Media Player Malfunction

Dragon Drop · May 20, 2026

Something's gone wrong with my "Media Player" app. Whenever I try to play any "mp4" file, it says the file can't be opened because it uses "unsupported encoding settings". And it shows the error code "0x80070057". The files still work with other apps such as "Movies and TV" or "Windows Media Player Legacy", so there's nothing wrong with the files. But I want to use the "Media Player" app. I recall that the same thing happened once before, a few years ago, and I either found a way to fix it, or else the problem just went away by itself. I just now tried the app's "repair" option, and it didn't help. It also has a "reset" option, but that would delete all the files! And rebooting the computer didn't help, either. Does anybody know a fix for this?

antspants · May 20, 2026

Hi. I am assuming you are referring to Movies, TV, Videos in general? It could be related to the following, depending on how the videos are encoded:

Windows 11 24H2 ditched AC-3 codec (Dolby Digital). Have you clean reinstalled Windows in the last 2 years?

Try downloading these codecs, I might be going crazy but it appears that I have had to reinstall these after certain updates in Windows.

Run
First: DolbyLaboratories.DolbyAC4DecoderOEM_1.0.0.0_neutral_~_rz1tebttyb220 (1).AppxBundle
Last: DolbyLaboratories.DolbyDigitalPlusDecoderOEM_1.1.285.0_neutral_~_rz1tebttyb220 (1).AppxBundle

Source:

Download Dolby AC-3/AC-4 Installer - MajorGeeks

Dolby AC-3/AC-4 Installer includes the necessary installers for Microsoft Dolby AC-3 and AC-4 audio technologies. These technologies are essential for integrating Dolby AC-3 and AC-4 into your multimedia applications and ensuring high-quality audio playback on your system.

www.majorgeeks.com

Link to download page:

Download Dolby AC-3/AC-4 Installer

Dolby AC-3/AC-4 Installer includes the necessary installers for Microsoft Dolby AC-3 and AC-4 audio technologies. These technologies are essential for integrating Dolby AC-3 and AC-4 into your multimedia applications and ensuring high-quality audio playback on your system.

www.majorgeeks.com

Dragon Drop · May 21, 2026

No, I haven't done any installs or updates recently. And it was just yesterday that my media player suddenly stopped working.

pietcorus2 · May 21, 2026

Dragon Drop said:
Something's gone wrong with my "Media Player" app. Whenever I try to play any "mp4" file, it says the file can't be opened because it uses "unsupported encoding settings". And it shows the error code "0x80070057". The files still work with other apps such as "Movies and TV" or "Windows Media Player Legacy", so there's nothing wrong with the files. But I want to use the "Media Player" app. I recall that the same thing happened once before, a few years ago, and I either found a way to fix it, or else the problem just went away by itself. I just now tried the app's "repair" option, and it didn't help. It also has a "reset" option, but that would delete all the files! And rebooting the computer didn't help, either. Does anybody know a fix for this?

Yes , faced same problem on the latest 2604.9 !
Installed previous version 2603.12 , and all fine again..............

Dragon Drop · May 21, 2026

I'm not sure what the issue is. It still plays mp3 files, and wav files, but it won't play mp4's. And with wmv files, some of them will play, but not all.

pietcorus2 · May 21, 2026

Dragon Drop said:
I'm not sure what the issue is. It still plays mp3 files, and wav files, but it won't play mp4's. And with wmv files, some of them will play, but not all.

Went back to previous version , all fine !
Which version do you use ?
Seems a codec problem.............

antspants · May 21, 2026

Dragon Drop said:
No, I haven't done any installs or updates recently

I supplied to codecs, use them or not. It's all I have, cheers

Airworthy · May 23, 2026

pietcorus2 said:
Yes , faced same problem on the latest 2604.9 !
Installed previous version 2603.12 , and all fine again..............

I can also confirm. Was working on 2603.12.0, updated to 2604.9.0 and no longer works.

Actually after testing, for me videos using AV1 and HEVC loaded fine but any H264 wouldn't play at all.

idgat · May 23, 2026

I often despair at the blind reliance on many of the apps provided by Microsoft/Windows

For many of these apps, it is patently clear that Microsoft couldn't give a fig about their reliability. In many cases, they are severely deprecated simply because of far superior 3rd party options.

