Ok about a week ago I went to watch a video file on my computer only to have the player freeze, whether it be winamp or windows media player. Now when it froze the sound still played. I thought it might have been a codec problem so I downloaded a later version of defilerpak (which I had previously been using) and it still did the same thing, then I tried a different codec pak, same thing again.

Its really starting to s*** me off having to watch things on another computer and I REALLY don't want to have to format my computer. Any help would be appreciated.

EDIT: Also does the same thing if I'm watching a video on the web, well not google video but I'm pretty sure thats different, kind of like watching a video in flash?

so it happens on any kind of video, mpeg, avi, wmv, mov yeah? not just a particular format like avi?

you can get utilities that check your codecs & tell you of troubles. I just use the codec info thing in gspot & some radlight filter manager to register/unregister codecs.

try videolan, I don't think it uses the same codecs windows does, it uses ones that it comes bundled with so if it plays the media you'll know it's one of your codecs, if it freezes there could be trouble with your video drivers or something. Tried installing the latest version of your video card drivers?

edit: see here seems I have a missing file, that's the gspot codec report thinger

last edited by whoop at 21:58:18 09/Mar/06

I don't think its the codecs because if I close the player after its frozen, my whole computer freezes also. And yeah, updated my video card drivers as well.

Using media player classic + ffdshow ?

No player works. Does the same thing.

Remove all codecs and either reboot / kill explorer.exe to make sure they're unloaded, then reinstall ffdshow and stop any antivirus crap (some scan on access things could be stuffing up).

I call direct show trouble or something. do games work? got a tv tuner card?

Games work fine, no tv tuner. I don't see why its all of a sudden not working though as I hadn't installed any new software that would have anything to do with playing video files.

I'd try uninstalling all existing codecs, rebooting, then trying the K_Lite codec pack.


In terms of possible hardware causes, I've seen the issue caused by another drive (cdrom,floppy,hdd,etc) failing that shares the same power cable as plugged into your system hdd. One failure caused another in this case.


Still, being that you're having issues with live footage off the net I'd be less inclined to believe this is the situation. It's something worth looking into if fresh codecs don't come up with a win for you


The only other cause I've seen is faulty video ram. Hope this helps

K_Lite codec pack is s***, not even going to bother with it.

Amen, klite caused me no end of problems.

Have you tried reinstalling direct x? That fixed it for me when klite f***ed me over.

Maybe an earlier form of graphics drivers?

Was already using an earlier version before the problem, then tried updating.

K_Lite codec pack is s***, not even going to bother with it.

I wouldn't settle on a permanent replacement codec choice until you've worked out what you did that f***ed your machine up.


Either way, you might wish try dl and try Geexbox. It's a live linux distro that'll play just about anything on your HD. It has a very simple menu.


Obviously, the point of this is to clear yourself from your current OS environment and see if the fault still occurs. If it does, you have a hardware problem.


Downloading a linux iso is a bit if effort for most average users though. The codec pack idea was an easier way to test the waters. anyways...

I don't see why its all of a sudden not working though as I hadn't installed any new software that would have anything to do with playing video files.

well windows does random things I've found. few weeks ago my computer decided I'm not allowed to shut it down anymore, try to shut down taskbar freezes, everything else still works and it doesn't shut down.

O.K. try this, right click the desktop, properties, settings, advanced & go to the trouble shoot tab. try turning down the hardware accel level until stuff starts working again. That or turn it all the way off & turn it up a notch until it stops working.