Stupid crashing media library.

Lomacar · 23rd June 2006, 02:55

My Winamp keeps getting screwed up and crashing and when I try restarting it it crashes instantly again. When I click to view details about the crash it says that xml.w5s has something to do with it. When I remove that file Winamp sort of starts up again but with old-school skins. When I replace the file Winamp starts up like it has had a fresh install and all my playlists are gone.

Maybe that isn't the right way to fix the problem but I am getting really sick and tired of re-importing my playlists. This is with 5.22, I will try a fresh new install of 5.24 but I didn't see anything in the version history that gives me hope. The media library has been crashy ever since version 5.1 or so, and it is this nasty crash that makes it keep crashing so you can never get it running again. I have reinstalled Winamp so many times on account of it I can't remember the number of times. Currently the common cause for me seems to be when I am deleting playlists from my portable device or something but it has always been when I am doing something in the ML.

I think there are a number of things that could be improved about Winamp to avoid this whole nasty situation. For one thing, Winamp should have a safe mode so you have the option of starting it without insta-crashing. For another, playlists should be saved in a less volatile format that can easily be re-imported in one step and without having to rename them from My Playlist or lkjgsdf768954 or whatever. Playlists shouldn't be like a parasites that live off their Winamp host, they should be self sustaining. I have learned to save all of my playlists one by one to the hardrive and try to keep these backups updated, but that is a big fat waste of time and shouldn't be necessary. And finally of course whatever makes the Media Library so crashy could be fixed, if anybody knows what it is. Maybe it is all the bloaty features being added into it.

Well if there are any procedures or plugins people can suggest to prevent this headache in the future I'd be glad to hear them. Thanks.

DJ Egg · 23rd June 2006, 08:39

That was a known 5.22 bug, where if you unchecked Shoutcast Wire or Modern Skin Support in the installer options, then the newer xml.w5s doesn't get installed.

Prior to 5.22, xml.w5s was only used by those two features, but as from 5.22 it is also used by ml_playlists to export the list of stored playlists to winamp\plugins\ml\playlists.xml.

The bug being that the older xml.w5s wasn't compatible with the new ml_playlists.dll.
xml.w5s is now also installed with the Media Library.

Many other bugs were fixed in 5.23, including a fair few ml_playlists ones.

Please upgrade to 5.24

Lomacar · 25th June 2006, 08:12

Oh, fantastic. Thanks.

23rd June 2006, 02:55	#1
Lomacar Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 10	Stupid crashing media library. My Winamp keeps getting screwed up and crashing and when I try restarting it it crashes instantly again. When I click to view details about the crash it says that xml.w5s has something to do with it. When I remove that file Winamp sort of starts up again but with old-school skins. When I replace the file Winamp starts up like it has had a fresh install and all my playlists are gone. Maybe that isn't the right way to fix the problem but I am getting really sick and tired of re-importing my playlists. This is with 5.22, I will try a fresh new install of 5.24 but I didn't see anything in the version history that gives me hope. The media library has been crashy ever since version 5.1 or so, and it is this nasty crash that makes it keep crashing so you can never get it running again. I have reinstalled Winamp so many times on account of it I can't remember the number of times. Currently the common cause for me seems to be when I am deleting playlists from my portable device or something but it has always been when I am doing something in the ML. I think there are a number of things that could be improved about Winamp to avoid this whole nasty situation. For one thing, Winamp should have a safe mode so you have the option of starting it without insta-crashing. For another, playlists should be saved in a less volatile format that can easily be re-imported in one step and without having to rename them from My Playlist or lkjgsdf768954 or whatever. Playlists shouldn't be like a parasites that live off their Winamp host, they should be self sustaining. I have learned to save all of my playlists one by one to the hardrive and try to keep these backups updated, but that is a big fat waste of time and shouldn't be necessary. And finally of course whatever makes the Media Library so crashy could be fixed, if anybody knows what it is. Maybe it is all the bloaty features being added into it. Well if there are any procedures or plugins people can suggest to prevent this headache in the future I'd be glad to hear them. Thanks.

23rd June 2006, 08:39	#2
DJ Egg Techorator Winamp & Shoutcast Team Join Date: Jun 2000 Posts: 35,894	That was a known 5.22 bug, where if you unchecked Shoutcast Wire or Modern Skin Support in the installer options, then the newer xml.w5s doesn't get installed. Prior to 5.22, xml.w5s was only used by those two features, but as from 5.22 it is also used by ml_playlists to export the list of stored playlists to winamp\plugins\ml\playlists.xml. The bug being that the older xml.w5s wasn't compatible with the new ml_playlists.dll. xml.w5s is now also installed with the Media Library. Many other bugs were fixed in 5.23, including a fair few ml_playlists ones. Please upgrade to 5.24 Playlist -\|- Twitter

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25th June 2006, 08:12	#3
Lomacar Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 10	Oh, fantastic. Thanks.