[kdeslaur]

I'm trying to be objective, but may fail, please give me the benefit of the doubt if I seem a bit sarcastic or cynical. EMC 9 has not been one of the more reliable applications, and Vista is its own source of frustration.

I have an HP DV9235NR laptop (NVidia video card, this may be relevant as others with NVidias seem to be having some of the other problems I see) running Windows Vista Home Premium with all Important or higher OS patches.

With EMC 9 installed, and all EMC services and startup apps enabled and when running one of my other DVD and/or MPEG apps (DVD Shrink or Kodak EasyShare for example), my machine shuts down like it was a desktop and I pulled the power cord. Except it's a laptop.

On startup from one of these unexpected shutdowns, Windows believes I was a bad boy and claims I don't know how to shut off my computer (per the overly optimistic-in-Microsoft's-favor Reliability monitor).

When I disable the EMC 9 services and startup apps, my other applications run fine. Disabling the services is a key part of the solution.

For Kodak EasyShare, it seems to be when I have MPEGs to download from my camera. During download-from-camera or duplicate checking, the machine will intermittently shut down hard.

DVD Shrink does it intermittently, until it starts to do it, then it does it every time, and only on Encoding phase, never on Analyzing phase. Pretty much any movie DVD (Whoever decided DVDs shouldn't have a hard case, ala 3.5 diskettes, needs to be thumped. Kids kill more DVDs in one month than VHS tapes in 5 years).

This same combination (with more codecs and way more software) on an older HP laptop (AMD) running XP Home has no issues. I'm trying to get upgraded to the new machine, but EMC is fighting me with other issues and crashes (see my other posts, and Support has at least 1 ticket outstanding).

Anyone have a fix for this (other than turning off EMC permanently - my wife likes it when it works)?

Thanks,
Eric D

This post has been edited by kdeslaur: 21 May 2007 - 09:24 AM

[barryware]

I'm trying to be objective, but may fail, please give me the benefit of the doubt if I seem a bit sarcastic or cynical. EMC 9 has not been one of the more reliable applications, and Vista is its own source of frustration.

I have an HP DV9235NR laptop (NVidia video card, this may be relevant as others with NVidias seem to be having some of the other problems I see) running Windows Vista Home Premium with all Important or higher OS patches.

With EMC 9 installed, and all EMC services and startup apps enabled and when running one of my other DVD and/or MPEG apps (DVD Shrink or Kodak EasyShare for example), my machine shuts down like it was a desktop and I pulled the power cord. Except it's a laptop.

On startup from one of these unexpected shutdowns, Windows believes I was a bad boy and claims I don't know how to shut off my computer (per the overly optimistic-in-Microsoft's-favor Reliability monitor).

When I disable the EMC 9 services and startup apps, my other applications run fine. Disabling the services is a key part of the solution.

For Kodak EasyShare, it seems to be when I have MPEGs to download from my camera. During download-from-camera or duplicate checking, the machine will intermittently shut down hard.

DVD Shrink does it intermittently, until it starts to do it, then it does it every time, and only on Encoding phase, never on Analyzing phase. Pretty much any movie DVD (Whoever decided DVDs shouldn't have a hard case, ala 3.5 diskettes, needs to be thumped. Kids kill more DVDs in one month than VHS tapes in 5 years).

This same combination (with more codecs and way more software) on an older HP laptop (AMD) running XP Home has no issues. I'm trying to get upgraded to the new machine, but EMC is fighting me with other issues and crashes (see my other posts, and Support has at least 1 ticket outstanding).

Anyone have a fix for this (other than turning off EMC permanently - my wife likes it when it works)?

Thanks,
Eric D

Not to sound like a "know it all" but:

Is this computer new? Random shut downs and re-boots typically point to a hardware problem, in this case, I would suspect the RAM.

All the programs you mention are pretty intense in regards to "stressing" your hardware.

I would suggest searching and downloading a program called "memtest". It is freeware and stresses your ram under a dos environment. If there is a problem, it will show up with memtest.

Actually.... You can download it Here

This post has been edited by barryware: 21 May 2007 - 05:31 PM

[kdeslaur]

It's a good call, but I've already run a couple. I always burn in my new machines. Much more betta to find out it's broke before you put a bunch of junk on it.

It's now about 4 months old, EMC is only about 2-3 on this machine.

Right now, as a matter of fact, I'm using several of the programs (USB is D/L a Kodak set, and DVD Shrink is shrinking Shrek since another copy got trashed by someone today, and a couple 10 other things running).

No problems, other than the CPU is working hard.

