Windows Media Player failures unpredicatable

[highmeadowhiker]

Operating System: MS Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
CPU: Intel Core i7 920 @ 2.67GHz
RAM: 9.0GB Triple-Channel DDR3 @ 531MHz 7-7-7-20
Motherboard: DELL Inc. 0X501H (CPU 1)
Graphics: Dell 2209WA(Digital) on NVIDIA GeForce GTS 240
Hard Drives: 640GB Western Digital WDC WD6400AAKS-75A7B2 (IDE)
300GB Maxtor Maxtor OneTouch II IEEE 1394 SBP2 Device (1394)
Optical Drives: HL-DT-ST BD-RE BH20N
PLDS DVD+-RW DH-16AAS
HP Virtual CD 4607 USB Device
Audio: Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio


Something is changed or corrupted: For the first 9 months of using this computer, purchased with the OS preinstalled, MPG files opened, by default, with Windows Media Player 12, and ran as expected. Now, I get intermittent failures and successes, mostly the former. I went to the MS download site, and learned that there is no download of just WMP12, because it is part of Win7.


I have never experienced these problems with WMP11 on WinXP.


A common sequence of events is: A given MPG (a home movie clip created using Roxio) opens and plays as expected. I close WMP, and open the very same file. WMP virtually hangs with “opening media” phase never completing and the file never playing. So, I close WMP by clicking the X in the upper right corner. Task Manager shows “Default IME Not Responding.” I kill/end it in Task Mgr. Sometimes WMPlayer.exe is still a Process, though WMP is not in the Task Mgr application list. Sometimes I get a “Server execution failed.”


It has always been my experience that if I “open with” Windows Live Movie Maker, instead of the default WMP, the file plays as expected. They also “open with” VLC Media Player, and play as expected, tho I do need to select Audio Track 2. Therefore, I decline to blame the MPG file, but something to do with WMP.


Please know that in accordance with some forum posts, I have used services.msc to disable Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service.


The failure of WMP to open MPG files is intermittent, inconsistent, unpredictable. I activated this computer in January, and the problems are only in the past 2 or 3 weeks. Please give me a clue to solving this issue.

I got search hits on some of the relevant terms, in this forum, but failed to find an answer to my particular case. Please help me navigate appropriately if I missed the answer.

 

[usasma]

I have nearly 0 experience w/WMP - but if you'll upload these reports I'll have a look for error messages: http://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-debugging/96879-blue-screen-death-bsod-posting-instructions.html
I understand that you're not having BSOD's - but the reports will still help us.

 

[highmeadowhiker]

Results of running Perfmon and BSODjcgriff tool

It would appear that I have not cleaned out any of these log files since I activated the computer in January. I would like advice on if and how one should delete not useful entries in these logs, and conversely ones to keep.

I have previously noted some files named "report.wer" and some websites offer to sell me tools for opening them and being able to read them. I have 124 of them, dating from this June. As I have had this computer since January, I wonder if the system itself does not prune them after so many have been collected, or by date, etc. Some have wording in the subdirectory name that explicitly relate to a crash or hang, and some certainly imply that they contain some information associated with crashes and hangs that have given me lots of trouble. I intend to attach a zipped WER file. Is there a way that makes sense for me to be able to open and read WER files?

Decades ago, starting in 1960, I was a computer programmer writing in absolute octal machine language, in other words I keyed in the computer's operation codes in octal, and the addresses were absolute, meaning nothing easy like a symbolic location. We had to specify numeric address in the memory. We had a utility that could relocate addresses based upon a tag we placed in the op code itself, and it added a constant to the address field. Very extremely tedious, and I was glad when about a year later we could use an assembler, and even more glad when we could write in FORTRAN. In the next 20 years or so, I wrote in maybe a dozen languages, culminating in C++ when I took a couple of university courses in that system. So, I am not computer-ignorant, but I know the extreme difficulty of reading core dumps.

If there is information in WER files that would guide a user who has not been a programmer for a long time, and who never got into any of the various Windows operating systems, can you tell me of a free or cheap utility I could try?

If you get any hints of why WMPlayer12.exe hangs from the zipped files I have attached, I will truly appreciate it.

 

[highmeadowhiker]

CBS.log - What should I be looking for?

I found a way to get around the "permission denied" or whatever the message was, and was able to open the CBS.log file. Given that sfc /scannow reported that there were corrupted files, perhaps appropriately scanning this log file will give me valuable clues. Most of what is in the file is very noisy, so I need to learn how to zero in on what is relevant. Other than brute force reading of every line and hoping to detect what is relevant to corrupted system files, is there a better approach for a Windows ignoramus to take?

 

[usasma]

Don't delete the logfiles - they help if you're having problems. They don't take up very much room - and storage is relatively cheap these days. Personally, I'm not all that familiar with .wer or CBS.log files - but will wade through them when I must. Basically, just wade through them looking for information that may help. FWIW - there is WER information in the last category of the MSINFO32 report (that's where I found the stuff about BSOD's that I mention later on).

The perfmon report suggests that there may be a problem with your TrippLite PowerAlert. Please uninstall it. Feel free to reinstall it AFTER we're finished troubleshooting.

The perfmon report also reports issues with your Maxtor 1394 Storage Front Panel. I would suggest uninstalling that also - and reinstalling it AFTER we're finished troubleshooting.

As late as 12 Sep 2010 you were having BSOD's - what did you do to fix them?
Please check in C:\Windows for a file named MEMORY.DMP If you find it, zip it up and upload it to a free file hosting service - then post the link here so we can look at it.

There was a recent change to the debugging machine when it involves STOP 0x9F errors - so the dump file will help us out if you can find it.

I don't recommend the use of registry boosters/cleaners as they don't provide much of a "boost" and can cause more damage than they're worth. If you're interested, here's an article on it. It's written for XP, but applies equally to Vista/Win7: XP Fixes Myth #1: Registry Cleaners - Windows BBS

The following driver failed to load: zmhs
Did you recently uninstall anything?

Let's see what's in here: C:\Users\Lynn\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\
Please zip it up and upload it here (if it's small enough). If not, then upload it to a free file hosting service and post the link here.

I also see disk issues of some sort, but can't quite nail down what it is.
Your Roxio program has crashed for some reason - and that may be associated with the WMP issues - so I'd suggest uninstalling it to test.

Let's see what info the above files give us. If, as I suspect, they don't give us much, then we'll have to figure out something else to try.

 

[highmeadowhiker]

A file locator search finds none named "memory.dmp."
I compressed the file folder you mentioned. I looked at reviews of free file upload sites, and found Box.net.
box.net/shared/951kk2g72m
is the location. I have tested the download, and it works. But I still do not have a utility to enable opening of WER files. I do not plan to buy a utility that will open WER files until I get a recommendation from an experienced person.

 

[highmeadowhiker]

I tried searching in this forum on "wer"
What came back was

1. Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms.
   The following words are either very common, too long, or too short and were not included in your search : wer

Well, I just found a free utility that opens the wer files. Now the challenge is learning how to take corrective actiion. The utility is named AppCrashView.exe from nirsoft.net.

 

[usasma]

Don't purchase anything to read WER files - it's not necessary.
Right click on the Report.wer file and select Open
Then select "Select from a list of installed programs"
Then select "Notepad"
Uncheck the "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file"
Then click on OK to open the .wer file in Notepad.

I am guessing that Roxio is the problem here (from the .wer reports that involve it). Please uninstall it to see if that's the case. If not, then feel free to reinstall it once we're done troubleshooting.