# WAV plays great in Windows but Asterisk doesn't recognize it

**URL:** <https://community.asterisk.org/t/wav-plays-great-in-windows-but-asterisk-doesnt-recognize-it/33680>\
**Category:** Asterisk Support\
**Created:** [December 29, 2010, 9:46pm UTC](https://community.asterisk.org/t/wav-plays-great-in-windows-but-asterisk-doesnt-recognize-it/33680 "2010-12-29T21:46:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/asterisk/original/2X/4/475d0c889911cfb84ac4881ad6df8b523e3f9105.png) [@system](https://community.asterisk.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [December 29, 2010, 9:46pm UTC](https://community.asterisk.org/t/wav-plays-great-in-windows-but-asterisk-doesnt-recognize-it/33680/1 "2010-12-29T21:46:59Z")

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I have a bunch of WAV files that Asterisk refuses to recognize/play. They were made on a Mac and play great in Windows, i.e. Windows Media Player.

If I convert them to GSM Asterisk plays them but they sound horrible so I’d like to keep them WAV.

I’m running Asterisk 1.8.

In my sip.conf file I do have the following lines:

`[general]
...
;disallow=all ; First disallow all codecs
allow=ulaw ; Allow codecs in order of preference
allow=alaw
allow=gsm`

The errors Asterisk reports are:

`[Dec 29 14:18:43] WARNING[2565]: format_wav.c:108 check_header: Does not say fmt
[Dec 29 14:18:43] WARNING[2565]: file.c:371 fn_wrapper: Unable to open format wav`

I guess my questions are:

- How do I know what kind of WAV files I have?
- I do have the Linux program “sox” but the amount of options you can specify are mind boggling. Is there a specific format I can give “sox” that Asterisk will definitely recognize?

Thanks in advance!

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**Author:** ![dejanst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc348/32.png) [@dejanst](https://community.asterisk.org/u/dejanst)\
**Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 8:11am UTC](https://community.asterisk.org/t/wav-plays-great-in-windows-but-asterisk-doesnt-recognize-it/33680/2 "2010-12-30T08:11:40Z")

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[viewtopic.php?f=13&t=72973&p=141687&hilit=sox&sid=5e004db2500a99c05d3bf5933a5c5cfd#p141687](http://forums.digium.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=72973&p=141687&hilit=sox&sid=5e004db2500a99c05d3bf5933a5c5cfd#p141687)

Refer to the last post 😉

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/asterisk/original/2X/4/475d0c889911cfb84ac4881ad6df8b523e3f9105.png) [@system](https://community.asterisk.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 7:02pm UTC](https://community.asterisk.org/t/wav-plays-great-in-windows-but-asterisk-doesnt-recognize-it/33680/3 "2010-12-30T19:02:28Z")

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Worked great, thank you!