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The error returned seems to be "this is not a real audio document" or "undefined string"
Note: I am in the process of re-encoding all the narrations in RA 5 format for much improved clarity. I also
have about 20 brand new narrations to add as soon as I get the chance.
If you get an error just update your Real Audio player, it's free. First thing is to bookmark or add this
site to your favorites then Click here to go to their
download area, follow their instructions and return to enjoy the narrations. If they still don't work then
read on and do what is outlined below to fix it.
All the Audio files on the Aesop site have been tested on 3 different systems using RA 5.0.
There are 2 other systems here that work fine even when running thru a proxy
(software redirector "Wingate" from my network to the modem ) on my system. All systems here are running
either Win 95, OSR 2, Win 98, Cyrix 6x86 - pr166, pr200 or Amd K6-2 300, 16, 32 and 128 megs respectively.
I do not know of anyone personally that has not been able to hear the files. Therefore the problem must
be a fluke of individual system configuration and seldomly occuring.
However I do know that most all other web sites use RA version 2 audio files. I choose not to because of
the extremely inferior sound quality and the fact that 2.0 files are about double in size. Therefore
if your system works on other sites with real audio and not mine then you probably do not have RA 5
or newer installed or it may not be installed properly and it is not your fault. RA has a bug in
their install program that may not update the old system files. Read on for info.
All I hear is that comment, 4 times to date. No one ever tells me what type of system and browser
they are using. All I can say is that there has been over 6000 successful reads on just the "Ant and the
Grasshopper" RA file, according to the server logs in a 25 day stretch.
But fear not, I looked into it and came up with the following FAQ's on Real Audio's web site:
http://service.real.com/help/faq/
http://service.real.com/help/faq/p5manual.html#iefail
Maybe something on one of their many other pages.. they have many and they are not very well organized nor updated.
Personally I think that they have a long way to getting their tech support pages straight. The first link above
is for RA 5.0 or newer however the title of the page states "RealPlayer 5.0 beta". Nevermind the title
the information is pertinent to any update version, 5.0 beta, Real Player 5.0, plus or G2.
They report that if you install IE 3 that came with Win 95 and then upgrade to a newer Real Audio
then there are 5 files that get stuck in the system directory that could cause this very error.
I have installed the 5.0 version of RealPlayer on a system with Microsoft Internet
Explorer 3.0x. Why do I receive various error messages from the RealPlayer ?
Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0x installs RealAudio Player 2.1 during its installation process.
To avoid possible .dll conflicts, you need to remove this version from your system to get the
player to work correctly.
1.Delete raplayer directory and the following
.dll files from the windows/system directory:
ra32.dll
ra3214_4.dll
ra3228_8.dll
ra32dnet.dll
ragui32.dll
2.Delete the raplayer.exe file from the Windows\System
directory. Be sure to retain your serial number. You
need it to reinstall.
3.After deleting all the RealAudio 2.1 Player files,
reinstall the RealPlayer 5.0 .
Installing the new version does not overwrite them nor take them out on it's own. This is a problem
with the Read Audio install program and has nothing to do with the quality of the Audio files
on Aesop's Fables..
Please do read the Faq's on Real's site and try those things. Let me know if it works or it does'nt.
Maybe I can be of more help and I really need to know so that I can warn others of this potential problem.
btw: The problem seems to occur mostly on AOL type machines because Aol 3.0 is IE 3.
I Do not have Aol installed anywhere here nor do I personally know of anyone that does
but I do have IE 3 installed on all my systems and never had the problem.
I just know that I should have written the audio driver in Java and done away with all these RA problems..
- John
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