WMP11 "Find Album Info" not working

[Jim Barry]

When I right click on a song or album and choose "Find Album Info", a window pops up with the title "Find album information". Just below the title bar, there is a small globe icon with the text "redir.metaservices.microsoft.com" next to it. Below that, there is an HTML error page saying "This program cannot display the webpage".

My internet access is through an HTTP proxy. The proxy log contains the following entries:

1196776940.701 425 172.20.1.52 TCP_MISS/302 992 GET http://redir.metaservices.microsoft.com/redir/submittoc/? - DIRECT/64.4.52.182 text/html
1196776941.095 395 172.20.1.52 TCP_MISS/200 1298 GET http://fai.music.metaservices.microsoft.com/FAI/default.aspx? - DIRECT/207.46.248.240 text/html

So WMP connects to redir.metaservices.microsoft.com, gets redirected to fai.music.metaservices.microsoft.com, then for some reason gives up and displays a generic error page.

If I try to access http://fai.music.metaservices.microsoft.com/FAI/default.aspx using IE7, I get a similar error page, this time saying "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage".

Anybody know what is going on? I am running fully patched XP/SP2, by the way.

I found several other people reporting this problem, but no solutions.

[Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media]]

It looks like those pages check the user agent string. Typically that
would begin with NSPlayer. Is there any chance your proxy strips or
impersonates the UA string ?

The redir site is normal, and determines where your IP is to send you
to a regionalised lookup (I think). FAI is the actual album info
lookup metadata service.

At this point, my first step would be to delete Cookies and Temporary
Internet Files in IE (which WMP shares) and try again.

Cheers - Neil

Post by Jim Barry
When I right click on a song or album and choose "Find Album Info", a window pops up with the title "Find album information". Just below the title bar, there is a small globe icon with the text "redir.metaservices.microsoft.com" next to it. Below that, there is an HTML error page saying "This program cannot display the webpage".
1196776940.701 425 172.20.1.52 TCP_MISS/302 992 GET http://redir.metaservices.microsoft.com/redir/submittoc/? - DIRECT/64.4.52.182 text/html
1196776941.095 395 172.20.1.52 TCP_MISS/200 1298 GET http://fai.music.metaservices.microsoft.com/FAI/default.aspx? - DIRECT/207.46.248.240 text/html
So WMP connects to redir.metaservices.microsoft.com, gets redirected to fai.music.metaservices.microsoft.com, then for some reason gives up and displays a generic error page.
If I try to access http://fai.music.metaservices.microsoft.com/FAI/default.aspx using IE7, I get a similar error page, this time saying "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage".
Anybody know what is going on? I am running fully patched XP/SP2, by the way.
I found several other people reporting this problem, but no solutions.

------------------------------------------------
Digital Media MVP : 2004-2007
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/mvpfaqs

[Jim Barry]

Hi Neil!

Post by Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media]
It looks like those pages check the user agent string. Typically that
would begin with NSPlayer. Is there any chance your proxy strips or
impersonates the UA string ?

Quite possibly. The proxy is Squid, which I believe is in widespread use. I tried socksifying WMP/IE7 using FreeCap, but it just crashes :-(

The funny thing is, I'm certain it was working just fine until a few weeks ago.

Post by Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media]
At this point, my first step would be to delete Cookies and Temporary
Internet Files in IE (which WMP shares) and try again.

Tried that already - no joy. Any other ideas? Do you think anyone at MS might be interested in solving this?

Cheers,

- Jim

[Jim Barry]

Post by Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media]
It looks like those pages check the user agent string. Typically that
would begin with NSPlayer. Is there any chance your proxy strips or
impersonates the UA string ?

OK, I checked this by visiting http://www.useragentstring.com. Squid is passing through the user agent string just fine. Here it is:

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; InfoPath.1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; FDM)

I also enabled user agent logging in Squid. When I hit "Find Album Info" in WMP, the resulting HTTP request contains the user agent string above. No sign of "NSPlayer" anywhere in the string. (Though when I first start up WMP, there is some HTTP traffic with the user agent string "Windows-Media-Player/11.0.5721.5230".)

Cheers,

- Jim

[g***@gmail.com]

I got the same problem and our IPCop firewall uses Squid as well, any
further ideas that might sort it?

