ESPN360 Doesn't Work in WinXP Guest

[benker]

With a WinXP SP2 virtual machine, ESPN360 (www.espn360.com) doesn't successfully show video anymore. It used to work in September, October, and November, but I hadn't gone there in a month or so.

Even when it worked a few months ago, there were a few little glitches when I first set it up. Right now I can get to the ESPN360 video window and all of the menus work -- just none of the video displays on the screen.

ESPN360 and Skype are the only things that I need Windows for, and I really want to watch the college football and basketball games in ESPN360.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

[benker]

screenshot of ESPN360 running in WinXP guest OS

[rainbow]

Did you update VirtualBox to version 2.1.0? I also noticed that the classic ESPN360 player doesn't even load properly on the host OS, but the beta version does. ESPN360 requires at least 512 MB of memory and it may cause Internet Explorer to hang.

I don't know if it will even work with Firefox on the guest OS. I'm using Windows XP SP3 guest too.

[rainbow]

On a side note, if you have problems trying to get ESPN360 to work on Windows XP guest, try filing out a feedback form and inform the staff why is ESPN360 not working for you?:

​http://broadband.espn.go.com/espn360/feedback

[benker]

Replying to ppgrainbow:

Hi "ppgrainbow". Here are more of the details.

Yes, I am using VirtualBox 2.1.0 and WinXP SP3 with all subsequent patches. I have tried both MSIE and Firefox (both supported according to the ESPN360 website; and each worked a month and a half ago but I haven't used ESPN360 in a while and have upgraded my host OS to 10/08, guest OS to SP3, and VirtualBox to 2.1.0 since then), but they both have the same problem with the player...... menus work, but no video.

I had tried both the ESPN360 classic and ESPN360 beta, but both experience the same problem of no videos. I am running my WinXP guest with 750MB of memory and no other apps running other than the browser and ESPN360 player.

I hadn't reported any problems through the feedback form, but I did call the ESPN360 helpline. They weren't able to help other than to have me try disabling UDP.

My host machine is a Sun Ultra 24 box running Solaris 10/08 x86.

[rainbow]

Did disabling UDP work when you tried to run the ESPN360 player?

I have a feeling that ESPN360 only works on the host machine. If you're lucky, you might want to try running the ESPN360 player via the Windows XP guest on VirtualPC.

[benker]

Disabling UDP didn't make a difference.

ESPN360 worked on my WinXP guest in September, October, and November. Since then, I updated Solaris from 5/08 to 10/08 and Virtualbox from 2.0.2 to 2.1.0

[rainbow]

I have a feeling that updating VirtualBox from 2.0.6 (or earlier) to 2.1.0 might have broke the ESPN360 player. I'm hoping that this issue somehow gets fixed sometime in the beginning of the new year.

I hadn't used ESPN360 on Windows XP guest since installing it and watching reruns of X Games 14.

[will hansard]

I've just been trying to get espn360 working in a virtual box for a few days. my qemu couple of images wouldn't work with it. same as above, everything, but the video. I installed the older VirtualBox 1.6.6, and it's the same, but it doesn't show the video much faster than qemu doesn't show it. The newer versions of Virtual Box will not compile the module properly with my source code. vboxdrv: Unknown symbol register_cpu_notifier I was really just wanted to let the guy know that I don't think it's his VirtualBox version.

[rainbow]

Apparently, this might be a design limitation that was implemented since October by ESPN. It's recommended that you don't run ESPN360 under VirtualBox or any other PC virtualisation/emulation programme.

I'll try to provide feedback to ESPN regarding the ability to run ESPN360 under VirtualBox or VMware sometime in a few days.