files to. The only way I know how to do that is using a program called Virtual CD (virtualcd-online.com), though there may be others. Note that I just downloaded the trial version and haven't decided if I'm going to pay for it yet; I would recommend and curious people here do the same, to make sure my method even works for you.

(Also I'm writing this from memory, it might be a bit different when you first start up, but this is the general idea.)
0.) There may be some preliminary options to pick a drive letter for main virtual drive, stuff like that.
1.) After installation, once you have the little icon in the bottom-right system tray, right-click on it and go to "Settings". From there choose "Burn" and pick the Output format as MP3 and whatever bitrate you want. Note the folder it will put sound files in (default is C:\Users\Public\Music\) and naming format. Click "Ok".
2.) From the "Virtual CD Starter" menu, pick "Insert Virtual Blank" (I think you can right click on the system tray and go to "Starter" that way also. Choose "Activate Sound File Mode", click "ok" at the little helper prompt.
3.) I think at that point there should be the virtual CD-R or RW in the virtual drive, and you should be able to see that from going into My Computer and seeing it there (mine shows 702 MB of 702 MB free).
4.) Open up Overdrive Media Console and tell it to Burn. It will see the virtual blank as an empty audio CD and happily "burn" away. The Virtual CD program should pop up and tell you it is converting the files to mp3 (from wav I believe). In the selected folder, you should have a new folder called something like "VCD_2014_9_20" (with the current date) and a bunch of mp3 files, each corresponding to the "track" it would have burned as on a regular CD (I think default is _title_, _title_ (1), etc). You'll have to tell Overdrive Media Console to keep doing this for each "CD", and a new folder will be created (VCD_2014_9_20 (1), then VCD_2014_9_20 (2), and so forth).
5.) Last (optional) step is to merge the mp3s using something like the MergeMP3 software at shchuka.com (don't get it from cnet or they will load you up with crapware). I would usually just merge each "CD's (i.e. folder's) worth of content, so I ended up having 5 mp3 files overall, which you can then load on your Android device or whatever...I suppose you could merge it into one giant MP3 if you like.

Anyway, this is obviously a horrible POA and I'm glad Overdrive is moving away from WMAs in the future: blogs.overdrive.com/front-page-library-news/2014/01/22/overdrive-announces-plan-for-audiobooks-to-be-solely-available-in-mp3-format , sorry I can't post links being a newbie on the forum. (Bad thing is that it doesn't seem like all the current WMA'd audiobooks are going to make the jump.) Hopefully this was helpful in the meantime.

 

[canguys]

Well apparently there is a disconnect between mort player for audiobooks and my SG3. As I read in some earlier posts AT&T had pushed a upgrade out and after that .WMA files stopped working. Overdrive did transfer the file to music folder but the SG3 won't play the file. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I'll try my Samsung Tab 10' next maybe that will work.

 

[Mram27]

Samsung lists WMA under the Audio Specs for formats supported by the Galaxy S5. Why is this format listed but not supported?


Supported Digital Audio Standards
AAC, WAV, XMF, Ogg Vorbis, QCP, WMA, WAV, WAV, WMA, XMF, XMF, WMA, eAAC+, eAAC+, XMF, eAAC+, AAC +, AMR, FLAC, AMR, M4A, ASF, FLAC, MIDI, FLAC, M4A, M4A, MP3, MIDI, MIDI, OGG, MP3, WAV, OGG, MP3, OGG, Ogg Vorbis, WMA

 

[Andie708]

I'm just commenting to correct what was written here a few years ago about the MX Player app. MX Player can in fact be used as an audio player, and it understands the WMA audio format (and many other formats). Note that there's a checkbox labeled "Audio player - Use as an audio player" in MX Player's Settings that needs to be set, and I don't recall whether it's set by default when you install MX Player.

I don't know whether it can play DRM-protected files, though.

 

[cyril1]

Do you use a MicroSD Card? Usually when i transfer files to my MicroSD card, it asks if I want to convert it to the appropriate format for my phone to play it correctly.
If yours does not do that, try using a different music player. I would suddest u try "PowerAmp", which is a music player app in the app store, and a VERY good one.

If not, you could download a music converter to convert your files to MP3 format

thank u very much Smooth. i dont know how to thank u enough. Ur suggestion on poweramp solved the problem like magic

 

[rsnedc]

I could play "WMA" files on three different Android devices. I went through Windpws Media Player versions 9.# through 12.#. Media Player 11.# is the last Media Player version that WMA ripped audio will play on all three of my devices. My Android devices consider audio ripped using Media Player 12.# "WMA2" and does not recognize it. Apparently Microsoft modified the format of ripped audio files in Windows Media Player in vwesion 12.#.

good luck

 

[ssachs99]

Use the VLC app for Android.
It will play wma files and also accesses directories