Multimedia (videos especially, where no codec add-ons are required) ...
- Daum PotPlayer
- VLC player

idgat · May 23, 2026

Dragon Drop said:
Whenever I try to play any "mp4" file,

Note that video files (.mp4, .mkv, .avi, etc) are simply containers for an audio stream and a video stream, both streams which can vary withing the same type of container file extension.

Quite often it's not the .mp4 file that causes the problem but the various differnet audio/video stream withing the video file that won't play.

dacrone · May 23, 2026

Dragon Drop said:
It also has a "reset" option, but that would delete all the files

Delete what files? That only changes the App itself. But from the sounds of this thread, resetting it wouldn’t help anyway. Try the mentioned fix of going back to the previous version. Uninstall it using Revo uninstaller and download the previous versions installer from

Microsoft Store - Generation Project (v1.2.3) [by @rgadguard & mkuba50]

Online link generator for Microsoft Store. You can use it to get links to almost all apps, games, themes from the Microsoft Store.

store.rg-adguard.net

pietcorus2 · May 23, 2026

dacrone said:
Delete what files? That only changes the App itself. But from the sounds of this thread, resetting it wouldn’t help anyway. Try the mentioned fix of going back to the previous version. Uninstall it using Revo uninstaller and download the previous versions installer from

Microsoft Store - Generation Project (v1.2.3) [by @rgadguard & mkuba50]

Online link generator for Microsoft Store. You can use it to get links to almost all apps, games, themes from the Microsoft Store.

store.rg-adguard.net

We wait for a fixed version , maybe next one............

Edwin · May 23, 2026

idgat said:
...it is patently clear that Microsoft couldn't give a fig about their reliability.

Amen to that!!!
Foobar and MPC any day of the week, and twice on Sunday!!!

spapakons · May 23, 2026

Just install K-Lite Codecs and you can use any player including Microsoft Windows Media Player. However Media Player Classic (MPC-HC) has more features than Microsoft's Media Player, so I recommend to use that instead.

pietcorus2 · May 23, 2026

spapakons said:
Just install K-Lite Codecs and you can use any player including Microsoft Windows Media Player. However Media Player Classic (MPC-HC) has more features than Microsoft's Media Player, so I recommend to use that instead.

Wonder if this "tricky" MP ( 2604.9 ) , will be installed automaticly by the store...........
I went back several times to previous 2603.12 , this version works very fine , without installing K-Lite Codecs................

spapakons · May 23, 2026

You could download an individual codec only for the specific video you want to play, but what if there are two or more formats? K-Lite Codecs is a large collection that can play almost everything and you can use it with Microsoft Media Player and other players. If you want to download an individual codec, you can use the Media Info utility to examine the video and tell you what codec is for the video and what is for the audio. I use AVC for the video and AC3 (Dolby Digital) for HD videos, if I need Blu Ray or AVCHD compatibility. Otherwise I use HEVC for the video to make the file smaller as it can achieve same quality with less bitrate. As container I use either AVI or MKV because it is more reliable. I avoid MP4 which is harder to edit. For example I save standard definition videos at MKV with HEVC compression with as low as 400K bitrate and they look great. Almost artifact-free if the original is HD or DVD quality. For 640x480 I can even go down to 200K without visible artifacts.

garlin · May 23, 2026

pietcorus2 said:
Wonder if this "tricky" MP ( 2604.9 ) , will be installed automaticly by the store...........
I went back several times to previous 2603.12 , this version works very fine , without installing K-Lite Codecs................

Windows Update will replace older Store apps unless you block it. Which means you have to manually update all Store apps by yourself.

Enable or Disable Automatically Update Apps in Microsoft Store in Windows 11

Edwin · May 24, 2026

What a negligent piece of crap! It'll work but you gotta install a half a million Frameworks and Video Extensions just to get it to work!!! :nope:

pietcorus2 · May 24, 2026

Edwin said:
What a negligent piece of crap! It'll work but you gotta install a half a million Frameworks and Video Extensions just to get it to work!!!

View attachment 172383

Yes , agree ; so wont update this " sh -

player " , and will keep my fine version 2603.12 , untill its been fixed...........!

Edwin · May 24, 2026

I'll stick with MPC, where all capabilities are resident within the program!!! Far less p-i-t-a!!!

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