Regards,

Gerrard Shaw

[Swifty]

Post by g***@gmail.com
I got the same problem and our IPCop firewall uses Squid as well, any
further ideas that might sort it?

I have a similar (if not identical problem; I just know that I never get
album art these days) and I have no proxy set on my system. It's
entirely possible that my ISP (British Telecom) is running a
"transparent" proxy of some sort.

Using IE6, http://finma.com/atguardtools.php3 gives me the same
HTTP_USER_AGENT string as I get fetching a webpage from the apache
server that I run on my own PC, so it looks unlikely there is anything
fiddling with my User_Agent identifier.

[Jim Barry]

Post by Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media]
The redir site is normal, and determines where your IP is to send you
to a regionalised lookup (I think). FAI is the actual album info
lookup metadata service.

Using lynx with a direct connection, I dumped the HTTP headers for http://fai.music.metaservices.microsoft.com/FAI/default.aspx:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Cache-Control: private,max-age=86400
Connection: close
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 17:06:13 GMT
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
X-AspNet-Version: 2.0.50727
Content-Encoding: gzip
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Transfer-Encoding: chunked

And again, but this time via the proxy:

HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Cache-Control: private,max-age=86400
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 17:06:13 GMT
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
X-AspNet-Version: 2.0.50727
Content-Encoding: gzip
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
X-Cache: MISS from xxx.yyy.com
X-Cache-Lookup: MISS from xxx.yyy.com:8080
Proxy-Connection: close

I wonder whether the problem is due to Squid's lack of support for HTTP 1.1.

[Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media]]

Post by Jim Barry

Post by Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media]
The redir site is normal, and determines where your IP is to send you
to a regionalised lookup (I think). FAI is the actual album info
lookup metadata service.

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Cache-Control: private,max-age=86400
Connection: close
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 17:06:13 GMT
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
X-AspNet-Version: 2.0.50727
Content-Encoding: gzip
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Cache-Control: private,max-age=86400
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 17:06:13 GMT
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
X-AspNet-Version: 2.0.50727
Content-Encoding: gzip
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
X-Cache: MISS from xxx.yyy.com
X-Cache-Lookup: MISS from xxx.yyy.com:8080
Proxy-Connection: close
I wonder whether the problem is due to Squid's lack of support for HTTP 1.1.

Those are the response not the request headers. If Squid is using
HTTP/1.0 then it will not be passing the HOST header up to the
metaservices address (the IP that's resolved from the DNS name
fai.music.metaservices.microsoft.com)

In that case, it could be another site hosted on that server
(presumably a cluster using reverse-proxy due to traffic volume) is
responding to the content request - or that you're not maintaining the
same server connection throughout repeat requests

You're probably seeing CACHE MISS from Squid because of
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html#sec14.9
which mandates the private cach-control directive to make the cache
not keep a copy of the content.

Similarly, the server is sending Vary headers which AFAIK should not
be routed through HTTP/1.0 caches. WMP and IE share internet settings

So I guess the obvious question might be - in IE, Tools -> Internet
Options -> Advanced -> HTTP 1.1 settings : Is 'Use HTTP 1.1 through
proxy connections' ticked ?

HTH
Cheers - Neil
------------------------------------------------
Digital Media MVP : 2004-2007
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/mvpfaqs

[Jim Barry]

Post by Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media]
So I guess the obvious question might be - in IE, Tools -> Internet
Options -> Advanced -> HTTP 1.1 settings : Is 'Use HTTP 1.1 through
proxy connections' ticked ?

Yes, and when I untick it, "Find Album Info" starts working. Thanks Neil!

[Patti]

HellllP! I looked at this below, and it wasn't ticked. The first box, Use
HTTP 1.1 was ticked. I un-ticked it... it still didn't work. I ticked the
one you mentioned below, and it didn't work. I un-ticked it again and
nothing.

I am not really computer savvy, but I have a broadband connection through a
cable modem. My Find Album Info isn't working either. Any suggestions?

Post by Jim Barry

Post by Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media]
So I guess the obvious question might be - in IE, Tools -> Internet
Options -> Advanced -> HTTP 1.1 settings : Is 'Use HTTP 1.1 through
proxy connections' ticked ?

