I had been using VLC for the last year and had been very happy with it. However, one day it started to refuse to play avi files. If I attempted to open an avi the program froze and I had to force quit. There was no crash log. It would not play avis off hard disk or off cd.
There was also a problem with the toolbar. While I had this problem, VLC would still play other non-avi file types. However, while playing other file types, if I tried to use the toolbar (eg to change the audio track) I got the same problem: freeze requiring a force quit. Strangely enough, I could not even use the toolbar to open a non-avi file: if I used the Apple+O shortcut the "Open" window came up and I could continue as normal, but if I tried to use the toolbar, even before anything was playing, the program froze.
I was running version 0.8.1 when the problem first arose. I tried downloading the latest beta version to see if that was any different but it wasn't. I then tried 0.8.2 when that came out: same problem. I was using a G4 iBook (933 MHz) running OSX 10.3.9
I went back and reread the forums looking for a hint as to what may be causing this problem. I tried resetting my preferences (seems to be the answer to a lot of problems
) but that didn't help. Then, from reading more forums it dawned on me that maybe some other program was interfering with VLC. So I finally worked out the culprit was... that evil little codec called DivX 5.2.1 
!!! Anyway, I (eventually) managed to uninstall DivX and it's all back to normal. Yay!I only had DivX because my friend (a PC user
) told me to get it to play some thing he was trying to show me - I can't even remember what it was. Completely screwed up my video and all for what?!The moral: never listen to a PC user AND don't install DivX 5.2.1