Winamp Freezes Whole System on Certain Songs

archdukezeb · 7th June 2010, 10:46

Like the title says when I play certain songs winamp will randomly freeze up the whole system in the middle of them. Sometimes it will just start repeating a few seconds like a record skipping and sometimes it will continue playing the whole song while everything else on the screen is frozen.

I'm using Winamp 5.572 and Windows 7 64 bit. It just started doing this yesterday. I checked the songs that it crashes on and they open perfectly fine in every other media player.

archdukezeb · 11th June 2010, 04:53

Good someone please give me some kind of response.

_Zenin_ · 24th June 2010, 20:04

Same issue here. Latest Winamp, fresh install of Windows 7 - 64 bit, 4 core AMD, 4 GB ram.

Randomly songs and videos both, and apparently random (same file doesn't cause it twice in a row), any codec. When it happens the entire system becomes unresponsive, even the mouse. It freezes solid for ~15 seconds, moves for ~4 seconds, freezes again for ~15, etc. The only way to recover is to force kill Winamp, but even that can take a long, long time as the system is only "running" in short bursts so it takes ~minute just to get the menu (after ctr-alt-del) for Task Manager, a bit more to get the mouse to move to the spot to click, and at least a few solid minutes to start Task Manager. A couple more minutes after that to get the mouse on the Winamp process line...click End Process...etc.

After killing Winamp the system recovers quickly, although not instantly. It still lags significantly for quite a while after. Faster just to reboot at that point.

Both CPU and Disk activity are minimal (what you can see at least, given the metrics are also running in 3 second bursts every 15 seconds of freeze) and even the (usb) mouse is frozen solid during the freezes.

If this was a Unix system I'd point my finger at a kernel system call blocking on an interrupt and waiting for it to timeout. But this is Windows 7...I'm out of my element.

---

ONLY Winamp causes freezes like this, nothing else has caused such a lockup. And Winamp does it at least once every couple days. Stock Winamp, no plugins.

As a side note:
Winamp also just crashes VERY frequently under Windows 7 (many, many times a day). Maddeningly again there's no consistency on a particular file or such except that most crashes happen when jumping ahead in a file (sound or video).

Rendering WMV files will also break, causing an angled noise pattern not unlike old TV sets that weren't tuned in right. Once it happens no WMV file will play correctly until Winamp is restarted.

And the builtin (to Pro) MP4 video plugin is horrid, skipping ahead causes a wacky super-fast-forward effect for a while after changing location.

----

Across the board Winamp just doesn't seem remotely stable under Windows 7 - 64 bit. I don't know if it's Windows 7 that's an issue, or the 64 bitness. With Vista and now Win7 Windows is moving away from DirectShow in favor of Media Foundation, which Winamp seems to completely ignore.

It's really sad...I don't know of another media player that's anything remotely as good a design as Winamp, but if it's effectively completely unstable under Windows 7 - 64 bit, I may be forced to look elsewhere.

_Zenin_ · 25th June 2010, 18:54

More info:
I can reliably reproduce this lock up even without any real file at all.

If the play list files can't be read (codec won't load them or they simply don't exist anymore) Winamp skips to the next in the playlist, and so on. If Winamp is set to Repeat, it'll loop through the top of the play list and start the game all over again.

If nothing in the play list can be read (or there is a long list of items with missing files, like what happens if you disconnect a removable drive), Winamp goes into an endless loop, spiking both CPU and Disk IO as it tries to again find those missing files.

---

Normally a missing track or two isn't a problem, the hicup is so quick you don't notice it.
But if it's the entire list (like a playlist from a removable drive) or you have Repeat left on and you just directly double click a file in Explorer to play it (making it the only file in the playlist, that now loops) and for some reason Winamp has an issue with that file...BOOM, your entire system is dead in the water and will need a hard reboot (actual power button/plug).

--

I think there are other causes as well, but having Repeat enabled on a bad play list is 100% guaranteed to cause this problem for me. If you're having this issue I highly recommend turning off Repeat completely and forget that option exists. Also disable auto-play on Winamp start; If Repeat got enabled for whatever reason, you don't want Winamp starting and instantly lock the system up before you can change it.

sneaker2 · 4th August 2010, 03:16

I wanted to start a new thread but _Zenin_ pretty much described my problem.
Sometimes I forget that I didn't mount one of my partitions with songs on it. I start winamp and it tries (unsuccessfully) to play these files. While I don't get a BSOD the system (Corei7-860, Win 7 x64) becomes so unresponsive that I can't even get into the task manager anymore to kill winamp. Is there any way this could get fixed? I DON'T even have repeat enabled and "only" the first 100 songs in the playlist are on an unmounted drive.

