This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

how to play downloaded files with extension ".acsm", to view Adobe content?

I want to read an e-Book, "Der Endzeitkanzler", available from Goethe Institut (die Onleihe der Bibliotheken des Goethe-Instituts): [Downloaded File "URLLink-3.acsm"]. When this file is opened, a message pops up: "Windows Media Player cannot play the file. The Player might not support the file type or might not support the codec that was used to compress the file."

My browser is Mozilla Firefox 58.0.2 (32 bit), and I am using Windows 10.

I have downloaded two Adobe programs: (1) Adobe Acrobat Reader DC; and (2) Adobe Digital Editions 4.5, but I still can't read the e-book.

Can anyone suggest how to add a player that can read file extension ".acsm", used by Adobe for reading e-Book materials? Or, can Windows Media Player be tweaked in such a way that it can read files with ".acsm" extensions? Or, any other helpful hints...?

Thank you very much for helping!

I want to read an e-Book, "Der Endzeitkanzler", available from Goethe Institut (die Onleihe der Bibliotheken des Goethe-Instituts): [Downloaded File "URLLink-3.acsm"]. When this file is opened, a message pops up: "Windows Media Player cannot play the file. The Player might not support the file type or might not support the codec that was used to compress the file." My browser is Mozilla Firefox 58.0.2 (32 bit), and I am using Windows 10. I have downloaded two Adobe programs: (1) Adobe Acrobat Reader DC; and (2) Adobe Digital Editions 4.5, but I still can't read the e-book. Can anyone suggest how to add a player that can read file extension ".acsm", used by Adobe for reading e-Book materials? Or, can Windows Media Player be tweaked in such a way that it can read files with ".acsm" extensions? Or, any other helpful hints...? Thank you very much for helping!

All Replies (4)

The site might have advice on how best to read their eBook files. What I found in a quick search on .acsm files was "Adobe Digital Editions":

https://helpx.adobe.com/digital-editions/kb/install-digital-editions-windows-7.html

If you save the ACSM file instead of opening it, then try to launch it from the folder where you saved it, does Windows use Adobe Digital Editions? If Windows is sending a file to the wrong program, I recommend you fix that first. There is more info in this article:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4028161/windows-10-change-default-programs

Then in Firefox, hopefully that will be detected automatically. If you need to make a change, you could check here:

  • Windows: "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Options
  • Mac: "3-bar" menu button (or Firefox menu) > Preferences
  • Linux: "3-bar" menu button (or Edit menu) > Preferences
  • Any system: type or paste about:preferences into the address bar and press Enter/Return to load it

Scroll down to the "Files and Applications" section of the page.

There should be a box showing how Firefox would handle different kinds of files. I don't know how ACSM files will be listed on the left side, either under ACSM, or eBooks, or Adobe Digital Editions files, or... can you find anything there?

Thank you, jscher 2000. When I went to Die Onleihe site, they suggested adding the two files that I mentioned that I have downloaded. It didn't seem to help...

Is the problem only in Firefox, or does the same problem occur if you double-click the file in your Downloads folder (or other folder where you saved it)? If the problem occurs when opening a file from disk, please try the Microsoft support article to associate the file with Adobe Digital Editions.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4028161/windows-10-change-default-programs