Myspace Music Problems

Myspace Music Won't Play?

I hear this question from Myspace users a lot, with some variations on the theme. For some, the music will start automatically when the Myspace profile is viewed, but it doesn't work all the time. Others complain that it never starts automatically. And some report that the music starts playing, but stops part of the way through the song.

NOTE: If you have questions about how to ADD music or a sound clip to your Myspace profile, see my article Add Music to Myspace before continuing here. For an example of a profile that has BOTH music and a sound clip, see Bob's Myspace profile.

The first thing to check when you have this problem is your Myspace profile settings. Login to Myspace, click on Edit Profile, then click Profile Songs. If the box next to Enable My Profile Song to automatically start is NOT checked, then click to check the box and press Submit. Reload your profile and the music SHOULD start.

If the music still doesn't start automatically when you view the profile, or it starts and stops, then most likely it's a Myspace internal problem. With 70+ million people pounding the Myspace website, there are times when the service just can't keep up with the demand. Because music requires a lot of bandwidth (network resources), it's likely that under the covers, there are multiple servers that pump out the music files when profiles are viewed. If one or more of those servers is bogged down or has crashed, the result might be that some Myspace users will see this "no music" problem and others will not.

Are Your Speakers On?

Another possible cause could be that the song was removed by the artist, or replaced by a new version. Try deleting the song from your profile, then re-adding it. If you've done that, and checked the Enable My Profile Song to automatically start box, then it's probably a temporary Myspace problem outside of your control.

Problems With Autostart?

The instructions above are for the music player that Myspace adds to your page when you pick a song from the Myspace music library. If you have used the instructions in Add Music to Myspace, to add your OWN music file to a Myspace profile, and you have noticed that Myspace strips out the AUTOSTART option in the EMBED code, here's good news.

After entering the EMBED code as shown in Add Music to Myspace, save your profile. Myspace will turn it into an ugly but equivalent OBJECT tag. You can then add a <param> statement to the OBJECT code. Try <param name="autostart" value="true" /> OR <param name="autostart" value="false" /> depending on your needs. I know this sounds like voodoo, but once you go back in to edit the code a second time, it should be obvious where to put the PARAM statement, because there are a bunch of them.

Have you found a solution for this problem that's not mentioned here? Post your comments below...