Yes, and when I untick it, "Find Album Info" starts working. Thanks Neil!
--
Jim Barry, MVP (Windows SDK)

[zachd [MSFT]]

Is it working currently? It sounds like your UserAgent isn't set or is
being stripped by some part of the request process... ?
--
Speaking for myself only.
See http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html for some helpful WMP info.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
--

Post by Patti
HellllP! I looked at this below, and it wasn't ticked. The first box, Use
HTTP 1.1 was ticked. I un-ticked it... it still didn't work. I ticked the
one you mentioned below, and it didn't work. I un-ticked it again and
nothing.
I am not really computer savvy, but I have a broadband connection through a
cable modem. My Find Album Info isn't working either. Any suggestions?

Post by Jim Barry

Post by Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media]
So I guess the obvious question might be - in IE, Tools -> Internet
Options -> Advanced -> HTTP 1.1 settings : Is 'Use HTTP 1.1 through
proxy connections' ticked ?

Yes, and when I untick it, "Find Album Info" starts working. Thanks Neil!
--
Jim Barry, MVP (Windows SDK)

[stevebentley]

I have read the posts on this subject with interest. You won't believe
it but it is a fire wall problem.

Disable your firewall and it works fine. The site is blocked by the
firewall. I have tried to enter the address
fai.music.metaservices.microsoft.com into the allowed sites but this
has not worked.

Sorry that I can only identify the problem and not provide the
solution. Over to you for that.

Good luck. Steve.

[p***@gmail.com]

Post by Jim Barry

Post by Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media]
So I guess the obvious question might be - in IE, Tools -> Internet
Options -> Advanced -> HTTP 1.1 settings : Is 'Use HTTP 1.1 through
proxy connections' ticked ?

Yes, and when I untick it, "Find Album Info" starts working. Thanks Neil!
--
Jim Barry, MVP (Windows SDK)

Very useful advice Neil Smith ! It works when untick 'Use HTTP 1.1 through proxy connections'

[s***@gmail.com]

If you're running an anti spybot program i.e. spybot anti beacon the will stop it wmp11/12 from gathering any data. Turn it off first and then it should work.

Using Windows 10

[thompcha]

;3374459']
So I guess the obvious question might be - in IE, Tools -> Internet
Options -> Advanced -> HTTP 1.1 settings : Is 'Use HTTP 1.1 through
proxy connections' ticked ?

Thanks so much! I struggled with this for a long time, and now it'
solved

--
thompch
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[Okhm]

Problem Solved:)

Just push the button Reset Internet Explorer Settings,and Find Album
Info works immediately:)

Tools - Options - Advanced - Reset Internet Explorer

[ericrmarx]

Okhm

I've been wrestling with this problem for 2 months. I tried the reset
and it didn't work. I am not computer savy and have no idea what most
of this thread is talking about. Any other ideas on how to fix this?

[mbby2k]

Post by Okhm
Problem Solved:)
Just push the button Reset Internet Explorer Settings,and Find Album
Info works immediately:)
Tools - Options - Advanced - Reset Internet Explorer

thanks it really works u are great

[ericrmarx]

This thread is two years old but I'll try it anyway. Same problem - wmp
used to access fai.metaservices.microsoft.com and get the album info.
Now it shows the redir.met......site and cannot display the webpage.
The only thing I can think of that might have caused all this was to try
to network a few computers on a wireless system. I've called HP
support, Microsoft support and AT&T support but got nowhere. I've tried
firewalls off and on, sharing off and on, the wmp share files is
checked. And unfortunately I am not very computer savy and don't know
what half the words all of you used in the thread mean. If someone does
have an answer you would need to explain it like you were talking to a
moron - because you would be.

Thanks,

Eric
***@hotmail.com

[mbby2k]

Problem Solved:)

Just push the button Reset Internet Explorer Settings,and Find Album
Info works immediately:)

Tools - Options - Advanced - Reset Internet Explorer

plain english dude rset the explorer it worked for me, have u tried
this course of action

[ericrmarx]

I tried the reset solution - twice - but no go. I'm thinking I have a
virus. iTunes won't conect to the iTunes store either.

[ericrmarx]

I tried the reset solution - twice - but no go. I'm thinking I have a
virus. iTunes won't conect to the iTunes store either.

[beijk]

solution has arrived. automaticly !
this morning it worked again: while i was ripping a nice cd he foun
album info just as it did earlier.
heppie agai

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[beijk]

Correction on my reply of yesterday..
It works every now and then

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