too far removed for contact

[keepout]

I've been using windows for 7-9 years.
With Vista, if I don't see rundll32.exe fail at least once a day, I thinkthe OS is fixing to self destruct.

Anyway's I've found one item that's causing rundll32.exe to fail. But I really don't feel like paying M$ $99.99 to tell them how to fix it or what's causing it. But I would like it to be fixed if they ever release aservice pack for Vista.

But just in case someone from M$ is in this group & interested in one reason rundll32.exe fails, here's what's happening.

I have a program written with XP in mind, actually it's even older than that.
It takes a HDTV Stream file and creates an MPG file. I normally work with2 gig or better mpg's. 4-8 gig stream files are the norm.
The program is both FREE and fast. And hasn't choked on anything thrown at it. So there's no possibility of upgrading to a PAY program full of bugs. HDTV can't be obsolesced so easy by M$. It doesn't rely on M$.

Not every program can read these MPG's, they are MPEG2's and the audio isAC3.
When I hover above these MPG's Vista creates a generic MPG thumbnail. Since I've seen it make thumbnails for images that I hover, with out coughing, I have to assume Vista THINKS it can do these MPG's as easily as a JPG.
But the moment I hover these mpg's, rundll32.exe pops up, says I'm failing and shutting down. It can fail all day long on the same mpg.
It's display shows very little info other than file name, date created, date modified, size, and file type. Dropped lots of extras b4 it failed.

additional info.
WMV works, and creates a movie thumbnail of 1st frame.
MOV works, but creates a thumbnail of Nero show times ICON. My association for MOV.
All MPG's fail to go beyond basic file info and some create a generic thumbnail, but not all mpg's popup rundll32.exe.
I hovered 15 mpg's and about 12 brought up rundll32.exe.
Hmm. just went back & hovered all 14 MPG's again, and got NO Rundll failures. Also got a picture thumbnail and basic file info.
But when I selected all 14 mpg's the 1 Rundll failure happened not 14 times with a cascaded image thumbnail of the top MPG.
Hovered 4 MOV's no failure Nero icon.
hovered 11 avi's, no rundll32.exe failure, with a generic thumbnail, no picture icon.
hovered 31 WMV's got the cascade thumbnail with a picture icon, and no Rundll failure.
14 meg mpg2 always fails with rundll32.exe.
24.2 meg MPG1 only fails 1st time it's hovered, but it only shows basic file info.
A deduction here would tell me that MPG1 is semi compatible with Vista. MPG2 is less compatible.
Can't help with MPG4. I made one once, and saw no benefits. it was bigger, slower, and only 1 program could even use it, SOMETIMES. The program that made it.

I suspect both mpg format, and time to fail is what's causing the rundll32.exe to fail.
hover once, it fails, hover a 2nd time and the Rundll doesn't fail on mpg1, and we now have an image icon.
Time to fail, might be a real tricky problem to fix.

IOW: to open one of these MPG's, I have to open it with whatever program I want to use with it, Media player, Vdub, Nero show time, etc... then close the rundll32.exe failure window. But If I re-edit the mpg, rundll32.exe will fail again before I go to edit it.

With the AVI that I Divx'ed the MPG to, it does just fine in gathering file info from the AVI, and eventually creating a thumbnail of the 1st visible frame.
Why convert MPEG2 to AVI ? mpeg2 = 2.95 gigs. DIVX AVI = 226 megs.
Something else these MPG's are taken from HDTV so their size is not just the drive space it takes up, but the actual size of the display is huge 1920 x 1080 is the norm. I convert them down to a manageable 640x360.

There's your answer to one item causing rundll32.exe to shut down severaltimes daily.
Let's get the fix into the 1st service pack.

FWIW: This rundll32.exe failure is a complete annoyance. So if I find something else as obvious as this, I'll add it here.
I won't be surprised if a service pack comes out 2 years from now for Vista and this rundll32.exe is still broken.

 

[Rick Rogers]

Just a point of information:

Rundll32.exe fails when a subroutine in a library fails (could be due to
corruption, missing file, or a call to a routine that no longer exists or
does not respond as expected). Rundll32.exe itself is only responding to
whatever routine failure was invoked. At a guess, I'd say this utility that
you are using, which is apparently not Vista-compliant, includes either a
library file that cannot function correctly under Vista, or that it's
calling for a function in a Vista library file that has changed or does not
exist.

I wouldn't count on the fix coming from Vista, the fix would have to come
from the distributers of the software. I can hover various media files all
day without crashing, so the problem isn't in Vista, it's in the program
creating the files.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

I've been using windows for 7-9 years.
With Vista, if I don't see rundll32.exe fail at least once a day, I think
the OS is fixing to self destruct.

