Consistent WMC freezes after playing bad wtv file

[ericmhart]

Was playing a WMC recorded tv show (ota) when some kind of glitch in the recording caused wmc to completely freeze up. Had to reboot the pc. Ever since, WMC will only work for a few seconds before completely freezing. It doesn't matter what WMC is doing in that few seconds, it will always freeze the computer. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling wmc through the windows remove/add features control panel, but no good.

This is the second time this has happened; last time i had to completely reinstall windows 7.

Any ideas for a less drastic recovery?

[crawfish]

I would suspect a hardware problem and run a memory diagnostic like Memtest86+ (http://www.memtest.org) and Prime95, which can elicit memory errors the former misses as well as finding CPU problems. Look at HD SMART values, run HD diagnostics, and look in the event log for anything notable coinciding with the freezes. Try a different video card and player if possible. See if it's reliably reproducible in Media Center, i.e. with the same recording at the same time. While Microsoft is well-known for the bizarre bugs it creates, I'd still be surprised if there are malformed video files that turn Media Center into a permanent pumpkin, so to speak.

[ericmhart]

I did all the the hardware checking the first time - prior to the pumpkin event it was fine, and was fine afterwards for everything except wmc. Playing the bad file on a different wmc computer is a good idea, i will try it tonight.