I'm using Winamp 5.581 (although I'm using the full free version, I only installed the "lite" options + gracenote), no additional plug-ins installed.

Ethan0bfdnlth8r · 5th August 2010, 05:42

Ditto, and it looks like we are all Windows 7 x64 users which might be significant. I have filed a bug report.

ujay · 5th August 2010, 16:43

Worst case scenario for me is on single track repeat to a non exiistent file.

CPU goes up to about 10% ***

No functionallity lost, other apps continue unaffected, Winamp continues as normal, stop button ends the looping.

Maybe it's just down to hardware, though some sort of auto-stop after say 100 failures would be nice.

*** Super Turbo Nutter Quad and AHCI.

UJ

spurty · 6th August 2010, 16:09

I think my problem might be related. Does Winamp output a log?

Winamp was fine and just started doing this. Maybe related to a bunch of recent Windows updates. My problem is not reproducible at least I don't see the pattern yet. I'll play a few songs, sometimes just one is in the queue, then Windows will become completely unresponsive (I can't switch to it or do additional things with it) and the CPU process meter will be pinned at 100% but the song that's playing will finish playing out without a glitch. But I have to close Winamp by right clicking on it in the program bar to stop the CPU hogging. I don't think it has anything to do with what I'm actually playing because it does it with files that Winamp used to play just fine. Browser works fine. Media Player Classic Home Cinema works fine.

Winamp 5.581 (Direct Sound, no plug-ins)
Windows XP with latest updates
Creative SB Live!

Jamil · 8th August 2010, 08:10

I am currently running Winamp 5.581 under Windows 7 64-bit Professional with no issues. Note that I run Otachan's 64-bit ASIO output plugin and am not using the default output plugin.

My hardware is Intel (DX58SO mainboard, i7 960 CPU) and Super Talent Chrome series 1600 DIMMs.

7th June 2010, 10:46	#1
archdukezeb Junior Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Posts: 2	Winamp Freezes Whole System on Certain Songs Like the title says when I play certain songs winamp will randomly freeze up the whole system in the middle of them. Sometimes it will just start repeating a few seconds like a record skipping and sometimes it will continue playing the whole song while everything else on the screen is frozen. I'm using Winamp 5.572 and Windows 7 64 bit. It just started doing this yesterday. I checked the songs that it crashes on and they open perfectly fine in every other media player.

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11th June 2010, 04:53	#2
archdukezeb Junior Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Posts: 2	Good someone please give me some kind of response.

24th June 2010, 20:04	#3
_Zenin_ Junior Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Posts: 2	Same issue here. Latest Winamp, fresh install of Windows 7 - 64 bit, 4 core AMD, 4 GB ram. Randomly songs and videos both, and apparently random (same file doesn't cause it twice in a row), any codec. When it happens the entire system becomes unresponsive, even the mouse. It freezes solid for ~15 seconds, moves for ~4 seconds, freezes again for ~15, etc. The only way to recover is to force kill Winamp, but even that can take a long, long time as the system is only "running" in short bursts so it takes ~minute just to get the menu (after ctr-alt-del) for Task Manager, a bit more to get the mouse to move to the spot to click, and at least a few solid minutes to start Task Manager. A couple more minutes after that to get the mouse on the Winamp process line...click End Process...etc. After killing Winamp the system recovers quickly, although not instantly. It still lags significantly for quite a while after. Faster just to reboot at that point. Both CPU and Disk activity are minimal (what you can see at least, given the metrics are also running in 3 second bursts every 15 seconds of freeze) and even the (usb) mouse is frozen solid during the freezes. If this was a Unix system I'd point my finger at a kernel system call blocking on an interrupt and waiting for it to timeout. But this is Windows 7...I'm out of my element. --- ONLY Winamp causes freezes like this, nothing else has caused such a lockup. And Winamp does it at least once every couple days. Stock Winamp, no plugins. As a side note: Winamp also just crashes VERY frequently under Windows 7 (many, many times a day). Maddeningly again there's no consistency on a particular file or such except that most crashes happen when jumping ahead in a file (sound or video). Rendering WMV files will also break, causing an angled noise pattern not unlike old TV sets that weren't tuned in right. Once it happens no WMV file will play correctly until Winamp is restarted. And the builtin (to Pro) MP4 video plugin is horrid, skipping ahead causes a wacky super-fast-forward effect for a while after changing location. ---- Across the board Winamp just doesn't seem remotely stable under Windows 7 - 64 bit. I don't know if it's Windows 7 that's an issue, or the 64 bitness. With Vista and now Win7 Windows is moving away from DirectShow in favor of Media Foundation, which Winamp seems to completely ignore. It's really sad...I don't know of another media player that's anything remotely as good a design as Winamp, but if it's effectively completely unstable under Windows 7 - 64 bit, I may be forced to look elsewhere.

