ehshell.exe crashes associated with Vista Media Centre

[menthel]

Hi peeps, just a quick heads up about this.

I had started to experience crashes and lost recordings on running media centre both through vista and my xbox 360 as an extender. Looking at it in Vista I found all of them to be ehshell.exe crashes.

After some searching around the internet I found the problem!

Apparently sometimes the files for the EPG and associated files start to get really long file names (some over 500 characters) and this causes the crashes.

The fix is simple. Find the EPG folder (I used windows search, advanced and show all files inc hidden etc) and delete it. Then reboot MC, scan for channels and then download the EPG. This sorts it out. You will have to reschedule all of your recordings though.

I hope that helps someone!

[bobbyzero]

The other possible cause is if you're using FFDshow then it seems to trigger DEP when you quit MCE, which means an instant restart of MCE again

EDIT: that's a lot of acronyms, isn't it!

[Agent]

Can you disable DEP per application? I know you can in XP.

[bobbyzero]

In a way - the two options are "on for all essential programs and services" or "on for everything except..."

I just can't be bothered messing around with it, I switched it on and immediately (after a reset at least) ran into a couple of programs in a row that needed exceptions, so I switched it back off. Life's too short.

[dangel]

I get the DEP crashes a fair bit - always when it's showing a thumbnail list of my downloaded content (i.e. not recorded). It's probably dying whilst re-caching the thumbnails from the videos and it's almost certainly FFDshow causing it. Oddly, it's only been happening more recently and i've not updated FFDshow etc. Unless a windows update has caused it.. Hmm. Fortunately this doesn't happen during playback so it's 'workable'. I may play around this weekend and if i solve it i'll report back. Codecs, gah!

[roorooroo]

Will give this a go later thanks for the tip...i've just installed my media center system so that will be of help..main problem i have had is a blank black screen when accessing my networked avi folders..i think i may have too many shared? Not sure.

Cheers, Roo

[menthel]

I have no clue what any of you are on about now!

I certainly have no idea what DEP is!

[dangel]

Data Execution Prevention - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Basically some piece of code is broken - probably in a codec (probaly in FFDshow) - and windows is treating it as a potential security threat (and hence waxes the exe).

[roorooroo]

Originally Posted by menthel

I have no clue what any of you are on about now!

I certainly have no idea what DEP is!

lol..i had to google DEP too

[dangel]

You can try disabling DEP altogether just to see how things go.

Disable DEP in Vista:

1. Click Start
2. Click All Programs
3. Click Accessories
4. Right Click on Command Prompt
5. Left click on Run as Administrator
6. Click the Allow button if it asks you for permission
7. Type or copy and paste this into the command prompt window:

bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff


8. Hit enter and you should see the confirmation: Operation Completed Successfully
9. Reboot and DEP should be off.

NOTE: the real problem here is a codec failing - finding and eliminating the problem properly would be a far better idea. I'll try and do this at the weekend but there's plenty of mention of DEP issues with mkv/x264/xvid codecs on t'web.

More selectively:

Start->Right click on Computer->Properties->Advanced System Settings
Choose Advanced
Choose settings for performance
Choose Data Execution Prevention
Add exes you want to be ignore to the list using the controls provided.

[roorooroo]

Nice one..will try that myself..might give the latest 1549 tryout of ffdshow a try later to see if eliminates any of these 'DEP's.
Is this probably why my media centre's screen goes blank when trying to access my large collection of avi's i wonder?.

[dangel]

Probably - it could affect explorer int the same way i'm guessing. I really think this is either my mkv / x264 / xvid codec causing the issue. If you update codecs it might be an idea to do the following:

1. start the installer
2. ctrl+alt+del - start task manger
3. kill explorer.exe
4. finish installation
5. (in task manager) file-new task
6. enter explorer (to restart it).

Sometimes explorer can hang onto the codecs because it's been used to browse the files. Just a thought.