Crashes when I try to play any music

[moeburn]

Winamp crashes when I try to play any music file. It gives me the attached error file. Even though it says 5.0, i have 5.8e. I have tried reinstalling. When it crashes, the 5 seconds of music that it buffered continues to play while the error is displayed.

My system specs are:
-AMD Athlon XP 2000+ 1.6ghz
-ECS K7VMM+ motherboard w/ VIA chipset
-Soundblaster Live! 5.1 Digital
-512mb DDR RAM

Any ideas?

[moeburn]

Fixed it by uninstalling the Winamp Media Library plugin, since I never use the Media Library anyway.

[Nunzio390]

It should not be saying 5.0 if you have 5.08e installed, so something was wacked out that was causing that. Perhaps upgrading when problems already existed (most likely due to buggy 3rd-party plugins) instead of performing a clean install caused that to happen. Now that you've uninstalled the Media Library (was probably corrupted, and again, most likely due to a buggy 3rd-party plugin), you may consider trying Jonas' great Dynamic Library plugin, which can either be used as a "compliment" to the default Media Library (as I use it), or as a replacement for the Media Library...*Dynamic Library v1.1 Beta (http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=210146) discussion
*Download Dynamic Library v1.01 (http://joonas.ne1.net/) download and website If you ever run into any problems that effect Winamp functionality in the future, don't attempt to solve it (or "fix it" in your words) by removing "proven and bug-free" components (http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?postid=1522843#list) (eg: the Media Library). Instead, look for and then remove the "culprit" 3rd-party authored plugin (http://www.winamp.com/plugins/)... the root "cause" of the problem.

[moeburn]

Right, well, I already had dynamic library installed if I ever intend to use such a thing. Thanks anyway.

[Nunzio390]

Okay. Very well. Then in that case, if not using Dynamic Library, uninstall it. No sense in keeping any plugins installed that are not being used. You can always reacquire it if and when you want to use it. Just make sure that point #3 above is always a consideration so that you will know what to do in the future in case a problem develops. It's highly likely, based on what you said above, that you may already have at least one buggy 3rd-party authored plugin installed, used or not, that is causing your Winamp problems. Remember -> 3rd-party authored plugins and/or skins are always use-at-your-own-risk. Therefore any problems that develop with Winamp are usually never due to Winamp itself, but instead caused by something else you've added as an addition later, after a clean install of Winamp.

[moeburn]

Well I did try going through all the old 3rd party plugins that were installed a long time ago that I've never used, but that didn't seem to work until I got to media library.

[Nunzio390]

Well, if you run into future problems, just temp-disable 3rd-party plugins for testing purposes. No need to uninstall.

Hang on... doorbell. Gotta run. I'll come back and explain in a bit...

[Nunzio390]

Sorry. It was my niece and her boyfriend. I had to go. Anyway, here's what you can do to temp-disable 3rd-party plugins for testing purposes without having to uninstall them...

Let's use the Dynamic Library as an example, since you already have that one installed. Now, Dynamic Library is a "General Purpose" plugin.

CTRL+P to open Winamp preferences > Plug-ins > General Purpose
In the right pane you will see this listed > Dynamic Library v1.0 [gen_dl.dll]
It tells you the actual name of the plugin > gen_dl.dll

So, now you would close Winamp first and then browse to your \Winamp\Plugins folder on your hard drive. Locate gen_dl.dll and simply rename it temporarily to something like gen_dl.dll.off. *Note: make certain that Windows is first properly configured to show file extensions (http://nunzioweb.com/misc/show_file_extensions.htm) in order to see the .dll extensions. After renaming the DLL file (plugin), reopen Winamp. The Dynamic Library will no longer be "installed". There will be no trace of it in preferences, as if it had never existed. At this point you would test Winamp out, and if operating smoothly instead of causing errors (if any existed), then you would know that the Dynamic Library plugin was to blame.

Now, AFAIK the Dynamic Library plugin causes no errors with Winamp functionality, but I only used that one as an example since you already told me you had it installed. In any event, you can repeat the above procedure for all 3rd-party plugins, and by doing so, and reopening and testing Winamp each time, you can then determine which "culprit" plugin is to blame for your problem(s).

Afterwards, you can (first close Winamp) then go back to your Plugins folder and permanently remove (delete) the faulty plugin. Those others that you added the .off extension to (to temp-disable them), just rename back to the proper file names. Next time you start Winamp, those plugins will have been "reinstalled" again.

[EDIT --> below added Apr 10, 2005]
*Note: if in the process of disabling plugins for testing purposes you are uncertain of the actual .dll file name, then install the latest release of the One for Nunz (http://nunzioweb.com/daz/releases.html#03/04/2005) plugin first, which will append the actual name of the plug-in onto the end of it's description in Winamp preferences if not already added (for IN, OUT, GEN and ML plugins)