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After upgrading from 0.8.6 to 0.9.6, any video freezes the operating system shortly after it finishing, stopping, or if I terminate the application using any means. This seems to occur with any format and any codec; but only video files. I've tried uninstalling and redownloading 0.9.6, without success; and also downgrading back to 0.8.6 and even 0.8.2, again without success; each time clearing the cache and personal setting upon uninstall. Clearly it's some shared file, library, codec or program causing the problem; though I've not found any other application to have a similar error.

Using versions 0.8.2, 0.8.6, 0.9.6. Windows XP SP3 32bit. AMD 64bit 3800 X2 2.0GHZ. 1.5GB RAM. ATI 9600 256MB using DirectX 9.0c.

-vvvv Doesn't seem to output anything to indicate the fault. And stops just after freeing DirectX resources. The system logs show the freeze to be a BSoD 0x0000008e (0xc0000005, 0x806e494f, 0x9fea2b18, 0x00000000). But doesn't manage to save a mini-dump, and doesn't display the BSoD screen. Rendering video with OpenGL has no effect on the problem.

any video freezes the operating system

VLC cannot freeze or crash your OS. Broken hardware or bad device drivers can do that.

So far as I can determine; there aren't any damaged devices, and upon this fault I reinstalled DirectX 9.0c and every other system driver I could think of that could possibly cause the error. Not to mention that having the problem for the last four days, no other program has been playing up; including media applications akin to VLC I've been using to play the same video files causing the problem. I'm perfectly willing to accept it's a bad codec causing the problem; having over two-dozen on the system I haven't found the time to reinstall all of them yet, though I have reinstalled all the common ones.

Does VLC access/unload all codecs when running a single video file?

I have exactly the same problem but only with videos that use AC3 as audio. Or at least those are the only ones that freeze my system so far.
Whenever i press stop, close VLC or even kill the vlc process and im watching a video with AC3 the screen will freeze after 2 seconds and the system becomes unresponsive, not even ctrl+alt+del works, nothing but a manual reboot of the machine.
Again this only happen in videos with AC3 for me., other videos with MP3 work just fine.
And also there are no problems with the sound on the videos, everything works just fine until you stop watching it.

Also completely different hardware than Nigholith, i have:
Nvidia gforce 4 mx, amd xp 2600, windows xp sp2, onboard realtek sound card

Also completely different hardware than Nigholith, i have:
Nvidia gforce 4 mx, amd xp 2600, windows xp sp2, onboard realtek sound card

Foolishly, I didn't consider it could be a sound problem. I've recently reverted from a PCI Soundblaster card back to my onboard Reaktek AC'97 system; upgrading most of my audio codecs in the process. It coincided with both the upgrade to 0.9.6 and the fault. I'll try attacking the problem from a sound perspective; and see if I come up with anything.

EDIT: Yup, seems to be only AC3 encoded videos causing the problem. Though the same AC3 encoded videos will still run perfectly well on any other media player.

yes its related to the AC3 sound, but it is also a VLC problem as both windows media player and bsplayer play the video files just fine and no freezing happens when the video is stopped (with AC3filter 1.51a installed)

yes its related to the AC3 sound, but it is also a VLC problem as both windows media player and bsplayer play the video files just fine and no freezing happens when the video is stopped (with AC3filter 1.51a installed)

Running 1.46 Stable myself. When did your problem start? And did it coincide with upgrading AC3 or VLC?

Just installed another PCI SoundBaster sound card; and it looks at have fixed it. Must either be a specific problem with AC3/VLC and the way it accesses some Realtek onboard systems; or the way another library or application does.

Please do the following yotomote; still wanna track down the exact nature of this thing: Go to Start Menu > Run, type "dxdiag", don't update certificates when prompted, hit the "Save all Information" button at the bottom of the window. Open the .txt file it saves, and copy all of the "Sound Devices" information here.

Just installed the latest AC97 drivers and it still crashes.

Sound Devices
-------------
Description: Realtek AC97 Audio
Default Sound Playback: Yes
Default Voice Playback: Yes
Hardware ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_008A&SUBSYS_00801462&REV_A1
Manufacturer ID: 1
Product ID: 100
Type: WDM
Driver Name: ALCXWDM.SYS
Driver Version: 5.10.0000.6300 (English)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
WHQL Logo'd: n/a
Date and Size: 9/24/2008 10:40:22, 4122368 bytes
Other Files:
Driver Provider: Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
HW Accel Level: Full
Cap Flags: 0x0
Min/Max Sample Rate: 0, 0
Static/Strm HW Mix Bufs: 0, 0
Static/Strm HW 3D Bufs: 0, 0
HW Memory: 0
Voice Management: No
EAX(tm) 2.0 Listen/Src: Yes, Yes
I3DL2(tm) Listen/Src: Yes, Yes
Sensaura(tm) ZoomFX(tm): No
Registry: OK
Sound Test Result: Not run

Downgrading from Realtek 4.06 to 3.74 (MSI's the only working mirror I can find) seems to have solved the problem. Clearly an issue with the way VLC/AC3 accesses Realteks latest driver.

VLC doesn't use DirectShow or VfW codecs. VLC only uses build-in codecs. And the issue is in Realtek drivers. VLC uses only standard APIs to access DirectSound or Waveout.

Downgrading to Realtek 3.74 works
@VLC_help, but none of the other players crash, only VLC

And like I said before, the sound is fine, everthing is just fine until you close the program or stop the video, the problem is there, when it unloads resources or whatever

Hello,

perhaps this can still help someone: Here is another working mirror for the wdm_a374.exe Realtek audio driver.

Kind regards,
DAC324

Hello,

perhaps this can still help someone: Here is another working mirror for the wdm_a374.exe Realtek audio driver.

Kind regards,
DAC324

Thank you Thank you for this thread and the link to the older Realtek audio drivers...
I've had this same problem with VLC (older and latest as of 7/09 versions) freezing after stopping a movie/quitting for a long time now and, with these older Realtek drivers, all is fixed. Haven't done anything about it because I don't use this computer much for watching movies... but when I do I've always had to do a hard reboot.
VLC_Help.... you have not been very helpful. The rest of you, thanks for hunting down the problem. I do like to use VLC. Wish I'd googled this sooner.