Topic: Crashes (Read 1462 times)

FKatz · « **on:** March 19, 2024, 06:10:02 pm »

The program is crashing with alarming frequency when I'm browsing files, trying to manipulate a file and most recently when attempting an audio analysis. I recently imported about 5,000 mp3 files and when it starts to do the audio analysis it crashes after it's done the analysis on maybe 20 or 30 files. I use BitDefender as my internet protection and have done so for a number of years. I've seen posts telling us that we should only use Windows Defender and no other antivirus program. That solution (if it is a solution) is totally unacceptable to me - I don't see why I should change my antivirus because one program out of a couple dozen on my computer doesn't want to play nice with BitDefender. I have followed some of the suggestions about Windows Defender and have prevented BitDefender from scanning the relevant directories which has no effect whatsoever.
I have enclosed the log from my most recent crash and hopefully there will be something in there that will enable you to advise me if there is any way to eliminate this problem.
MediaCenter crashes more times in one day than all my other programs combined do in one year.

FKatz · « **Reply #1 on:** March 19, 2024, 06:35:53 pm »

I was browsing through my recently imported files and double clicked on one of the files to play it and the program crashed again. Here is the information.

Matt · « **Reply #2 on:** March 19, 2024, 06:42:33 pm »

If you could ever get a crash with a crash dump it would help us find the problem. You could check after a crash and see if there's a DMP file there when you report a problem. If you get one, please share. Thanks.

JimH · « **Reply #3 on:** March 19, 2024, 06:58:48 pm »

Quote from: FKatz on March 19, 2024, 06:10:02 pm

I use BitDefender as my internet protection and have done so for a number of years. I've seen posts telling us that we should only use Windows Defender and no other antivirus program. I don't see why I should change my antivirus because one program out of a couple dozen on my computer doesn't want to play nice with BitDefender.

Because it may well be the cause of the problem. Uninstall BitDefender. If crashes are still a problem, then BitDefender is probably not the cause.

Take a look at these antivirus problems: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,86096.msg588759.html#msg588759
Search for BitDefender in that thread.

zybex · « **Reply #4 on:** March 20, 2024, 02:41:04 am »

Check the Event Viewer for possible Disk problems on the external drives.

FKatz · « **Reply #5 on:** March 20, 2024, 11:03:40 am »

I've provided the log but presumably there is nothing there that explains what might have caused the problem or does it?

Somebody mentioned a crash dump file - where would that be?

Next step is I will uninstall Media Center and remove all traces and then reinstall.

I may try uninstalling BitDefender but it really bothers me that Media Center is the only program I have that seems to have a problem with BitDefender, if that is in fact the case.

At this point I have about 170, 000 music files - mostly mp3s and flacs along with some in opus, m4a and a few wav. At least half of these are files that I ripped from my own LPs and CDs but some are ones that I have downloaded over the years. Is it possible that some of the files are corrupted and that is causing the problem? If so, is there any way to detect these corrupted files?

I'm attaching my latest log file following a crash. This occurred in the midst of playing a song and it sounded like a record stuck in the groove with a few notes that kept repeating before it crashed.

JimH · « **Reply #6 on:** March 20, 2024, 11:24:34 am »

You're using 32.0.20. Try 32.0.26 here: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,138447.0.html

zybex · « **Reply #7 on:** March 20, 2024, 12:16:09 pm »

Check if crashdumps are being collected in %localappdata%\CrashDumps folder. If not, you need to enable them.

Have you checked Event Viewer? You can filter the System and Application event logs to show Errors only. All crashes will have one or two entries there with some details about the crash reason.

The log shows MC was analyzing audio; last file before the crash was this one, which may be corrupt:
0662968: 17200: Import: AnalyzeAudio: Analyzing: E:\Agent Downloads\alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.folk\Ed McCurdy - Twa Corbies, The - Ballad Record, The - 3.mp3

You can try creating a new MC empty library and just import that single file or album to test.

Quote

I may try uninstalling BitDefender but it really bothers me that Media Center is the only program I have that seems to have a problem with BitDefender, if that is in fact the case.

Applications can't do much (if anything) to avoid interference from Antivirus tools. They're getting too aggressive and default more and more to "well it may be a virus so lets treat it like a virus even if we don't know for sure". While analyzing files, MC is reading and writing to hundreds/thousands of files which looks very much like what a ransomware or other types of virus would do. The only thing to do is to tell the antivirus to ignore all activity from the MC executable. Even so, other modules in the AV package may still interfere.

