Windows Movie Maker hangs

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

Windows Movie Maker hangs

Hardware:
Dell XPS 410
2.6 ghz
3 gig ram
871gig free disk space

Software:
Windows XP
Media Center Edition
Version 2002
sp2

Camera:
have a Sony DCR SR40
w 30gb drive

software that came with camera:
Came with PIXELA ImageMixer software
which i use to save the clips from the camera onto a folder.
They get automatically saved as .mpg


Windows Movie Maker
Version 5.1
Windows Movie Maker Version 2.1.4026.0
(so it says both version 5.1 and 2.1, i guess they are one and the same)

= = = = =
my problem:

Scenario 1, Everything works fine:
Scenario 2, WMM Hangs

= = = = =

Scenario 1, Everything works fine:
I start a new project, i am in storyboard mode
I create 4 titles
i then put transitions between the 4 boards (3 transitions)

i can change transitions, and play the thing. i can do this for hours on end.
Like i said, everything works fine.

= = = = = = = = = = =
Scenario 2, WMM Hangs

Start a new project
import into collections:
file: pozole01.mpg
size(62.7 MB)


i then drag the file and put it into the storyboard's first board.
i can play the file fine. It is 58 seconds long.
i will now put a title:
tools/add title to the beginning/done,add title to movie.
will now put a transition between title and clip.
i drag 'shatter-in' to between the 2 boxes
This is working fine. i can play and restart. everything is great

Will now add a 2nd clip:
i only have one video in my collection, so i better put another one:
i have now imported pozole02 into my collection
file: Pozole02.mpg
size(105 MB)

I have dragge pozole02 into the 3rd rectangle in the storyboard:
PREDICTION-WMM WILL FREEZE SOON! (it is now 9:33 PM)

i know it will freeze. It is just a matter of clicking to see if it is still
respoding. I click on 'clip' i get the menu. i click somewhere else, the
menu goes away.
i click on the pozole01 file sitting in the middle of the screen. nothing
happens
wait, am i frozen?? Has the app hung?? YES


Reality: As predicted WMM is now FROZEN! (It is now 9:34 PM)
i can still move the mouse, but WMM has become totally unresponsive.
It will stay like this for as long as the computer is on! Be it minutes,
hours,
days or months or years!

Should i look in the event log?
What's the point? I have looked there before, but obviously its not going to
write
anything because it has stopped working! If i were to kill the app, then
something
would get written to the log. . . . but what's the use? "oh, i think
somebody killed me"

i alt-tab back to wmm. The verty top of the window now says this:
"Untitled - Windows Movie Maker (Not Responding)

ok, i go to event viewer
it is now 9:43 pm. The last event is from 9:17 it is an info event from live
update.
(WMM froze at 9:34 pm. No event. but of course i knew this, because i have
looked before
i been at this for a few days now)

Ok, here's my question

What did i do wrong?

Wait, i know i did nothing wrong.

So, let me ask this:
Does anybody know what could be going on?

And yes, i have read papajohn and all that and it is not working for me.
 
OK i've got it, i think i've got it.

It sure looks like it's working fine for me:

Whereas before i could predict when i was going to hang, IT NO LONGER HANGS!

Remember how i said that papajohn did not work for me?

I WAS WRONG!

All that was really required was for me to have the patience to
go thru the basic papajohn troubleshooting thing,

and finally i was able to find the one little tiny thing THAT
I DID NOT THINK WOULD FIX ANYTHING, BUT I TRIED IT AND
IT DID FIX IT!!!


Windows Movie Maker/Tools/options/compatibility/

one of the filters was in papajohn's list! so i unchecked it
and now the thing works beautifully!

This was it:
Sonic Cinemaster MCE Audio Decoder

(and i thought audio, audio, that surely is not my problem)

But it did! JUST BY UNCHECKING THAT ONE THING FIXED EVERYTHING (apparently,
or at least so far, which i am very optimistic!)

The list of 'problematic filters' is published by papajohn here:

http://www.papajohn.org/MM2-Issues-Acceleration-and-Codecs.html

(it is a picture about a quarter of the way down the page, under
"The Problem Codecs: "
 
Back
Top