DVD SPY And TheatreTek

[Ron]

Hi,

Have you tried upgrading to Girder 3.1.3c ? I'm not sure if that helps, but give it a go anyway.

[Ron]

This might sound like a dumb suggestion, but try without girder running.
Then try with girder running but without dvdspy in the plugin directory.

( So we can determine if the problem is actually in dvdspy or in Girder, or somewhere else )

[Ron]

Okay, I'm afraid you are going to have to wait for MMcM ( the author of the plugin ) to come around. He's a busy guy, so you'll probably have to have some patience here.

[MMcM]

It's been a while since I checked everything on WinME, but it did work there at one time. I use Win2K myself.

One possibility is that TheaterTek and/or Girder didn't go away completely when you closed them and are still hanging around unresponsive. Did you try Ctrl-Alt-Del after closing them both to see whether they're still in the program menu or whether any other application has already gone into the not responding state?

[MMcM]

I resurrected a WinMe partition, installed Girder 3.2 and TheaterTek and spent some time looking at this problem. I am sorry that this took a while to get to.

All the complicated COM stuff that is going on is indeed immaterial. The problem does indeed occur even if mediaspy.dll is not registered.

The problem is with WH_CALLWNDPROC hooks. If the hook procedure does anything at all complicated, the damage is done and the machine will not reboot smoothly. Specifically, if it calls more than a few functions deep, trouble results.

I do not know precisely what is going on. I imagine it is something like that basic Windows messages (WM_CREATE, WM_DESTROY, WM_PAINT) are being sent by 16-bit code. This tries to thunk over to the 32-bit hook but the called environment isn't right. Perhaps the stack is too small. Perhaps it doesn't quite have access to all of the outer process.

Anyway, based on that, I am putting in the best workaround I can think of. Namely, to avoid that hook in 16-bit operating systems for TheaterTek. Since it's a global hook, I do this by keeping a flag that makes the hook exit as soon as possible. This seems to do the trick.

The downside of this is that the TheaterTek.Close event won't be generated. It depends on seeing one of those regular messages. DVD events work, because they come from WM_TIMER, which is posted not sent, and therefore processed by the WH_GETMESSAGE hook. Furthermore, since this is called by the message loop in the 32-bit space, no such problem would be expected.

This will be DVDSpy version 1.27. Perhaps I'll come up with more ideas later. I won't suggest that DVDSpy is a sufficient motivation to move to 2K or XP. But there are just endless stability problems when DOS is under the covers.

[Francois]

I am also using WinME with DVDSpy and have experienced the same problem. :(

If I press Ctrl+Alt+Del after trying to shut down Windows and the systems lock up, as described by DaHammer2, I can still see Girder (I use 3.1.3), but there is no mention of TheaterTek

While not a perfect solution, is there a way to disable DVDSpy when TT is active (can't find a simple Girder command to do so)

Thanks for looking into this

[Francois]

More food for thought:

After trying to shut down WinME and experiencing the lock-up problem, it is possible to regain control of windows... but the Windows control/tool bar no longer responds (it is possible to launch shortcuts on the desktop, but the start button, among others, is gone)

(I found that it was easy to disable DVDSpy with 'Device Disable' when running TheaterTek... this eliminates the shut down problem, but I can't use my VFD when whatching a DVD with TT then)

Hope this helps...

[Francois]

McMM,

Thanks for looking into DVDSpy with Theatertek on WinME. The newest release fixed the crash problems I had (I still have to find a workaround to replace the 'Close" event, as TT does some wierd things when shutting down... but that should be easy for me to address)

Eiffel

[DaHammer2]

Versions first:
windows me
dvd spy 1.21 and 1.22
Girder 3.1.0
LCD 1.8

When I have the dvdspy plugin with the LCD display plugin everything works fine for powerdvd and winamp.
NOw when I load theatretek it displays the event data as per usual.
If I then close down theatretek, girder etc and try to reboot I get
one off those windows saying "this program is not responding.." and i can "Wait" "end task" "cancel". All off which don't help. Theres NO name on the title bar so I don't know which program or process is causing this.

NOw to make it even more strange, if I unregister mediaspy.dll and have NO dvdspy events active. This means I load up Girder, load up theatretek, close both and NUTHING has displayed on the LCD. Infact theatretek hasn't even generated events because I've unregistered mediaspy.dll. I still get this problem.

The only way to stop this is to remove the dvdspy plugin from girder. Then I can use theatretek and no be hit with the "This program is not responding"

I hope this is clear. I've tryed to include as much detail as possible, because this bug seems to be a bit backwards. Its alost like the gen_DVDspy.dll is trying to extract info from theatretek when it can't. i..e it should let mediaspy do it.
It also occurs if I remove the LCD plugin (just tested this)
so its defintely a interaction between dvdspy plugin and theatretek.

any help or suggestions would be worshipped

Hamish

thanks!

[DaHammer2]

Hi,

Have you tried upgrading to Girder 3.1.3c ? I'm not sure if that helps, but give it a go anyway.

Ok just tried that and had no joy

[DaHammer2]

This might sound like a dumb suggestion, but try without girder running.
Then try with girder running but without dvdspy in the plugin directory.

( So we can determine if the problem is actually in dvdspy or in Girder, or somewhere else )


Ok done
Only crashs when DVDspy plugin is active on girder

Thanks

[DaHammer2]

Okay, I'm afraid you are going to have to wait for MMcM ( the author of the plugin ) to come around. He's a busy guy, so you'll probably have to have some patience here.

Just for further information:
I installed theatretek and girder + dvdspy (ONLY) on another computer with a dvd drive, but hadn't been used for a dvd player before.
I was able to replicate the bug.

It also seems to occur with zoomplayer but not with powerdvd/winamp etc.

I have a feeling it has something to do with them needing mediaspy.dll, even tho it happens if I had that registered or unregisterd with windows.

Thanks for your help!

[DaHammer2]

YEah theres definely nuthing running in the ctrl-alt-del

I can actually shutdown TT and girder, do a ctrl-alt-del and theres DEFINTEY nuthing there, yet it still locks up on rebooting

I tried unregistering mediaspy.dll since its the one TT uses but still had the problem. Perhaps i didn't reboot or something, I didn't throughly test that.
If I had a win2k machine accesible I'd have like to see what was in the process list, perhaps then something there showing us what the problem is.. because the lock up doesn't give ANY program name :(

Thanks

Hamish

[DaHammer2]

Anyone had any further progress on thsi issue?

Thanks

[DaHammer2]

I use a custom programmed shell so not having a close event is fine as I monitor the activity off those programs via my shell in any case.

I know winME isn't as stable as win2k/winXP but it allows me to rip the guts outa windows more effectively. Theres a few things I can't do with win2k/XP as far as replacing the shell goes. At least I haven't worked them out yet.. My perfect shell only exists without the existnace off ANY windows screens.. i.e. scandisks on bad shutdowns, error messages, windows "Startup" screens etc :)

The perfect shell has 2-3 buttons and *everything* is autoplay.. aka Wife friendly (!)

Need someone to test a beta off that version off the plugin? :)

Thanks for looking into it!