URGENT HELP REQUIRED - MS12 now crashes

John Roberts wrote on 8/20/2014, 11:27 AM

Hi all, I need urgent help as I'm in the middle of an editing project and everything is going wrong!

Everything was fine yesterday, no changes have been made but today MS12 is giving me huge problems. MS12 either crashes when loading any project, or if I can load a project it randomly crashes either when trimming a media file or attempting playback or rendering. A number of times this is accompanied by a Blue Screen of Death, sometimes stating 'memory management' issues, sometimes nothing is stated.

MS12 always appears to point blame to mc_dec_avc.dll in the plug-ins folder - I have no idea what this is or whether I can do anything about it. I have updated to the latest build of MS12 (1184 I think) but the problem still remains. I have never had a single issue with MS12 since installation and until today, now it refuses to run. I use an HP pavilion with Win 7 64-bit, 8GB RAM and i7-2600 3.40GHz quad core.

Any help greatly or requests for more information greatly appreciated

Comments

TreeTops wrote on 8/20/2014, 11:55 AM

There was a recent MS update that has caused some problems. Could that be your issue?

These are the problem updates:

KB2982791
KB2970228
KB2975719
KB2975331

John Roberts wrote on 8/20/2014, 12:15 PM

I don't see any of those KB updates in my installed updates list, and I generally don't update too often if things are working correctly (last update 11/08). However, I am in fact at this moment updating windows so my latest updates could well include those you have listed. I haven't got a clue what else to do...

Ivan Lietaert wrote on 8/20/2014, 1:56 PM

The blue screen of death usually indicates a hardware issue. It could be a memory module gotten loose. You should be able to open a latch on the underside of your laptop, giving access to the ram modules. Check if they are still ok. If that is not causing the issue, hm... it could be a lot of things. If you are working with your files on an external drive, then unhook it and give Vegas a run using the internal drive only. If it is your usb port that is faulty, you should find Vegas running better.

John Roberts wrote on 8/20/2014, 3:48 PM

Thanks :-) I did wonder about the memory issue so I dragged the PC out, removed and reseated the RAM modules a few times, hoovered out a little dust and tried again. Same issue. I restarted in safe mode and performed a RAM check, which reported no errors.

Whilst trying to update Windows the PC BSOD'd again, so I thought "why not remove one of the RAM modules?" I did so, and so far, all seems well. The errant projects now load, review and render OK, albeit a little slower, but up to now the PC has remained stable and MS12 has not crashed *touches wood.*

I'll keep working with the RAM stick removed for a couple of days and report back my findings, but for now it looks like a faulty RAM module.

DocSatori wrote on 8/20/2014, 6:33 PM

Were the RAM sticks equivalents? Same speed especially? I once discovered two RAM sticks with different frequencies were causing a similar problem.

MSmart wrote on 8/20/2014, 11:14 PM

Yep, the removed stick is most likely bad.

Last year I started to get frequent DSODs and replacing both memory sticks resolved the problem.

John Roberts wrote on 8/22/2014, 6:58 AM

Hi, yes the memory sticks were both equivalent, only from a different manufacturer as one was originally supplied with the PC and the other I bought. It's the one I bought that appears to be at fault but the supplier has said they will replace this no problem.

Curiously, I wasn't expecting MS12 to run at all on only 4GB total RAM (MS11 wouldn't - hence the RAM upgrade) but it has been running well with rendering just a little slower than usual. Possibly because MS12 is 64-bit it can utilise the memory better than the 32-bit MS11. I was surprised as I didn't expect it to run at all!

Memory gone back to suppliers today :-)

Ivan Lietaert wrote on 8/22/2014, 10:34 AM

I have VMS12 running happily on a 6 year old machine with only 3Gb ram (with the OS and Vegas installed on a SSD, which makes a huge difference.)

In fact, you are lucky it is the faulty ram module to blame. Usually, you get a very long warranty for ram (5 or 10 years is no exception), which is not the case for other components.

DocSatori wrote on 8/24/2014, 8:58 AM

Thank you for answering my question about the memory stick equivalencies. If they are equal and undamaged, I have no other ideas about solving your problem.

As far as quantity of RAM to run the application, I've always believed my RAM never was a fast as my processor(s) so it made little difference how much RAM I had on board, even if their frequencies were as high as my motherboard(s) would allow.