VLC v1.1.11 very unstable

[NaimK]

Hey, this is my first time posting here, so please let me know if you guys need more information or if I don't conform to some posting guidelines or something.

Okay, so the new version 1.1.11 is extremely buggy. I'm getting numerous bugs, all different and it's worse than any previous version. In fact most of the previous version have been quite stable, and have only generally crashed for me on bad files.

I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium with SP1 (a fairly new install, just over a week old), and everything else is quite solid and stable.

1. The video flickers constantly when I've set VLC to be 'always on top' and in minimal mode, and I'm moving the window around.
2. Occasionally when starting to play a new file in the playlist, or when switching to/from minimal view (possibly while a new video starts playing), VLC just drops into the ASCII plugin view, which I have never willingly selected.
3. Sometimes when switching to/from minimal view, VLC will crash and shutdown without a warning or message box.
4. Sometimes when starting to play a new file in the playlist, VLC crashes without a warning and just shuts down, but when I start playing the file again, it plays fine, so it's not a case of a bad file.
5. Sometimes when VLC is 'always on top' and in minimal mode, double-clicking to go fullscreen causes the video to freeze and the window to hang. Even though the audio keeps playing in the background, the video is frozen and when I double-click to move back to windowed mode, the entire window just contains the frozen video, it doesn't even show the normal window title bar or anything. I have to use Alt+F4 to shut down VLC and start the files playing again.

I think there's one or two others, but that's the meat of it. I've been sending a crash report for every single crash. If I'm at the computer for several hours and playing something in the background while I'm using it, I'll usually get 10-12 crashes, I think.

Is anyone else having similar problems like this? The same version of VLC worked just fine on XP, so what is it about Win 7 that's breaking it? Is it VLC win 7 support that's bad, or is there something a little hinky with my system config?

[VLC_help]

Have you tried to reset VLC settings by removing %appdata%\vlc folder?

[NaimK]

I'll try that when I get home, but this is a clean install, on a clean system. As in, the hard drive was completely formatted, and then a new install of Windows 7 was installed, and then VLC on top of that. There shouldn't be any previous VLC settings to reset, but I'll give it a shot.

[alicat13]

Hi

Am running v1.1.11 in XP, was having the same issues, very unstable, freezing, constant crashes, etc. I deleted the %appdata%\vlc folder (while VLC was not running) and it has been stable since then. Did not even need to reboot my pc.

[NaimK]

Well, I actually uninstalled VLC, making sure it deleted all the preferences and settings, etc, and then re-installed from the exact same installer.

Seems to be running fine so far, but I'll post back if I have any more issues.

But explanation-wise, I still have no idea as to why removing the preferences would work, especially on this machine as since this is a fresh install on a newly formatted hard drive, there were no previous settings and preferences to get rid of.

Anyway, if there are any more issues, I'll post back.

Thanks.

[NaimK]

Ironically, I just had one of the issues again ...

The same as number 5 in my first post, except that VLC wasn't in minimal view, or set to 'Always on top'

In this case it was an mkv file, but in others they were much smaller avi files.

[NaimK]

And another one, I just right clicked on the video while in fullscreen mode and it immediately crashed.

[VLC_help]

Do you know how to use gdb?

[NaimK]

Haven't used it since university, but I'm sure I can get the hang of it. Is there a short guide to compling the source code? I do have visual studio and can compile (and debug) it using that.

[nkoriyama]

Is there a short guide to compling the source code? I do have visual studio and can compile (and debug) it using that.

Unfortunately you cannot compile VLC with VisualStudio(MSVC).
Here is an instruction how to compile VLC for windows:
http://wiki.videolan.org/Win32Compile

[VLC_help]

You don't have to compile anything. You can download debug builds directly from http://nightlies.videolan.org/build/win32/?C=M;O=D

I try to write the detailed guide for gdb during the x-mas since it would be useful for these kind of cases.