Why ‘Play Sound’ alert doesn’t work on my server?

Q: When we try test playing an audio file to be configured for an alert, we get an error message. Why file isn’t played?

A: IPHost utilizes codecs provided by OS. It’s not a self-contained media player with all codecs included; it’s just a network monitoring software, so it relies on OS for that.

Typical error code is 0x80040200 which means operating system has no support for given media file type.

If the audio file in question can be played in standalone media player, chances are there are no corresponding codecs installed.

One of solutions is installing Windows Media Player. Note that server Windows distributions do not install Windows Media Player by default, thus required codecs can be missing.

Related topics
Why email alerts are not delivered?
Why ‘Play Sound’ alert doesn’t work in my browser?