JonStarbuck.co.uk

I am a British guy living in San Francisco, I’d like to use the BBC’s iPlayer to listen to BBC Radio from time to time, but almost every time I try to use it RealPlayer gives me the totally unhelpful error message “A General Error Has Occurred”. What does this mean? Is the problem me? Or is it the BBC? Or RealPlayer? I don’t know the answer, I have searched the Internet and got no where, but I think I have a solution!

This is what Real have to say about their “General Error”:

You might receive a “General Error” message when using RealPlayer if the clip you are playing is unavailable or damaged, or if you have a damaged installation of RealPlayer.

So it is either the BBC’s problem or my problem then. Either the BBC are not supplying my computer with the audio clip or my installation if RealPlayer is damaged. Well it is easy to test if it is my installation of RealPlayer, the following link will do that for you - http://service.real.com/realplayer/test/

It turns out that when I test RealPlayer in this way it works fine. I hit the link, RealPlayer launches and the audio streams just fine.

However I notice that when i hit the link on the BBC’s page what is lanced is not the RealPlayer, but the RealPlayer in a BBC iPlayer branded window…

Try the following (it works for me sometimes, and not others):

Click on this link and see if you get the “General Error”. Yea? Then right click this exact same link and select “copy link location” (or “copy short cut” in IE). Open RealPlayer, select “open” from the drop down menu and paste the link into the dialogue box. Work for you? It does me (usually)!

Conclusion; there is something squiffy with the way RealPlayer launches from the BBC website in my web browser. I am not alone in this either, thousands of people have the same problem.

Please, let me know if you found this worked or did not work for you, and indeed if you can explain what is going on here.

Warning - RealPlayer is a nasty bit of software, it agressivly installs itself, steals your settings and tries to get you to pay for it. Be vey carefull when installing.