Can’t play MP4 files on your XBox 360?
Posted on May 4, 2009 at 5:24 am
The XBox 360 is an annoying game console. After first giving me the blinking red ring of death error, which forced me to return it to Microsoft, it has not stopped playing MP4 files after the latest system update!
Firstly, it took quite a bit of time to figure out how to stream MP4 and video files to the Xbox 360 using Windows Media Player, but once I did, it was great because I could watch my movies, TV shows, etc without a problem.
Then came some system update in April and now my XBox 360 doesn’t see MP4 files anymore. It just says “No videos found’” whenever I go into a folder with MP4 files.
Anyway, after wasting more of my time, I was able to figure out how to get my MP4 files playing on the XBox 360 again! For anyone out there with the same problem, I hope this helps you.
Play MP4 files on XBox 360
Step 1: The first thing you want to do is delete the current monitored folders in Windows Media Player.
You can do that by going to Tools, then Options and clicking on the Library tab. Now click on the Monitor Folders button. Go ahead and delete everything from the list except for the defaults.
Step 2: Now you need to stop the Windows Media Player Network Sharing service. You can do this by going to Task Manager and killing two processes (wmpnetwk.exe and wmpnscfg.exe) or you can go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services, right-click on the WMP Network Sharing service and choose Stop.
Step 3: Now that the network sharing service is stopped, we have to delete the entire Windows Media Player library. Note that this will not delete any of your actual media files, it’ll just delete the index that WMP creates.
Navigate to the following location and delete all files that end with .WMDB
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Media Player
Step 4: Now you have to rename all of your .MP4 files to .AVI. Not sure why this has to be done or why it works, but it does! So any MKV files you converted to MP4 will need to be renamed to AVI. Note they do NOT have to be re-encoded, just renamed in Windows Explorer.
Step 5: Now go ahead and open Windows Media Player and go back to the Monitor Folders dialog. Go ahead and re-select the folders that contain the videos you want to stream to the XBox 360.
Let WMP go ahead and re-create the database library of your media collection.
Step 6: Once it’s done, go to the Services console again and this time right-click and choose Restart on the WMP Network Sharing service.
That’s it! Now you should go to your XBox 360 and browse the folders again. Hopefully, like me, you will see your MP4 files, which are again playable!
Also the thing to note is that whenever you add more videos to your folders, you will have to do this whole process again! It’s a royal pain in the butt, but that’s the only way I could get it to work. Enjoy!
» Filed Under Computer Tips
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Awesome TUT!! Thanks man!
I did follow step by step … but I get the same ” No videos Found “..
What a really pain in the butt this is.
Re the XBOX 360 no longer playing MP4s after the latest update. The cure is to simply rename the file .avi, and then it works perfectly.
LISTEN TO JOHN BARTELS.
Fricken genius man. This whole time, all you had to do was rename it as a .avi? I feel like a fool.
Rename to avi, as John says.
How can such a constant source of frustration have such a simple answer? Each time I move apartments at the start of the college semester, I have attempted the pie-in-the sky dream of being able to view my 100+ gb of video magically from my pc to my xbox, and each one ending with only 4 episodes of frisky dingo and heartbreak. This year, after many hours spent, a splitter or 2 downloaded, and a couple of trojans for my trouble, i decided the only logical resolution was my fist through its taunting ring of judgement, when suddenly, like some deus ex machina from a horrible movie, i stumble upon john bartels unassuming post, and learned my 3 year battle could be won with 3 letters. You are my webitizen of the year. I am off to go watch venture brothers on a screen larger than my microwave now.