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I can't get Karaoke to play

Started by Jimmy4871, January 16, 2019, 09:57:20 PM

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Jimmy4871

Hi All,

For years I've been running etouch on a stand alone touch screen JB running windows XP. It finally gave up the ghost a while back. I eventually got around to  getting a new pc which is running Win7 Pro. I have not been able to get the Karaoke to play at all.
I have read all the posts I can find on the topic and it seems WMP12 is the issue. I have tried to do the downgrade to WMP11 but it has not been successful (the link in a post to on how to do it is no longer available). I've got the latest Karaoke DX, I've tried other codec packs also. I tried the latest etouch demo version (P10) but nothing will allow karaoke to play.
Surely I am doing something wrong or missing something?
Curiously if I drag a .cdg file into WMP12 and hit play it works, but double clicking the .cdg just give me an error message.

TIA
Jimmy

wwwombat

#1
This has been a major pain in the arse for me as well over the past year and it just so happens I've been focussing on it for the past week as my younger brother wanted to borrow it again for his son's 20th birthday party, and the lad is partial to over-imbibing and then singing karaoke (to be fair, he does have a reasonable voice.)

Certainly the culprit appears to be Windows Media Player 12 (and you can't go back to an earlier version (well.. easily) IMHO) no matter whether you're on Windows 7 (my true photo kiosk jukebox machine) or Windows 10 (my test jukebox machine - aka my laptop).

Every other media player seems to function fine - it's just WMP12 - which of course, E-Touch uses (Given my lack of success, I was wondering in the future whether to ask Barry whether we were forced to use WMP or we could choose - VLC works great although you click on the MP3 in its case (and the CDG/MP3 filenames/tags must match).

I scoured the net, trying just about every "solution" out there and NOTHING worked for me for WMP12 (and many of the links were dead) - it would ALWAYS pop up a dialog box saying it couldn't play the file despite every indication that all required codecs etc. were present.

Finally (just 2 days ago), I got it to work again on my laptop so don't give up! I need time to attempt to replicate what I may have done on the laptop, on the other machine just to confirm, but to get you started  try this (which is some of what I recall I did from memory):-


  • "Uninstall" WMP12. You can't really get rid of it but (on Windows 10) goto CONTROL PANEL->PROGRAMS AND FEATURES->TURN WINDOWS FEATURES ON AND OFF (left panel and wait until the list populates) then expand MEDIA FEATURES and uncheck WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER and let it do its thing.
  • I reckon Windows wants to reboot here. Let it.
  • Once restarted, I did the same CONTROL PANEL thing as in step 1, but this time re-enabling WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER.
  • I think I then downloaded and installed Karaoke For DirectX - it's not being developed any more but 3.0 beta 2 seems to be working okay for me (now)
  • I probably rebooted here again just to be on the safe side.
  • I then went to a .cdg/.mp3 file pair for Karaoke, right-clicked on the .cdg file and then chose the OPEN WITH option and clicked through to WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER (and chose to always open with it)
  • I have memories of a dialog box popping up warning me WMP MAY not play this file (different to CANNOT.) This step may yet be crucial as I chose to choose to always open it and never ask me again and wouldn't be sure how to bring it up again.

It finally works again on my laptop so yay! For full disclosure, I did do some other stuff inside WMP at other times to stop some server/sharing options and some registry deletes etc. but I'm hoping none of those come into play and, when I get the time, I will NOT do these steps on my other machine and see if I have similar success there.


Here's hoping it may work for you. Post an answer when you get a chance to try it and I'll try to have a crack at my other machine tonight as well.

(edit 18/01/2019 to adjust some step order/contents)

Jimmy4871


Barcrest

It is the included plugin that is the issue, there is another plugin that is more reliable that coffee posted about.
Keep on Rocking in the Free World \m/ ;D\m/



Jukebox Stats...

wwwombat

#4
I tried my own instructions on the other machine last night, adjusting for where Windows wanted to restart, and it didn't work.

So I mulled over in my head what else I may have done on my test machine that suddenly made it work. Initially went into the registry editor, searching for and deleting some .cdg keys, but that didn't seem to have any effect.

Eventually stumbled on something that did though. I don't know if any of my previous steps are necessary but try the following and see how you go.


  • First up, I'm going to assume that you have already installed another player like VLC and all necessary codecs plus the Karaoke for Direct X plugin (last night I used the karaoke-2.3.zip file delivered with E-Touch instead of the latest 3.0 beta 2 but you can try the other plugin Barry mentions - I also tried this way-back-when in my many attempts at everything but I still had the WMP12 problem with this as well.)

    With a pair of like-named mp3/cdg files, fire up VLC (opening the mp3 in this case) and confirm the plugin works and you both see lyrics on the screen plus hear the music.

  • Loudly sing along and annoy the shit out of your neighbours!

  • Now to hopefully get WMP to work similarly. Run the registry editor (regedit.exe) and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Player\Extensions\.cdg

    Right-click on the .cdg, delete it and exit regedit.

  • Back in Windows Explorer again and first double-check that your MP3 file plays in WMP12 by opening and listening to it.

    Then right-click on the corresponding .cdg file and choose to open it with WMP. This time you should be presented with a dialog box that starts with something like "The selected file has an extension (.cdg) that is not recognized by Windows Media Player...."

    There'll be a question like "Do you want the Player to try to play this content", with an extra checkbox for "Don't ask me again for this extension (.cdg)"

    Tick the checkbox and then click on YES

Whilst it took a little while to open the first time for me, this did work. I had a look at the registry again and it seems to have added PERMISSIONS and RUNTIME (REG_DWORDS set to 1) keys to the entry whereas before I reckon it had nothing.

So it looks like it can play them but somewhere in the past it thought it couldn't and therefore threw up the annoying CANNOT dialog box.

Hopefully this works for you too, at least until Microsoft buggers it up again.

(*NB* Shouldn't this thread be moved into the Support And Bug Reports section?)

Jimmy4871

You Sir Are an Absolute LEGEND :beer :beer :beer :beer
Thank You Very Much.

Jimmy