Anyway's I've found one item that's causing rundll32.exe to fail. But I
really don't feel like paying M$ $99.99 to tell them how to fix it or what's
causing it. But I would like it to be fixed if they ever release a service
pack for Vista.

But just in case someone from M$ is in this group & interested in one reason
rundll32.exe fails, here's what's happening.

I have a program written with XP in mind, actually it's even older than
that.
It takes a HDTV Stream file and creates an MPG file. I normally work with 2
gig or better mpg's. 4-8 gig stream files are the norm.
The program is both FREE and fast. And hasn't choked on anything thrown at
it. So there's no possibility of upgrading to a PAY program full of bugs.
HDTV can't be obsolesced so easy by M$. It doesn't rely on M$.

Not every program can read these MPG's, they are MPEG2's and the audio is
AC3.
When I hover above these MPG's Vista creates a generic MPG thumbnail. Since
I've seen it make thumbnails for images that I hover, with out coughing, I
have to assume Vista THINKS it can do these MPG's as easily as a JPG.
But the moment I hover these mpg's, rundll32.exe pops up, says I'm failing
and shutting down. It can fail all day long on the same mpg.
It's display shows very little info other than file name, date created, date
modified, size, and file type. Dropped lots of extras b4 it failed.

additional info.
WMV works, and creates a movie thumbnail of 1st frame.
MOV works, but creates a thumbnail of Nero show times ICON. My association
for MOV.
All MPG's fail to go beyond basic file info and some create a generic
thumbnail, but not all mpg's popup rundll32.exe.
I hovered 15 mpg's and about 12 brought up rundll32.exe.
Hmm. just went back & hovered all 14 MPG's again, and got NO Rundll
failures. Also got a picture thumbnail and basic file info.
But when I selected all 14 mpg's the 1 Rundll failure happened not 14 times
with a cascaded image thumbnail of the top MPG.
Hovered 4 MOV's no failure Nero icon.
hovered 11 avi's, no rundll32.exe failure, with a generic thumbnail, no
picture icon.
hovered 31 WMV's got the cascade thumbnail with a picture icon, and no
Rundll failure.
14 meg mpg2 always fails with rundll32.exe.
24.2 meg MPG1 only fails 1st time it's hovered, but it only shows basic file
info.
A deduction here would tell me that MPG1 is semi compatible with Vista. MPG2
is less compatible.
Can't help with MPG4. I made one once, and saw no benefits. it was bigger,
slower, and only 1 program could even use it, SOMETIMES. The program that
made it.

I suspect both mpg format, and time to fail is what's causing the
rundll32.exe to fail.
hover once, it fails, hover a 2nd time and the Rundll doesn't fail on mpg1,
and we now have an image icon.
Time to fail, might be a real tricky problem to fix.

IOW: to open one of these MPG's, I have to open it with whatever program I
want to use with it, Media player, Vdub, Nero show time, etc... then close
the rundll32.exe failure window. But If I re-edit the mpg, rundll32.exe will
fail again before I go to edit it.

With the AVI that I Divx'ed the MPG to, it does just fine in gathering file
info from the AVI, and eventually creating a thumbnail of the 1st visible
frame.
Why convert MPEG2 to AVI ? mpeg2 = 2.95 gigs. DIVX AVI = 226 megs.
Something else these MPG's are taken from HDTV so their size is not just the
drive space it takes up, but the actual size of the display is huge 1920 x
1080 is the norm. I convert them down to a manageable 640x360.

There's your answer to one item causing rundll32.exe to shut down several
times daily.
Let's get the fix into the 1st service pack.

FWIW: This rundll32.exe failure is a complete annoyance. So if I find
something else as obvious as this, I'll add it here.
I won't be surprised if a service pack comes out 2 years from now for Vista
and this rundll32.exe is still broken.

 

[keepout]

Just a point of information:

Rundll32.exe fails when a subroutine in a library fails (could be due to
corruption, missing file, or a call to a routine that no longer exists or
does not respond as expected). Rundll32.exe itself is only responding to
whatever routine failure was invoked. At a guess, I'd say this utility that
you are using, which is apparently not Vista-compliant, includes either a
library file that cannot function correctly under Vista, or that it's
calling for a function in a Vista library file that has changed or does not
exist.

I wouldn't count on the fix coming from Vista, the fix would have to come
from the distributers of the software. I can hover various media files all
day without crashing, so the problem isn't in Vista, it's in the program
creating the files.

