Screensaver Causes Paused Movie to Play and Missing Cursor in Media Center

[EVO2]

As the title says, when I pause a movie and my screensaver comes on in Media Center the movie starts playing. How can I keep the movie from playing?

Additionally, the mouse cursor disappears in Media Center, from start to finish. I know it's there because moving it around different things get highlighted, etc. Anyone have any idea of how to see the cursor?

Finally, when a movie is paused, whether through Media Center or simply Windows Media Player, the computer won't sleep. I've already chosen the "Allow Computer to Sleep" through the advanced Power Config settings, but to no avail. When there is no movie paused or playing, the computer sleeps fine.

Ideally, when I pause a movie in WMP or Media Center, I'd like the computer to go to screensaver, then shut off display and hard drive then sleep after their respective trigger times have come. The final sleep state does not activate, however, while the first 2 steps occur correctly.

I've searched for solutions to the above to no success. Hopefully someone has an idea to figure this out.

Thanks in advance.

 

[AvatarOfTheShip]

Don't use a screensaver (ie use the None option)

 

[feejeenson]

This Sux!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why the heck is this a problem now.

Blood gates & his cronies did not do the end to end testing before they put this patch in a production environment.

 

[johngalt]

Is this a laptop?

And before you go blaming Old Billy, note this - I have none of the problems you are experiencing.

So it is not the OS - just your install.

 

[feejeenson]

I don't know Johnny this is happening to too many people to just be an "install" issue. I ain't blaming billy cause it's easy:huh: I am blaming him cause his stuff doesn't work the way it should. WMP11 has the option to not allow the windows Vista screensaver to interupt playback of media files, but this option does not work.
So either the Windows Vista screensaver isn't functioning the way it should or the Windows media player isn't. Either way it both windows, hence the gripe with billy
And no this isn't a laptop.

 

[johngalt]

Oh, so your machine has all Windows stuff on it, nothing like...

Drivers, 3rd party software, 3rd party services, anything at all....

yeah - keep blaming the OS and the Windows products - but the fact is if it was a Windows problem it would be *across the board*.

It doesn't happen to me. It doesn't happen the the OP in WiMP - only in that JetAudio he was using.

BTW, have you read through the folliwing tutorial here on our site? http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/63567-power-options-sleep-mode-problems.html

 

[feejeenson]

You raise a good point John:huh: with regards to other software sitting ontop of my current OS, and I do note that this problem was not an issue a month ago. Since I have had Vista now for several months it cannot be the "out of the box" OS, so I did a check to find out what has been installed over the past month and the only thing has been windows updates for Vista or my 2003 version of Office, once again only Windows .... ... and in the immortal words of Sherlock Homes “When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
I still think it's Billy fault, but I am willing to be proven wrong, if somebody can tell me .. why? why? why? this is happening.

Interim solution for myself: I have disabledthe screensaver.

 

[feejeenson]

And & yes the Power Options and Sleep Mode Problems tutorial is brilliant. It would have been great if I knew about that site before I had to find out the hard way. I managed to work my way around it when I finally found out why my computer was intermittently turning off.

 

[johngalt]

Again, no offense, but if you installed something 3 months ago, but only called into play a certain aspect of that program 1 month ago, which then started buggering your system, it would certainly *look* like it was Vista 's fault as you hadn't installed anything new in 1 month - but in point of fact it was something that you did in another application that you had never done before that in fact caused the problem, only at the time it didn't throw up any warnings or alert you to any changes being made.

As you yourself said, it was not a problem OOB, so something in the interim caused the problem.

Now, a good place to start to eliminate problems would be hardware diagnostics as well as running

SFC /SCANNOW

to see if there is any critical file corruption going on here.

 

[feejeenson]

Thanks for the tip John:D.
I'll try and let you know

 

[fadz]

Hi all I have read wat u wrote guys and I am experiancing the same prob. I thought it might have been a virus affecting the functionality and I rebooted my comp with the back up cd ORIGINAL copy of windows I made as part of the HP computer line up so no dodgy work and I am still experiancing this prob, if media center is running and its paused or stopped a movie and the screensaver comes on movie starts automatically and same prob with it turning on automatically from sleep mode or not goin to sleep sometimes. One of the things I was told by HP support center regarding the sleep mode is that the optical mouse any line will affect it and turn the comp on or any usb plugged in which doesnt make sense cause its usually dark at nite and sometimes neva experiance that during the day if media center is not running in the background

 

[mike-cow]

I still think it's Billy fault, but I am willing to be proven wrong, if somebody can tell me .. why? why? why? this is happening.
.

Billy doesn't run the show anymore, you should all know that. :D

(didn't want to spoil the topic entirely by posting a full fledged youtube link... heh)

 

[hdave]

I have a related problem in that I've never been able to see a cursor in Media Center. That's been the case since I purchased the PC about a year ago which is a standard HP Pavilion ab6130n. The only software installed right after I purchased the PC was Kaspersky Internet Security Suite. They responded that I should look into updated video device drivers which I did and installed. Still no cursor I searched the HP site, the MS sites, etc. and had no luck finding an answer. So I gave up on Media Center. I've used a number of other programs to handle all of my A/V needs so it's not been a major issue. It would be nice to be able to explore Media Center and try out it features. I might like it.
A more pressing problem I have is a momentaryly disappearing cursor which is most noticable when loading a PDF file in Adobe Reader. The real problem here is that if I'm moving the cursor during this process I loose all input function. No keyboard or mouse input. The hard drive continues to run in the same manor as before this occurs so I don't believe the system is completely locked up. I've even left the PC running(?) for up to an hour before trying again to use the mouse or keyboard but still no luck. Only thing I can do is to hold down the power button until the PC turns off. Any Ideas??

 

[FMinMI]

I found that if you turn pointer trails ON (visibility), it messes up the pointer in the MCE window. Turning it off should fix at least that part of your problem (go to mouse settings)...

 

[hdave]

It works!! I now have a cursor in the Vista MCE. Thanks for the tip! Such an easy minor visual change to make the MCE functional. Wonder why this fix was so hard to discover?
I'll post another reply if this fixes my other problem: the system lock up while moving the the invisible cursor thru the upper right quadrant of the screen while a PDF file is loading.
Thanks again for the help.
hDave

Update: More good news!! This change also appears to fix my lock-up problem as well!! I did several test and the cursor never disappeared and no lock-up occurred! I'll post again if this changes after more usage.

 

[FMinMI]

Glad it fixed the cursor issue! Want to know the ironical part? I am running MCE 2005 (XP w/SP2), not Vista. This means Microsoft has not fixed this coding issue that has existed for years.

Now, if someone can tell me how to get Fast Forward and Fast Reverse to work correctly, I would be happy too. When I press these keys, the show will advance or reverse, but when I press Play when I get to the desired location, it starts to play but then hangs. I have to press STOP and then PLAY again to continue :-(

Have a nice holiday!

Frank in Michigan

 

[Muchmore]

I had all the same issues. The dang media center starting to play every time the screensaver kicked on bugged the heck out of me. But, it's all gone now. After the last update no more issues with the screen saver or mouse. vista premium.