25th June 2010, 18:54	#4
_Zenin_ Junior Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Posts: 2	More info: I can reliably reproduce this lock up even without any real file at all. If the play list files can't be read (codec won't load them or they simply don't exist anymore) Winamp skips to the next in the playlist, and so on. If Winamp is set to Repeat, it'll loop through the top of the play list and start the game all over again. If nothing in the play list can be read (or there is a long list of items with missing files, like what happens if you disconnect a removable drive), Winamp goes into an endless loop, spiking both CPU and Disk IO as it tries to again find those missing files. --- Normally a missing track or two isn't a problem, the hicup is so quick you don't notice it. But if it's the entire list (like a playlist from a removable drive) or you have Repeat left on and you just directly double click a file in Explorer to play it (making it the only file in the playlist, that now loops) and for some reason Winamp has an issue with that file...BOOM, your entire system is dead in the water and will need a hard reboot (actual power button/plug). -- I think there are other causes as well, but having Repeat enabled on a bad play list is 100% guaranteed to cause this problem for me. If you're having this issue I highly recommend turning off Repeat completely and forget that option exists. Also disable auto-play on Winamp start; If Repeat got enabled for whatever reason, you don't want Winamp starting and instantly lock the system up before you can change it.

4th August 2010, 03:16	#5
sneaker2 Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 1	I wanted to start a new thread but _Zenin_ pretty much described my problem. Sometimes I forget that I didn't mount one of my partitions with songs on it. I start winamp and it tries (unsuccessfully) to play these files. While I don't get a BSOD the system (Corei7-860, Win 7 x64) becomes so unresponsive that I can't even get into the task manager anymore to kill winamp. Is there any way this could get fixed? I DON'T even have repeat enabled and "only" the first 100 songs in the playlist are on an unmounted drive. I'm using Winamp 5.581 (although I'm using the full free version, I only installed the "lite" options + gracenote), no additional plug-ins installed.

5th August 2010, 05:42	#6
Ethan0bfdnlth8r Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 11	Ditto, and it looks like we are all Windows 7 x64 users which might be significant. I have filed a bug report.

5th August 2010, 16:43	#7
ujay Forum King Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: London Posts: 6,072	Worst case scenario for me is on single track repeat to a non exiistent file. CPU goes up to about 10% * No functionallity lost, other apps continue unaffected, Winamp continues as normal, stop button ends the looping. Maybe it's just down to hardware, though some sort of auto-stop after say 100 failures would be nice. * Super Turbo Nutter Quad and AHCI. UJ

6th August 2010, 16:09	#8
spurty Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 5	I think my problem might be related. Does Winamp output a log? Winamp was fine and just started doing this. Maybe related to a bunch of recent Windows updates. My problem is not reproducible at least I don't see the pattern yet. I'll play a few songs, sometimes just one is in the queue, then Windows will become completely unresponsive (I can't switch to it or do additional things with it) and the CPU process meter will be pinned at 100% but the song that's playing will finish playing out without a glitch. But I have to close Winamp by right clicking on it in the program bar to stop the CPU hogging. I don't think it has anything to do with what I'm actually playing because it does it with files that Winamp used to play just fine. Browser works fine. Media Player Classic Home Cinema works fine. Winamp 5.581 (Direct Sound, no plug-ins) Windows XP with latest updates Creative SB Live!

8th August 2010, 08:10	#9
Jamil Member Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: USA Posts: 95	I am currently running Winamp 5.581 under Windows 7 64-bit Professional with no issues. Note that I run Otachan's 64-bit ASIO output plugin and am not using the default output plugin. My hardware is Intel (DX58SO mainboard, i7 960 CPU) and Super Talent Chrome series 1600 DIMMs.