You just aren't listening are you.
the files that are failing are MPG2. couldn't care less what program created them.
I gave examples of different file types both mpg1, mpg2 etc.. that I've had on my HD for years. I gave all those other examples in case there wasa M$ tech here that could make use of this info.
This problem has been happening since day 1. Long before I re-installed my HDTV converter.
The problem according to VISTA's popup is rundll32.exe. It pops up for hundreds of different reasons on my machine. This is just one that I could pinpoint an actual cause and effect.
I guarantee you I'm not sitting here going thru the vista program and tracking down every error that pops up. I'm not on M$ payroll. This is just one problem that is so common on this machine that a blind man couldfind the problem.

MPG2 is what Vista chokes on. Not JUST those mpg2's created by one program.

 

[Mike Brannigan]

Since the issue may be related in part to the application that is doing the
initial encoding since you say that "Not every program can read these MPG's"
that it produces - can you please provide the name and link to the download
for that application. Without it then no real work can proceed on
investigating the issue.

--

Mike Brannigan
I've been using windows for 7-9 years.
With Vista, if I don't see rundll32.exe fail at least once a day, I think
the OS is fixing to self destruct.

Anyway's I've found one item that's causing rundll32.exe to fail. But I
really don't feel like paying M$ $99.99 to tell them how to fix it or what's
causing it. But I would like it to be fixed if they ever release a service
pack for Vista.

But just in case someone from M$ is in this group & interested in one reason
rundll32.exe fails, here's what's happening.

I have a program written with XP in mind, actually it's even older than
that.
It takes a HDTV Stream file and creates an MPG file. I normally work with 2
gig or better mpg's. 4-8 gig stream files are the norm.
The program is both FREE and fast. And hasn't choked on anything thrown at
it. So there's no possibility of upgrading to a PAY program full of bugs.
HDTV can't be obsolesced so easy by M$. It doesn't rely on M$.

Not every program can read these MPG's, they are MPEG2's and the audio is
AC3.
When I hover above these MPG's Vista creates a generic MPG thumbnail. Since
I've seen it make thumbnails for images that I hover, with out coughing, I
have to assume Vista THINKS it can do these MPG's as easily as a JPG.
But the moment I hover these mpg's, rundll32.exe pops up, says I'm failing
and shutting down. It can fail all day long on the same mpg.
It's display shows very little info other than file name, date created, date
modified, size, and file type. Dropped lots of extras b4 it failed.

additional info.
WMV works, and creates a movie thumbnail of 1st frame.
MOV works, but creates a thumbnail of Nero show times ICON. My association
for MOV.
All MPG's fail to go beyond basic file info and some create a generic
thumbnail, but not all mpg's popup rundll32.exe.
I hovered 15 mpg's and about 12 brought up rundll32.exe.
Hmm. just went back & hovered all 14 MPG's again, and got NO Rundll
failures. Also got a picture thumbnail and basic file info.
But when I selected all 14 mpg's the 1 Rundll failure happened not 14 times
with a cascaded image thumbnail of the top MPG.
Hovered 4 MOV's no failure Nero icon.
hovered 11 avi's, no rundll32.exe failure, with a generic thumbnail, no
picture icon.
hovered 31 WMV's got the cascade thumbnail with a picture icon, and no
Rundll failure.
14 meg mpg2 always fails with rundll32.exe.
24.2 meg MPG1 only fails 1st time it's hovered, but it only shows basic file
info.
A deduction here would tell me that MPG1 is semi compatible with Vista. MPG2
is less compatible.
Can't help with MPG4. I made one once, and saw no benefits. it was bigger,
slower, and only 1 program could even use it, SOMETIMES. The program that
made it.

I suspect both mpg format, and time to fail is what's causing the
rundll32.exe to fail.
hover once, it fails, hover a 2nd time and the Rundll doesn't fail on mpg1,
and we now have an image icon.
Time to fail, might be a real tricky problem to fix.

IOW: to open one of these MPG's, I have to open it with whatever program I
want to use with it, Media player, Vdub, Nero show time, etc... then close
the rundll32.exe failure window. But If I re-edit the mpg, rundll32.exe will
fail again before I go to edit it.

With the AVI that I Divx'ed the MPG to, it does just fine in gathering file
info from the AVI, and eventually creating a thumbnail of the 1st visible
frame.
Why convert MPEG2 to AVI ? mpeg2 = 2.95 gigs. DIVX AVI = 226 megs.
Something else these MPG's are taken from HDTV so their size is not just the
drive space it takes up, but the actual size of the display is huge 1920 x
1080 is the norm. I convert them down to a manageable 640x360.

