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WMC Freezes when full screen

Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2018 1:24 am
by swb108
A week ago I purchase an Intel NUC i5 8th gen with Iris plus graphics 655. Initially got WMC working using the 8.8.2 installer except for a couple of problems with the music library and full screen freezing. Got over the full screen freezing by disabling full screen optimisations on EHSHELL.EXE. So all was good until Windows 10 decided to do the October update yesterday. After this I had to uninstall and reinstalled WMC using the 8.8.2 installer. This worked in that I can now run WMC again but not full screen. Everything works fine in a window but full screen freezes. I disabled again full screen optimisation on EHSHELL.exe and also applied a regedit patch to the GAMEDRV_FSEBehaviour. No joy. The strange thing is if in full screen and frozen and you press the Windows keyboard key that brings up the start menu full screen WMC in the background starts working perfectly. If you escape from the start menu WMC full screen freezes again. I have tried every option I can in the Intel graphics control panel but can't get over this issue.

Any help greatly appreciated as this issue is stopping me being able to use WMC on my new machine

Re: WMC Freezes when full screen

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 9:06 am
by technodevotee
I assume you mean GAMEDVR_FSEbehaviour.

There have been a lot of discussions about this full screen problem here and on other sites but no real fixes as far as I can see.

I have the same or a similar problems running WMC full screen on all my PCs. They have different Graphics cards in them. One freezes entirely and the others don't actually freeze but just become very, very slow doing anything and judder/stutter when playing or watching anything after a minute or so.

I've tried everything I can find or think of and have given up trying to use full screen mode and just run in a window that almost fills the screen.

It isn't a solution but it means I can use WMC until one is found.

Re: WMC Freezes when full screen

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 5:51 pm
by technodevotee
Well, I don't beleive it.

I was re-reading the posts on the MDL thread about running WMC on Windows 10 in case I'd missed something and came across this one:
https://forums.mydigitallife.net/thread ... st-1402393

Then I found the same post here:
viewtopic.php?p=124569#p124569

I was absolutely sure I'd tried this and it hadn't worked but today, it did - on two of my PCs.

IDK if they are from the same author but if it continues to work, some props are due to whoever offered up this little gem.

Re: WMC Freezes when full screen

Posted: Wed Dec 26, 2018 7:12 pm
by swb108
Thanks for your reply. I tried the regedit fix suggested but it did not work for me. If I go to a backup of my PC with the Windows 10 1803 build all is good. Once the 1809 build is applied full screen freezes. There must be something that Microsoft has included in the October build that affects WMC in full screen mode. There is probably a simple fix but I'm running out of ideas. Have tried every setting in Windows and on the Intel Iris 655 graphics control panel. I'm OK as long as I stay on the 1803 build but Microsoft in their infinite wisdom only allows you to stop updates for a month is seems.

Re: WMC Freezes when full screen

Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2018 7:35 pm
by swb108
Just a further update on the screen freezing issue. I looks like the 1809 build does not honour the 'Disable Full Screen Optimisations' regedit option. In the 1803 build I also get full screen freezing but you can get over that by setting the 'Disable Full Screen Optimisations' option in the ehshell.exe properties compatibility tab. Looks like the 1809 build has introduced something, maybe to help with gaming, that is always applying full screen optimisation.

Re: WMC Freezes when full screen

Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2018 7:54 am
by technodevotee
It does seem that way.

I have found that the reg entry to disable hardware acceleration makes no difference after all.

The stuttering/juddering in full screen on my Living Room PC (AMD Radeon 5450) does seem to be fixed by using 'WMC Launcher', which is available through the link in j.c.f's signature on the My Digital Life forum.

Nothing else seems to make any lasting difference.

Re: WMC Freezes when full screen

Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2019 5:23 pm
by technodevotee
Well, I don't know about fixed because if I fast forward or rewind then play, I get stuck in a playback loop.

At least it plays OK full screen as long as you don't mess with it.

Re: WMC Freezes when full screen

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2019 11:28 am
by cohe6423
Microsoft has disable the ability to use 'Disable Full Screen Optimisations' for the process ehshell.exe. But, if you copy ehshell.exe to myehshell.exe (for example), you can use this compatibility option and you can launch myehshell in full screen.

Re: WMC Freezes when full screen

Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2019 4:34 pm
by DavidinCT
If your still having issues here... Try to update DirectX... WMC uses DirectX and if this is a fresh install (esp on a NUC), I've seen this type of issue back to Windows 7 on a early pre-Sp1 version, with no DirectX installed would cause WMC to crash when going full screen.

Re: WMC Freezes when full screen

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2019 3:14 pm
by aquadextrous
I was thinking about this... When WMC is full screen it freezes and locks up, sometimes not until media is played or fast forwarded or something but if WMC is full screen but behind something else EG task switcher screen the lock up stops and everything works normally.

Would it be possible for a program to sit always on top above media center when full screen? The programme would only potentially have to be tiny, maybe even located off the edge of the display but if it's running over WMC it could take away the freezes. I have tried to do this - my Case uses an IMON blaster in the front and IMONs software has an option to display a little icon for the remote control on the screen. If i set the icon to always show then WMC sits on top of it (both with WMC always on top and not) and it doesn't work - however if i set the icon to show when receiving a command from the remote then it pops up and removes the freeze from WMC. Because it is hidden most of the time it doesn't stop the freeze but does unfreeze it. But i think it shows if we could have something running over the top of WMC permanently then it could prevent the freezes as WMC inst the main focused program.

Whats peoples thoughts on this, and is anyone clever enough to make something to try the theory out?! :crazy:

Re: WMC Freezes when full screen

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2019 8:37 pm
by jazz_dude
Stay on top and keep focus are 2 different things. I use a stay on top gizmo (there's loads), and when I use a program that's under the top app the lower app gets focus but the top app stays on top. I'm guessing it's focus software you should be looking at.

BTW, I jumped ship and changed to NextPVR a few months ago. I'm in the UK and NPVR gets Freeview DVB T2 OK, 1 week epg from broadcasters, multi tuner record etc.

Re: WMC Freezes when full screen

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 12:48 pm
by aquadextrous
I recently decided to give W10 1809 another go - found that the usual stuff: disabling full screen optimisations, reinstating msvidctl and encdec, turning off game focus assist etc still left WMC freezing, then saw some people had just copied the ehome directory to another location. I did this and copied it to the program files folder and now wmc works flawlessly. Even though I’m still launching it from the windows ehome folder all freezes and lockups are gone. Been working fine like this for a week - obviously other people’s mileage may vary - but worth a try if you want to keep windows up to date - just keep your windows.old file intact until you’re sure it’s working 😂