VLC player behind problem with freezing?

[xprt007]

Hi there

A couple of weeks ago, I upgraded Windows 10 Pro to the latest 1903 build. I do not remember, but there might have been a VLC update to the 64 Bit version I was using around the same time. I'm sure, though, soon after one of the 2, while watching video ... and that's streaming video ... I noticed the player screen turning green. That did not happen when using the MPC- Home cinema player I was mostly using, then.
I did a search online and it was recommended that one goes to Input/Codecs settings and disables Hardware-accelerated decoding. This seemed to solve the problem, but left me wondering why I had never needed this before on any PC I use, even in the period just before this, although I use VLC relatively frequently.

Then in the last couple of days, the PC has suddenly frozen 2, 3 times for no apparent reason, only being usable after forcing a shutdown + new start, as I did not expect it to "wake up" and react to a range of keyboard commands. The first time, there were a number of programs running, including the VLC player.
Yesterday though, it was after a power up with only the VLC player running, as I was watching a CNN live stream.
This is quite annoying and disruptive. It made me suspect the VLC was behind this issue. I have not had this for probably over a year.

Some facts:

• My Samsung notebook has an AMD A8-4500M APU HD graphics CPU

• 8GB RAM, AMD Radeon HD 7640G graphic card

• Windows 10 Pro, all available Windows updates and of all other software installed. Same to drivers, including graphic card from AMD.

• I have no memory-related or similar issues.

Before submitting this post and about 2 weeks after solving the above-mentioned problem of a green screen by disabling Hardware-accelerated decoding, I just decided to try setting this back to the default (Automatic?), the German TV stream had normal colors, i.e. no green, same with local video. So I am not sure whether this is permanently gone and was probably solved either by some subsequent Windows or VLC update, etc .. in the last 2 weeks.

So my questions:

• What could have caused the green screen issue and could it now been solved? Could it be it was triggered by Upgrade to Win 10 1903 Build and a subsequent update of Windows or VLC solved it?

• What could be behind this absolutely random freezing and how can I solve it as it's very disruptive, as one has to force a shutdown, losing all open work, + wastes a lot of time before the power up is complete to continue working, etc? As said, this is a recent issue in the past week or so and has only happened with VLC playing streaming video and the last time it happened was after a fresh PC start and it was the only program running as I watched a CNN stream

. I have not had the issue at any other time, although the notebook is on mostly over 12 hours a day, often multi-tasking and either using the VLC or MPC media player almost all the time.

Thank you in advance

[Lotesdelere]

What is your graphics card driver version number ?
And we need more info about the streams you are playing so we can do some testing as well.

[xprt007]

Hi

Thank you for the response.
Actually just before posting this, the problem struck again, though this time, although the VLC was on in the background, I think it was not streaming anything. Instead, i had another program Online TV 15 (from onlinetv15.de) streaming German TV news + some other tasks running.
So not sure the VLC is the (only) possible culprit.

My graphic card otherwise is AMD Radeon HD 7640G.

The TV streams at the time of the freezing problem are mostly manually extracted from the page source of [url]https://www.livenewsnow.com/american/cnn-news-usa.html.[/url]... Since the direct stream URL keeps changing, the current one is likely to be invalid when you test, BUT they have the ending ".../index.m3u8", around line 240.
I use the VLC to listen to diverse streams, though from different sites.

As said, the issue of freezing was up to about 7 - 10 days ago non-existent.
I also need to add over this time, since the update to Win10 Pro Build 1903 at the end of May, I have also updated diverse drivers identified by Drive Easy Pro and iObit Driver Booster EXCEPT those recommended in both cases for the graphic card. For some reason, I have had to revert to what I had before, because with the new one's the PC seems to overheat. This is not a new problem, though as in the past, I have had a similar problem with iObit and specifically the drivers it recommends specifically for the graphic card.
As I'm writing this, with several Firefox Windows open + a stream in VLC the CPU temperatures are between 48 - 51°C, whereas with the recommended update, they are mostly between 70 and 90° C or more, which cannot be normal.
The current drivers are one of the 2 options a tool on the AMD page identifies and recommends for that graphic card.

So I'm a bit confused, as said, especially after the last freezing of today, where I think the VLC was merely on in the background, but not streaming, unlike another program. It all happens so fast and suddenly and in this case, the loudspeakers remained buzzing, though every thing else froze fast and I had to force a shutdown.

So I would appreciate any help t get rid of this problem.

Thank you in advance

[xprt007]

Correction

Sorry, the AMD Radeon HD 7640G driver version number is 15.200.1062.1004 with driver date given as 03.08.2015
As said, iObit Driver Booster in the last year or so recommends what it considers a more recent driver but it has, including of late if updated consistently leads to the notebook overheating, with temperatures ranging mostly from 70 ° - over 90°C, fan running too much, if installation succeeds and does not get stuck with the screen going black and not "recovering" from what should be a blink or 2.. I then have to restart and uninstall the new driver.

Of late a Driver Easy Pro recommended update has got rolled back for the same reason. With the current drivers, which served me well before the change to Win 10 Build 1903 + subsequent driver + other software updates, the temperatures are currently 46° - 51° C and mostly below 60 °C with several tasks running.

Regards

[xprt007]

May be it's a co-incidence, but since the last time it happened, the day of the last post, I decided to give the VLC a break and only used the Media Player Classic for exactly the same tasks and I have not had this random freezing. Before that, it had got frozen on 2 days in a row and a couple of times in under 2 weeks. As mentioned above, for most of the around 12 hours the notebook is on, I have one of the media players playing some form of live stream, mostly one from the above mentioned site.
I will in the coming days switch to only use the VLC and see.