Vista - Re: Old chestnut - Vista forgets folder settings

On Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:27:40 -0700, "zachd [MSFT]"
<zachd@xxxxxx> wrote:
Well that might be what is SUPPOSE to happen, but it doesn't. In the
last couple hours I had 3 instances of Com Subrogate rearing it's ugly
head on three different files. Nothing is recorded to any log
according to the Event Viewer. As always, playing same files in other
players present no problems.

"Ringmaster" <bigtop@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:khlma45064s4h2tcrpad61nbt7c6iili7f@xxxxxxIf COM Surrogate (Dllhost) is crashing, it should register a crash event in
the Application log (inferior) or the Problem Reports and Solutions Center
control panel (superior). You're not getting any events as visible in View
Problem History in the Problem Reports and Solutions Center?

Since COM Surrogate is a generic dll host, the crash could really be in any
number of areas - the fault bucket number is probably the easiest key to
sort out what's failing where on your system.

Are you getting a DMP file generated during the crash process? That to
would likely contain enough information to troubleshoot what's going on.

--
Speaking for myself only.
See http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html for some helpful WMP info.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

On Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:14:19 -0700, "zachd [MSFT]"
<zachd@xxxxxx> wrote:
Not getting any events TAGGED as Media Player. Which is what I'm
trying to play the video file with. Nothing you can identify by NAME
as to what application or codec is involved shows in the Event Logs,
which makes that "feature" unless since all that shows as you can see
it the files (both Microsoft) that were involved. If you hunt it down
looking in the Problem Reports and Solutions Center a typical Com
Surrogate error shows the following. Since we already know the
faulting "problem" application is Windows Media Player why isn't it
named in the Event Logs? Is Microsoft that embarrassed their crap
keeps crashing? If I were them, I would be.

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: DllHost.exe
Application Version: 6.0.6000.16386
Application Timestamp: 4549b14e
Fault Module Name: ntdll.dll
Fault Module Version: 6.0.6001.18000
Fault Module Timestamp: 4791a7a6
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 00043387
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.256.6
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: b524
Additional Information 2: 9b022cb609eb02ffe983ea17b9ceb3de
Additional Information 3: 5098
Additional Information 4: 630d43cd0a761ce855be2b91c236dadf

Since DllHost.exe and ntdll.dll are Microsoft files and none of the
other gibberish gives a clue what else is involved, two questions:

1. Why isn't this Microsoft's fault when Vista points to itself?

2. Why doesn't it show a human readable cross reference?

Since this is the only error shown in the application Event log for
today, here's a dump of the details of one of 3 crashes:

Faulting application DllHost.exe, version 6.0.6000.16386, time stamp
0x4549b14e, faulting module ntdll.dll, version 6.0.6001.18000, time
stamp 0x4791a7a6, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0x00043387,
process id 0x15b0, application start time 0x01c90203c6e2a9e6.

Again, mostly gibberish and useless. It tells the end user nothing
except Vista screwed up. I already knew that.

"Ringmaster" <bigtop@xxxxxx> wrote in message
newsl9na4h2nc1f583adm9mvit0ibqivqcgt2@xxxxxxThe crash gets indexed according to hosting application here - wmplayer.exe
hosted crashes would be listed as that, etc. It's an artifact of the
architecture - you bring up a good end-user usability point, as this is
unfortunately a developer-centric system in the Event Viewer view, although
the Problem Reports center softens it up and makes it more readable. But
still, it's really dev-centric. Sorry. =\
Any crash sucks. It doesn't even matter who crashes, if you're crashing
that sucks.
In this case dllhost hosts the DLL which makes calls. In this particular
case the ntdll exception handler gets raised as the hosted dll touches
memory badly. The offset provides the key context to understand what the
"jelly" of that sandwich is.
It can be brutally hard to translate these.
Two questions:
* is urge.dll on this system?
* is splitter.ax on this system?

Based upon the information and context so far, I *think* you have an old
version of Haali Media Splitter (splitter.ax) on the system and Haali is
freeing a NULL pointer (which means you crash). Does this reliably happen
doing any particular thing with any particular piece of content? If this
crash happened with the latest (1.8.122.18, I think?) Haali reliably -- and
I think it would -- it would be good to get the steps to reproduce this to
the Haali team.

You can get the latest Haali here:
* http://haali.cs.msu.ru/mkv/

Given the crash, this seems like a crash in Haali's shutdown code, so it
would be likely that playing particular clips/viewing thumbnails that invoke
Haali would cause crashes as those hosting processes shut Haali down. If
your way to reproduce this was "Play this piece/type of content, then shut
player down" or "browse folder with XX files in thumbnail view, close
folder", that would seem likely. I tried some basic steps with the latest
Haali and didn't crash, so suspect that I'm missing something.

Anyways, if you have that data, I'd love to work with it since I'd love to
try to work with the Haali people to get this fixed up.

(Alternatively, if you just have urge.dll on your system - you should
uninstall that as the service is no longer supported as far as I'm aware.
But I'm rather hoping that this is the Haali crash, since I'd like to help
see that fixed. Urge is easier to directly fix for you, but fixing Haali
potentially helps more people longer-term.)

Thanks very much,
-Zach
--
Speaking for myself only.
See http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html for some helpful WMP info.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.