Car Talk MP3 Player: FAQs

What technology is required to hear the show on cartalk.com?

The Car Talk MP3 Player requires the Adobe Flash Player version 9 or later. This player plug-in is available free from Adobe and is pre-installed in many web browsers.

To download the latest version:
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/

Here are system requirements for the player:
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/systemreqs/

Additional support can be found here:
http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/

The Car Talk MP3 Player is designed for and has been tested with the following platforms and browsers:

Windows 2000/XP/Vista:
* Internet Explorer 6.x or 7.x
* Mozilla Firefox 3.x

MacOS X
* Safari (MacOS 10.3 -10.5)
* Mozilla Firefox 3.x

I get the following error: "The Player requires version 9 or higher of the Adobe Flash Player", but I already have Flash installed. What should I do?

Please consult Adobe's help pages for troubleshooting Flash installations for Windows, Intel-based Macs or Linux or Solaris.

The Player window pops and looks fine, I hear a sponsor ad but that's it. Now what do I do?

Some browsers require that you click the right-pointing "play" arrow to start the Car Talk audio.

Help! All I see is a red screen.

One of two things might be happening.

You may have a pop-up blocker on that does not allow the content to appear. Try pasting "npr-images.adbureau.net" into the exceptions list in your pop-up blocker. In Firefox 3.x, if you don't have the "Accept third-party cookies" option enabled, the player won't work because the ads are blocked. Enabling this option in Preferences under the Privacy tab should make the player work.

Or, you may have the NPR ad server "firewalled." You'll need to change a setting in your computer's operating system. Locate the firewall settings on your operating system and then unblock "npr-images.adbureau.net." This should allow you to get beyond the initial underwriting credit, and hear the show.

The show audio sounds choppy and broken up. What's going on?

To listen to Car Talk online, you'll need adequate download bandwidth on your end. If you're using a dial-up connection, you may experience poor audio quality. If you're using a high-speed connection and are still experiencing choppiness, your bandwidth may be limited on your end, due to congestion, other users or related issues. Try streaming the show at a different time. If you're still experiencing problems, see the Flash Player FAQ.

I tried playing the show, but I get a "loading player, please wait" message that stays up for a quite a while.

During high traffic times, or due to network congestion, you may need to wait for thirty seconds to a minute or more, for the player to load. Hang in there. It'll be worth it — we hope!

Nothing seems to be helping, and none of the answers above addressed my problem. Where can I go for more help?

You can email us, and let us know what steps you've already tried to resolve the issue, what browser and version number you're using, your operating system, and what kind of connection you use to get internet access. Periodically, we review unresolved issues, to see if we can improve the operation of our player. If we can, and it addresses your problem, we'll be back in touch.

We've got good news. Here's a Flash player support forum that can provide additional answers.