MP Massive Failure Please HELP! (1 Viewer)

[TalkingBull]

I have MP 1.2.3 installed on three separate HTPCs in my home with one of them having about 13TB of HDD space attached with all of my media files. These three PCs worked flawlessly with MP for years until last week. For some reason I cannot figure out, the program will load and seem as if everything is fine... but as soon as you select a video to play, the whole thing freezes. You can get back to the desktop via CTRL/ALT/DEL or ALT/TAB but when I try to kill the process via Task Manager, it won't die. The only way to bring MP back online with the PC is to completely restart... only it does it again. This is the same on all three PCs which have different hardware, etc. I tried going through debug mode to get some logs but the thing just locks up, kills the whole thing, and I have to restart. Please someone tell me you know what is causing this and how to fix it. I am at a complete loss.

 

[JimCatMP]

Need to post logs for any real advice on what the problem may be - but as you say, that kills the box, so challenge.

All 3 then something that has changed on all 3, specific plugin added/updated
OR
problem with your content, as in how MS think's it's available and MePo is locking because it isn't (in form MePo is happy with and underlying network can provide - as I had my main client glitch last week after power cut, it could not see NAS on same switch or the router, but could see Windows box attached too one of the switch ports built into the router, bizarre network based problems are not unknown)
OR
an update has caused problem - MS, applications, drivers AND AV program (all 3 suggests auto update as possible trigger).

Suggest you focus on the client with content, 1st check content is playable in other another player (hopefully this is the case), if not, can you copy file off and play on another system - this is to try and remove any possible issue with content as possible cause before looking to MePo.

Can you run Config and turn ALL plugins off, then retry in debug mode?
Disable AV & other security code (short term), then retry.

Do you have system logs, if so, export these trim them down to couple of weeks before start of problem and post them.

Sorry no focused suggestion or solution, but odd problem you have there.

Cheers - JCMP

 

[mbuzina]

Please do the following: Start MP in Debug mode (1st Option in Debug). This will run MP with Default Skin & no extra plugins. Then start whatever breaks MP. If you can not kill the process (Instead of killing the Application you might go to Processes and kill MediaPortal.exe from there), reboot, start the Debug Tool from MP again and select Option 3 (this will gather the logs and put them on your desktop).

Then upload your file here and debugging can be done - otherwise it is guesswork.

Please also fill in & enable your system specifications.

 

[emphatic]

Can you play the videos outside MediaPortal (in Windows)?

Emph

 

[TalkingBull]

Here's where I am at the moment: I tried uninstalling everything and then reinstalling it again. That took days (I have a huge DB of files). Anyways, it worked... for a while. Then, inexplicably, it stopped working again. Same problem. No clue how to fix it. I have generated a bunch of logs that I can't really get anything out of. Hopefully someone will know what to do.

I can play the files with no problem using VLC or any player really... UNTIL I try to play them via MP. If I load MP and try to play a video file and it freezes, I can no longer play video files in Windows. When I try, VLC will load the file for one second and crash. The same happens with Media Player Classic. Meanwhile, MP will not die from my process list in task manager and a reboot is the only way to start again. Furthermore, when this happens and I reboot, it takes my computer 30+ minutes to shutdown windows. When I try to shutdown or restart without going through the MP-crash process, it takes less than 3 seconds.

At this point, I am ready to set everything on fire. I am so frustrated trying to deal with this while my wife bitches that she can't watch her shit. PLEASE HELP ME!!!

 

[JimCatMP]

Hi

Very frustrating, you have my sympathies. I've looked at your log files and nothing I see points fingers.

Your using MePo 1.2.3, with the following Codecs

" mpeg2audiocodec MPC - MPA Decoder Filter
mpeg2videocodec MPC - MPEG-2 Video Decoder (Gabest)
h264videocodec - ffdshow DXVA Video Decoder
aacaudiocodec - MPC - MPA Decoder Filter

As you problem affects over viewers after MePo has been run (and you can't kill MePo) I would suspect your codecs are the problem - some element of the code is still running (locked into the Windows kernel, you can't kill it when it's there and it's not taking signals from the outside world). Over views are then trying to use elements of the codec and can't, hence the crash.
Suggest you do the following 3 things -

1) Install the LAV filters, MePo Installer, and set all codec functions to them, then try MePo.

2) Run MePo & 'crash it'. In task manager, go to Performance tab, and open Resource Monitor and right click on MePo, and select Analyze Wait Chain - see what it tells you.

3) Disable all plugins, all of them (as there are dll associated with each) and try & crash MePo.

If the 1st one solved problem your good, if not, you'll need to keep trying.

It could be OS problem - my main client simply stopped working in MePo, Client & config, separate DDL's impacted. So installed 1.3RC, didn't work - none of the LAV codec's working. So, did a debug dump ready to submit to forum, but looked at App's logs - noted lots of issued nothing to do with MePo (not seen same in your logs, but not expert) so concluded the power zapping system had few weeks ago did more harm than expected, so clean Windows install was only solution, recover DB's (copy your DB's off system, you just need to copy them and relevant thumbs back when your done), shortcutter settings file + usual Windows tweaks for access, and now 100% happy again - but all my content still played on client via WMP

Good luck - you may need it.


PS - As mbuzina say's - please set your system specs, makes it easier for possible common problems to be seen.

 

[Holzi]

Here's where I am at the moment: I tried uninstalling everything and then reinstalling it again. That took days (I have a huge DB of files). Anyways, it worked... for a while. Then, inexplicably, it stopped working again. Same problem. No clue how to fix it. I have generated a bunch of logs that I can't really get anything out of. Hopefully someone will know what to do.

I can play the files with no problem using VLC or any player really... UNTIL I try to play them via MP. If I load MP and try to play a video file and it freezes, I can no longer play video files in Windows. When I try, VLC will load the file for one second and crash. The same happens with Media Player Classic. Meanwhile, MP will not die from my process list in task manager and a reboot is the only way to start again. Furthermore, when this happens and I reboot, it takes my computer 30+ minutes to shutdown windows. When I try to shutdown or restart without going through the MP-crash process, it takes less than 3 seconds.

At this point, I am ready to set everything on fire. I am so frustrated trying to deal with this while my wife bitches that she can't watch her shit. PLEASE HELP ME!!!

I really would suggest not to use ffdshow DXVA Video Decoder. Could you please try LAVF -> Installer (both x86/x64) (you have to install the x86 version no matter if your Win7 is x64 because MediaPortal is a x86 application)

These codecs are shipped with MP 1.3.0 for better out of the box experience and we recommend to use them. For configuration please take a look in our wiki: http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...Changes/Codecs_and_Renderer/LAV_Configuration

Thanks!

 

[TalkingBull]

I had the LAV codecs installed before and only recently tried KLight to try to mitigate the problem. I will try going back. This problem only started last week and I have been using MP for years before now with nothing like this ever happening.

 

[Holzi]

Have you updated drivers or something?

 

[TalkingBull]

So I got really pissed off, formatted the drive, did a fresh install of Windows 8 and put MP on with just the barebones plugins to get it to work. It has TVDB and Movingpictures. SAME PROBLEM! A brand new install with nothing else on the system and the same frakking problem! I know it's not the files since I can play them directly from Explorer. I am done fucking with this thing. I don't have the energy anymore.