FKatz · « **Reply #8 on:** March 20, 2024, 01:45:52 pm »

O.K. - I've uninstalled MC 32 and deleted all relevant files and registry entries - at least I thought I did. I downloaded the latest version of MC32 and, obviously I didn't delete all traces since it recognized it as an upgrade. I started to rebuild all my libraries and it didn't seem to like the fact that I was doing some manipulation of fonts and columns while it was importing, because it crashed.

The program hung up and I had to reboot the computer as I couldn't shut down the program with task manager. So after rebooting the computer I started MC up again and have resumed importing files which will probably take quite a while and won't try to do anything else at the same time.

I found the crash dumps and have zipped up the three most recent ones which I am attaching.

I played the file that MC was analyzing in another player and it played fine so I don't think it's corrupted.

I found the Event Viewer and for one the earlier program crashes it lists this

- System

- Provider

[ Name] Application Error

- EventID 1000

[ Qualifiers] 0

Version 0

Level 2

Task 100

Opcode 0

Keywords 0x80000000000000

- TimeCreated

[ SystemTime] 2024-03-20T16:39:57.2511013Z

EventRecordID 59239

Correlation

- Execution

[ ProcessID] 0
[ ThreadID] 0

Channel Application

Computer DESKTOP-Q8JBTN2

Security

- EventData

Media Center 32.exe
32.0.20.0
65d73134
ntdll.dll
10.0.19041.3996
39215800
c0000374
00000000000ff349
3ea8
01da7ae4c810248d
C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 32\Media Center 32.exe
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
a1c1faab-8019-446f-8db8-613b44b624b4

I checked one of the other crashes and while I won't list everything I notice that both seem to involve C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll

Hopefully this info will enable you to determine what is going on

JimH · « **Reply #9 on:** March 20, 2024, 01:48:46 pm »

Quote from: FKatz on March 20, 2024, 01:45:52 pm

The program hung up and I had to reboot the computer as I couldn't shut down the program with task manager. So after rebooting the computer I started MC up again and have resumed importing files which will probably take quite a while and won't try to do anything else at the same time.

So it's a hang (program appears stalled), and not a crash (program disappears)?

Let it run. Don't terminate while importing.

UNINSTALL BITDEFENDER.

Awesome Donkey · « **Reply #10 on:** March 20, 2024, 02:31:57 pm »

Pretty sure Bitdefender is indeed the issue here. A few years ago I read about how Bitdefender did DLL injection on all apps (including an app I use), which in turn could cause a ntdll.dll crash for some of them, which seems to be the issue here. If you do a search for Bitdefender ntdll.dll you'll see multiple examples of crashes caused by Bitdefender.

zybex · « **Reply #11 on:** March 20, 2024, 02:44:51 pm »

^^ What the Donkey said.

c0000374 = HEAP_CORRUPTION. Perhaps the .dmp files point to some issue, but it's more likely that it's caused by some external factor like the AV. Also, make sure all Windows Updates are done and graphics/audio/chipset drivers are up to date.

FKatz · « **Reply #12 on:** March 21, 2024, 08:35:08 pm »

I recently reported I was having a problem with an inordinate number of crashes with Media Center for which I received various bits of advice - most notably that the problem was almost certainly due to my having Bitdefender as my Internet security program. After giving it some thought I uninstalled the program removing all traces and did a fresh install of the latest version of Media Center and then set about recreating my libraries by importing all the data from my music folders. The program continued to crash particularly when it was doing the audio analysis part of the import although it had previously done the audio analysis on the majority of the files. No, it wasn't choking on a particular file since if I started it would run through a few hundred files and then die and would do another couple hundred the next time and so on and I guess after about a week or doing this it might have analyzed all my files - "might" being the operative word here.
So, bowing to pressure from the experts here, I uninstalled BitDefender and left my Internet Security to Windows Defender. When I attempted to run the audio analysis on the unanalyzed files (about 2,000) it crashed after a few hundred files.
So, I spent time going through Windows Defender options to prevent it scanning any of the Media Center files or any of the folders with my music files hoping this final tweak would solve my problems.
It didn't - it analyzed a few hundred files and then crashed. In the past it would crash when playing files or when I was browsing through my file list but I haven't got that far yet since I haven't been able to completely get all my files into the program.
I am attaching the most recent log and a zip file with the last three crashdumps and am hoping that someone here can come up with a solution to my problems.
Thank you for taking time to read this lengthier than intended missive.

JimH · « **Reply #13 on:** March 21, 2024, 09:28:00 pm »

I assume you rebooted a couple of times. Look at the bottom of the Previous log to see if there is a crash. Look for the last file read.