As soon as I enable the EMC 9 services, it'll ka-blam.

[The Highlander]

Just as a wimm , can you go into control pannel and click installed programes, then find Roxio EMC9 in the list and right click it and it gives you the option to un-install or re-install or repair, can you do the re-install (full repair), also wile you are there remove drag to disk if thats in the list?, and then reboot and see if that has helped?
as i said its just a "what if " type of request... but it may help

This post has been edited by The Highlander: 22 May 2007 - 01:31 AM

[gi7omy]

On one point in your post "...DVD Shrink is shrinking Shrek..." EMC 9 will NOT copy any commercial or protected DVDs

[Blaze]

On one point in your post "...DVD Shrink is shrinking Shrek..." EMC 9 will NOT copy any commercial or protected DVDs

But no problems copying CD's !!!

[kdeslaur]

Support didn't have any better options, so keep 'em coming!

A Repair as the user I installed as works, but doesn't resolve anything.

You can view my travails trying to get a second user working here:
http://forums.support.roxio.com/index.php?showtopic=22230

<soapbox mode> (Skip down to avoid it)
I strongly dislike that Drag To Disk is not an install-time option. It's also frustrating that things like LightSpeed get installed, which I also don't want. And the fact that Xingtones only works for one phone on Vista (but not XP), which they don't tell you until after you get into the help, and after you've installed and registered it. That really sux.

Someone at Roxio would make a big leap forward if they set people's expectations up front and also gave us a Custom install. And an Install that didn't take most of an hour on a pretty hot machine for less than 1GB of stuff. What's up with that? I can install my whole OS in less time.
</soapbox mode>

The two services which seem to trigger things (excluding startup EXEs since I haven't had time to narrow it down further), are Roxio Upnp Server 9 and Roxio Hard Drive Watcher 9.

Just disabling the startup EXEs only intermittently resolves the issues, DragToDisk is part of this set, AFAIK, not part of the Services.

I have to say, since I've disabled Roxio EMC9, it's been really nice to go more than a day without the machine tanking. REALLY NICE. I'm completely convinced it's the problem since I've done more things in the last few days on this machine without a single problem than I was able to accomplish in the previous month.

Maybe my frustration with Vista is [at least] partially misguided...

Thanks for the thoughts, keep 'em coming!!
Eric D

This post has been edited by kdeslaur: 23 May 2007 - 06:29 AM

[barryware]

Support didn't have any better options, so keep 'em coming!

A Repair as the user I installed as works, but doesn't resolve anything.

You can view my travails trying to get a second user working here:
http://forums.support.roxio.com/index.php?showtopic=22230

<soapbox mode> (Skip down to avoid it)
I strongly dislike that Drag To Disk is not an install-time option. It's also frustrating that things like LightSpeed get installed, which I also don't want. And the fact that Xingtones only works for one phone on Vista (but not XP), which they don't tell you until after you get into the help, and after you've installed and registered it. That really sux.

Someone at Roxio would make a big leap forward if they set people's expectations up front and also gave us a Custom install. And an Install that didn't take most of an hour on a pretty hot machine for less than 1GB of stuff. What's up with that? I can install my whole OS in less time.
</soapbox mode>

The two services which seem to trigger things (excluding startup EXEs since I haven't had time to narrow it down further), are Roxio Upnp Server 9 and Roxio Hard Drive Watcher 9.

Just disabling the startup EXEs only intermittently resolves the issues, DragToDisk is part of this set, AFAIK, not part of the Services.

I have to say, since I've disabled Roxio EMC9, it's been really nice to go more than a day without the machine tanking. REALLY NICE. I'm completely convinced it's the problem since I've done more things in the last few days on this machine without a single problem than I was able to accomplish in the previous month.

Maybe my frustration with Vista is [at least] partially misguided...

Thanks for the thoughts, keep 'em coming!!
Eric D

I am sure you know already as it seems you have been digging into your rig for a while.

Once the suite is installed, you can go into add/remove programs and uninstall some of the stuff that gets installed without your permission. For instance, I uninstalled drag to disk, sitespeed (or whatever it's called), and the ringtones.

The roxwatch and the rest of the "crap" that I don't want running, I disabled it through "msconfig" AND "services" using the control panel -> administrative tools.

[edeslaur]

I am sure you know already as it seems you have been digging into your rig for a while.

Once the suite is installed, you can go into add/remove programs and uninstall some of the stuff that gets installed without your permission. For instance, I uninstalled drag to disk, sitespeed (or whatever it's called), and the ringtones.

