Avi crashes WMP and other players - only for some movies

[YosemiteSam]

I never had a problem playing DivX or Xvid movies before. Recently though, certain movies crash WMP (movie doesn't even start. as soon as wmp comes up, I get a Dr. Watson error).
I verified that the movie is the right size and the person I got it from is able to play without a problem.
I tried other players (PowerDVD, GlobalDivxPlayer, etc..) and the same thing happens.
What gives? Is it a codec issue (although I never saw wmp crash when I was missing a codec)? Is something corrupt?
I tried DivFix on them too and that stopped them from crashing, but it gives me an "Invalid Format" error after that.

*Using WMP 6.4 on a NT system.

 

[YosemiteSam]

anyone?

 

[Staples]

Well, WMP seems to have a reputation with me from crashing. It seems to scan the file before it starts playing it and I am not sure if file is corrupt or not but sometimes it seems to go into an infinite loop and you have to shut it down. It will always do this on the same movie, not play it once and screw up the second time. It is the only movie player I use so if it does not work in WMP, I ususally delete it.

 

[WobbleWobble]

Most likely a corrupt codec.

 

[Poohbee]

I concur with the corrupt codec. I had that same situation happen to me many times. It's best to uninstall all your codecs and install them again. I usually install:

- Newest divx codec
- Newest Xvid codec (I usually get Koepi's build)
- and any other codec you would need.

By the way, if you have an older xvid codec make sure after you uninstall it to reboot and then go to the windows/system32 folder and delete the Xvid.ax file and then reinstall the newest Xvid codec.

hope that works.

 

[YosemiteSam]

Thanks everyone!
Poohbee... I followed what you said and it worked like a charm.
Everything works great now!
Thanks!

 

[Vernor]

Gspot is your friend.