[WinXPpro] AVI files crashing explorer.exe

[iam29a]

Morning folks,

Recently I have not been able to play any AVI files on my computer. I am running Microsoft Windows XP Professional on several computers at home and recently the Windows Media Player (v.9) was no longer able to play AVI files. Worse is that is I try to even single-click (to highlight) an AVI file in explorer it crashes the environment and prompts to send a report.

What I do not understand is that this is only of recent that I've been unable to access AVI files (let alone play them). This behavior has manifested onto all computers in my home. I routinely run Windows Updates and perform virii scanning a few times per month and nothing out of the ordinary. I have no trouble playing other media file types, either.

Any ideas?

 

[WobbleWobble]

My guess is the codecs you are using are bad.

 

[iam29a]

A bad codec can crash explorer.exe?

 

[WobbleWobble]

Are video previews enabled?

If yes, then yes

 

[NEVERwinter]

yeh.. my guess is it's bad codec, or corrupt avi file.

 

[iam29a]

Preview was enabled, but then disabled, reboot, and same thing. Also, this is happening on four PC's.

 

[oog]

Check to see what codec is used for the file and see if an update to it would help. I found some xvid files that would crash explorer because of the particular version of ffdshow I was using, and once I updated it, the problem went away.

 

[iam29a]

Showing my ignorance here. How do I check to see what codec is being used?

 

[SpaceWalker]

I had a nasty little avi a few hours ago that would crash explorer by just highlighting the file. took me for ever to delete it....

never got to even see what codec it was using..

 

[Steve23094]

http://avicodec.duby.info/

 

[Steve23094]

Originally posted by: iam29a
Morning folks,

Recently I have not been able to play any AVI files on my computer. I am running Microsoft Windows XP Professional on several computers at home and recently the Windows Media Player (v.9) was no longer able to play AVI files. Worse is that is I try to even single-click (to highlight) an AVI file in explorer it crashes the environment and prompts to send a report.

What I do not understand is that this is only of recent that I've been unable to access AVI files (let alone play them). This behavior has manifested onto all computers in my home. I routinely run Windows Updates and perform virii scanning a few times per month and nothing out of the ordinary. I have no trouble playing other media file types, either.

Any ideas?

Oh... one more thing. If you have 'preview' switched on, and WinXP tries to read a corrupt .AVI (such as an incomplete DivX file) it locks itself into a loop. This is a known problem. Turn 'preview' off and run Divfix across it (to rebuild the index), or use Divxplayer, which can play incomplete Divx files.

 

[WobbleWobble]

Originally posted by: SpaceWalker
I had a nasty little avi a few hours ago that would crash explorer by just highlighting the file. took me for ever to delete it....

never got to even see what codec it was using..

I would just use the command line to do that then

I don't know how to remove a codec, but if you install a newer or different codec it should replace the old codec.

 

[Spleeze]

bad codec or bad avi.... if it's only that video its prolly just corrupted... and when winXP tries to preview it it craps out... try switching view to detals and going to the folder... that worked for me once

 

[Jeff7]

This should help with the Explorer crashes.
Explorer tries to read the entire AVI file when it sees one. If it has trouble (no codec installed, botched codec, or corrupted file), instead of giving up and moving on, it just keeps on trying, even if it means crashing and needing to reboot. That patch there should disable that obsessive disorder.

 

[iam29a]

I think you folks have been a valuable help! I installed AVIcodec and it enlightened me as to several files are no longer supported. Seems that the required codec was missing from ALL of my PC's. While I had no trouble playing AVI files using the 4.x Dixv codecs, some of them were done in 5.x as revealed by AVIcodec. While I was able to get Divxplayer to play the files with the newer codec installed, I now only suffer from WMP terminating (its process dies) and not all of explorer.exe!