Yes, I know I can. However, I shouldn't have to go back an uninstall things. AND I shouldn't have to guess what was installed (wow, that begged for a TLA starting with W and ending with F).

[gi7omy]

I would tend to agree that you shouldn't have to hunt round for things you don't want to be there in the first place, but unfortunately, that's something that happens.

Ever try getting rid of some of the crud that MS insists on installing in Windows (and that's all windows from 95 up)?

[tbrewst]

What version are you running?I have 9.1.068 installed on my Vista machine and when I did the install it gave me the choice of not installing all the apps you say you had no choice about,including Drag to Disc.If you are running a version less than 9.1.068 then what you are saying will happen and problems may arise as they are not really Vista compatible no matter what the box says.

[edeslaur]

5 days since I disabled the Roxio EMC9 services and startup apps and not a single hard shutdown (just the disabling startup apps didn't solve this, but did make it more intermittent).

It also appears load order may be an issue, since I enabled/disabled a bunch of things, reenabled the whole kaboodle since my wife needed some of them running and it was easiest to do it that way and the next few reboots were clean. And then the problems started up again, going from intermittent to every time again.

Turns out a lot of the ire I've felt towards Vista seems to be related to this issue. That only took a bit more than a month to figure out (I have a life other than fixing this issue, otherwise it would have been about 10-15 hours of troubleshooting since causing the situations that cause this can take about 45 mins to an hour to create).

Oh, and two vacation days where I hit up Roxio support (they didn't provide any meaningful insights beyond what I had already done) during the AM since their hours conflict with those of us working people who buy this stuff for home use (believe it or not, this issue was a strong driver in even taking the time off.)

Now that I've found what makes the problem go away (arguably a "cause" though not a root cause), now it's up to Roxio to pin it down and solve it. I won't even charge them for my time!

John, looking forward to you and your team tracking down (what is likely) the Roxio Upnp service conflict with other apps that use MPEG codecs (I'm reaching, it may be DVD drivers as well) and solving this one!!

Eric D

[edeslaur]

What version are you running?I have 9.1.068 installed on my Vista machine

Whoo-a, I have 9.0.088.

Worse, it doesn't think there are any updates. NOR does the Updates page at Roxio's site. Righteous.

Time for a support contact. And, of course, they're closed. Again. Sigh...

This post has been edited by edeslaur: 25 May 2007 - 03:37 PM

[gi7omy]

Doubt if contacting support will be much help - 9.1.068 is the new download release and they STILL haven't ussed the patch to update the 9.0 version.

[edeslaur]

SSo this morning I'm watching a Netflix movie over the internet (not on DVD) and - peeeeeowwww.. The laptop shut itself off (like pulling the plug on a desktop).

Ru-roh, this is the same behaviour as the Kodak camera. And EMC is running, of course (Would that it would do this without EMC running just once. Just once!)

Guess what I'll be doing tonight as my test. Yep, watching movies with EMC completely disabled again (kids were making videowave DVDs last night, with my user, of course, so I *had* to turn it on, against my better judgement).

[gi7omy]

How do you mean 'you turned it on'?

Normally EMC9 (like any other app) doesn't run in the background but what you may have is Media Manager running - personally I always found that to be a resource hog so I disable it by using msconfig to stop it starting up in the first place. I also uninstall Drag to Disc (I won't use it in any circumstances) and with those two out of action, the only time anything starts is if I open one of the apps in the suite and they shut down when I finish and close them.

It shouldn't be necessary to enable those for Videowave - so that bit does puzzle me as to what you actually 'turened on'

[edeslaur]

I re-enabled all startup executables and services in from MSConfig.

Services and startup EXEs are running all the time. Then you fire up EMC to use it.

[gi7omy]

You do not need media manager, d2d or anything else running to use the programs - leave them disabled.

It sounds very much like your laptop doesn't have the resources to keep them all running anyway

[kdeslaur]

Actually, the laptop is loafing along with what I have running on it.

Dual Core 5200 w/ 2GB, using an average of 40% of RAM and CPU only running up when doing things I would expect the CPU to spike up for.

My dual proc PIII 1GHz machine w/ 1GB handles more stuff than I have on this machine so far. Except it's XP vs Vista here.

That's not it.

[tbrewst]

Just FYI.I have 5 services for anything Roxio or Sonic,2 are for UpnP that are stopped.1 is for Live Share and it is stopped.2 more are for Media Manager and they are running.Under Startup I have 2 entries that have to do with Roxio or Sonic.1 is for Common SDK and thats running.The other is DMX Launcher which is also running.
My install is on a desktop and I've never had an unexpected shutdown happen.Not that this helps at all it's just for info.