0394232: 12396: Import: AnalyzeAudio: Analyzing: N:\Music-New\Music 01-15-21\200 - Waterboys - The Raggle Taggle Gypsies [Cambridge Folk Festival 2007].mp3

Is this a NAS drive? How is it connected?

FKatz · « **Reply #14 on:** March 22, 2024, 01:51:23 pm »

Things are looking up a bit. I was able to successfully import a folder with 5000 files complete with audio analysis. I then went back to doing the audio analysis on the previously unanalyzed files and eventually discovered that there was one file that was corrupted and that it would crash when the analysis reached that file and it would also crash if I tried to play the file. I deleted that file. So far, so good - I am now playing through my library randomly and will see how it does. So far it has been running for about two hours without a problem so I have my fingers crossed and will report back.
I don't have a NAS - the N: drive is an external hard drive (WD MyBook) on my desktop computer.

Matt · « **Reply #15 on:** March 22, 2024, 06:47:00 pm »

If you find another problem file please share it. Thanks.

JimH · « **Reply #16 on:** March 22, 2024, 10:14:28 pm »

Is the drive on a USB 3.0 port?

FKatz · « **Reply #17 on:** March 23, 2024, 08:14:21 pm »

Well, it's been interesting. I was able to import my two main directories without any problem and a smaller directory too. But then I came to a directory with about 3,000 files and it imported fine into MC but then when it started analyzing the audio it crashed almost immediately.

The files in this directory had quite a lot of low bit rate files, some which had been downloaded from YouTube and converted to mp3s (not by me). I figured there was a good chance that some of these files were corrupt so searched on line and found a little program called mp3checker and ran it and it found about 100 files that it said were bad and so I deleted them and figured I was good to go until i tried analyzing them in MC and once again the program crashed.

Looking further on line I found a program called "mp3 diags" which does, what appears to be, a fairly thorough analysis of all the mp3 files in the folder. I don't understand all the data that it produces but any files that looked dodgy ("unknown streams", etc.) I deleted which took care of another couple hundred files. After this, the MC audio analysis did better but after a short while started crashing again. I went through trying to do an analysis on a group of files at a time and sometimes it would crash and sometimes I would get a message along the lines of "we can't do an analysis on a file that won't play on the native player" I found that if I then went through the files one by one I could hone in on the file in question and delete it though that process is far too time consuming so I would let it crash and try to figure out which file was the culprit. I should add that it wasn't only when doing an analysis that it crashed - it would also crash if I set it to play and it came across one of those rogue mp3s.

I'm sorry this has become so long winded but there are some issues that I would like to see addressed

1) I only checked a few of them but the files that caused MC to crash would usually play fine on an external player like Pot Player - why is MC so much more sensitive to these issues than just about any other player?

2) The message I referred to above about being unable to do an analysis on files that won't play in the native player ( I assume that the "native player" is MC but maybe not) lists the number of files this refers to so, I assume, that MC already knows which files they are so would it not be possible to provide a list of these files so we could take some action.

3) Why does it crash instead of just getting to the end and saying - "we couldn't analyze the following files because they are corrupt" - in going through all of the above the program has crashed several dozen times. MC 32 has a lot of great features but it is truly exasperating to keep having to start up the program innumerable times.

Maybe my situation is unique and nobody else uses the program in the way I do but I doubt it.
The program is on my C: drive which is 125 GB SSD with programs and the operating system.
My most important music files are on the E: drive which is an internal drive and the less important ones are on the N: drive which is a 4 TB WD My Book which is attached to my computer via a USB 3.
I look forward to your remarks
Frank

JimH · « **Reply #18 on:** March 23, 2024, 09:28:14 pm »

Why are you downloading MP3 files that someone else converted from Youtube?

FKatz · « **Reply #19 on:** March 24, 2024, 09:39:00 am »

They contain music that is of interest to me that is not available anywhere else. I also have a bunch of files that I have downloaded myself from YT that I intend to convert to mp3s. One of my big interests is traditional music from the British Isles and many of the recordings are on long out of print LPs or from radio broadcasts. Much of this music has never been reissued on CD so I make do with what I can get. The quality is not always that great but since I used to collect pre war blues 78s the deficiencies in the sound don't really bother me that much - it's all about the music. I'm now 81 years old and have been listening to and collecting the music I love for about 70 of those years and will continue until I "shuffle off this mortal coil and join the choir invisibule"

JimH · « **Reply #20 on:** March 24, 2024, 11:34:45 am »

Some of the files may be corrupt. Use the logging to find them. Send us one if you can.

Double check for any other security software that is running.

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Author Topic: Crashes (Read 1462 times)