There's your answer to one item causing rundll32.exe to shut down several
times daily.
Let's get the fix into the 1st service pack.

FWIW: This rundll32.exe failure is a complete annoyance. So if I find
something else as obvious as this, I'll add it here.
I won't be surprised if a service pack comes out 2 years from now for Vista
and this rundll32.exe is still broken.

 

[Rick Rogers]

Do you have one of those mpg2 files, a smaller one, you can send me to try?
I can't repro it with any that I have. If so, send to the email address used
here, use a subject line of 'per req' to get past the filters.

Incidentally, I don't work for Microsoft either, like you I just mess with
their software, though I do spend a considerable amount of time looking for
and at bugs. I do, though, have some channels that I can forward issues to.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

Just a point of information:

Rundll32.exe fails when a subroutine in a library fails (could be due to
corruption, missing file, or a call to a routine that no longer exists or
does not respond as expected). Rundll32.exe itself is only responding to
whatever routine failure was invoked. At a guess, I'd say this utility that
you are using, which is apparently not Vista-compliant, includes either a
library file that cannot function correctly under Vista, or that it's
calling for a function in a Vista library file that has changed or does not
exist.

I wouldn't count on the fix coming from Vista, the fix would have to come
from the distributers of the software. I can hover various media files all
day without crashing, so the problem isn't in Vista, it's in the program
creating the files.

You just aren't listening are you.
the files that are failing are MPG2. couldn't care less what program created
them.
I gave examples of different file types both mpg1, mpg2 etc.. that I've had
on my HD for years. I gave all those other examples in case there was a M$
tech here that could make use of this info.
This problem has been happening since day 1. Long before I re-installed my
HDTV converter.
The problem according to VISTA's popup is rundll32.exe. It pops up for
hundreds of different reasons on my machine. This is just one that I could
pinpoint an actual cause and effect.
I guarantee you I'm not sitting here going thru the vista program and
tracking down every error that pops up. I'm not on M$ payroll. This is just
one problem that is so common on this machine that a blind man could find
the problem.

MPG2 is what Vista chokes on. Not JUST those mpg2's created by one program.

 

[keepout]

Since the issue may be related in part to the application that is doing the
initial encoding since you say that "Not every program can read these MPG's"
that it produces - can you please provide the name and link to the download
for that application. Without it then no real work can proceed on
investigating the issue.

the program is called HDTV to mpeg2. The actual link I can't help you with. It's a very basic program doesn't even have helps or about's. no menu what so ever.
I just made sure I backed the file up on a DVD.

open a *.TS file, edit out the commercials, or not. and hit run. Or whatever it says top right of window.

Again. The stuff I mentioned about the 14 MPG's one [14 megs] is mpeg2. It was created with ATI's AIW VCR to MPG converter. Different program, same type file mpg2. It fails same as the other MPG 2's.
The other 13 are mpg1.

I would say get your hands on a mpg2 file, and hover over it in explorer.

 

[keepout]

The 14 meg one was created with the ATI AIW VCR to MPG converter. rundll fails on this one all the time. It does create a thumbnail, but still fails.
Only other MPG's I have are a minimum of 4 gigs each. Those are the ones created with HDTV to mpeg2.

here's 6 seconds from HDTV to mpeg2. 33meg = 6 seconds.

I had to dump the 14 meg mpg. sending was timing out. But it has the exact same problem.
visually the 14 meg one plays for several minutes, and it's converted size is about 640x360.

this is a mail I'm attempting to send. the 6 second mpg is 33 megs. So ifyou don't get it this is why.
My mail is timing out trying to send it. Might have something to do with Bell's 10 meg limit.
I doubt I can even create a 2 second mpg.

 

[keepout]

The 14 meg one was created with the ATI AIW VCR to MPG converter. rundllfails on this one all the time. It does create a thumbnail, but still fails.
Only other MPG's I have are a minimum of 4 gigs each. Those are the onescreated with HDTV to mpeg2.

here's 6 seconds from HDTV to mpeg2. 33meg = 6 seconds.

I had to dump the 14 meg mpg. sending was timing out. But it has the exact same problem.
visually the 14 meg one plays for several minutes, and it's converted size is about 640x360.

this is a mail I'm attempting to send. the 6 second mpg is 33 megs. So if you don't get it this is why.
My mail is timing out trying to send it. Might have something to do withBell's 10 meg limit.
I doubt I can even create a 2 second mpg.

You can't have either file. my isp won't accept a file over 10 megs.
the 6 second one was 33 megs. The other was 14 megs.
Agent attempted all day to send the 33 meg one.