Sonichddemuxer.dll Causes Other Apps To Crash

[Chappy 0]

Hi Folks

 

First, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year to my friends here! I hope you all find comfort and good times with family & friends this Holiday season!

 

Now, here's what's what. I've been using Creator 2009 for about 4 months now and no real issues so far with this suite, but it seems to interfere drastically with other non Sonic DVD related apps.

I've ripped a few titles from the BBC series "Planet Earth", "Blue Planet" and the other 2 sets in the series. Now before anyone goes all "High & Mightier then thou" on me, I am a firm proponent of being allowed to create backup copies of your software titles you OWN, and since my brother in law is not versed in this type of thing I've been doing it for him. Anyway, 17 dual layer disks in all and I ripped them all to VIDEO_TS folders on my HDD (I didn't have enough Dual Layer DVD's at that time to do direct copy..heheh).

I was using Copy2DVD to make "bit-4-bit" copies (didn't want to re-encode) but on at least 6 disks the app crashed, and these crashes were all caused by SonicHDdemuxer.dll. I tried a temp rename of the dll to see what happened, started Copy2DVD and I was informed by popup that the installer needed to configure sonicHDdemuxer.dll and asked for my Creator 2009 disk...I was a bit perplexed by this other program asking to install a Roxio dll. On a few occasions the files would load and the burn apparently start and then crash with the same demuxer.dll as the problem and the DL-DVD disk made useless...8 of them in all (major unhappy, they aren't cheap).

 

I then tried a few other DVD copy app's., Xilisoft DVD Copy, PlatoDVD Copy, DVD Cloner VI along with 2 others. Some would start the burn and then fail with these same VIDEO_TS files but most of the time as soon as I navigated to the folder to add the IFO, BUP and VOB files the app's would crash. Every time the event viewer said that SonicHDdemuxer.dll was the faulting module...(???) I did a clean reinstall of Creator 09 but no happy there.

 

Finally I just uninstalled Creator 2009, reinstalled the Shark007 Codec pack (which I always use with Creator and Nero with no issues...EVER), and now magically all these other apps work perfectly...without any popups or issues regarding that SonicHDdemuxer.dll.

I guess in a way this is also more than a question about that demuxer dll, and also a statement to Sonic about the way it interfere's with any other DVD copy/create s'ware and crashes the other app. Obviously the popup was from Sonic and not the other apps, and Sonic basically hijacked my ability to use other DVD creator apps by forcing their proprietary dll on this sytem.

 

Has anyone else have this issue? I searched the forum and a post from 2007 brought up the exact same issue but nobody ever posted to it.

I'll be informing Sonic of my displeasure with this behavior as well since I'm not positive any Sonic staff read the forums.

 

FYI - one video file I tried with at least 4 other apps that crashed each time due to sonicHDdemuxer.dll, just finished without issue after Creator 09 was uninstalled....hmmm.

[myguggi 131]

Hi Folks

 

First, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year to my friends here! I hope you all find comfort and good times with family & friends this Holiday season!

 

Now, here's what's what. I've been using Creator 2009 for about 4 months now and no real issues so far with this suite, but it seems to interfere drastically with other non Sonic DVD related apps.

I've ripped a few titles from the BBC series "Planet Earth", "Blue Planet" and the other 2 sets in the series. Now before anyone goes all "High & Mightier then thou" on me, I am a firm proponent of being allowed to create backup copies of your software titles you OWN, and since my brother in law is not versed in this type of thing I've been doing it for him. Anyway, 17 dual layer disks in all and I ripped them all to VIDEO_TS folders on my HDD (I didn't have enough Dual Layer DVD's at that time to do direct copy..heheh).

I was using Copy2DVD to make "bit-4-bit" copies (didn't want to re-encode) but on at least 6 disks the app crashed, and these crashes were all caused by SonicHDdemuxer.dll. I tried a temp rename of the dll to see what happened, started Copy2DVD and I was informed by popup that the installer needed to configure sonicHDdemuxer.dll and asked for my Creator 2009 disk...I was a bit perplexed by this other program asking to install a Roxio dll. On a few occasions the files would load and the burn apparently start and then crash with the same demuxer.dll as the problem and the DL-DVD disk made useless...8 of them in all (major unhappy, they aren't cheap).

 

I then tried a few other DVD copy app's., Xilisoft DVD Copy, PlatoDVD Copy, DVD Cloner VI along with 2 others. Some would start the burn and then fail with these same VIDEO_TS files but most of the time as soon as I navigated to the folder to add the IFO, BUP and VOB files the app's would crash. Every time the event viewer said that SonicHDdemuxer.dll was the faulting module...(???) I did a clean reinstall of Creator 09 but no happy there.

 

Finally I just uninstalled Creator 2009, reinstalled the Shark007 Codec pack (which I always use with Creator and Nero with no issues...EVER), and now magically all these other apps work perfectly...without any popups or issues regarding that SonicHDdemuxer.dll.

I guess in a way this is also more than a question about that demuxer dll, and also a statement to Sonic about the way it interfere's with any other DVD copy/create s'ware and crashes the other app. Obviously the popup was from Sonic and not the other apps, and Sonic basically hijacked my ability to use other DVD creator apps by forcing their proprietary dll on this sytem.

 

Has anyone else have this issue? I searched the forum and a post from 2007 brought up the exact same issue but nobody ever posted to it.

I'll be informing Sonic of my displeasure with this behavior as well since I'm not positive any Sonic staff read the forums.

 

FYI - one video file I tried with at least 4 other apps that crashed each time due to sonicHDdemuxer.dll, just finished without issue after Creator 09 was uninstalled....hmmm.

 

Breaking the copyright protection on commercial discs is illegal (no matter with what you think) and discussion of it here is not allowed.

[Chappy 0]

Breaking the copyright protection on commercial discs is illegal (no matter with what you think) and discussion of it here is not allowed

 

Actually, you are incorrect. In Canada (and many, Many other countries) it is Legal and proven in our courts that copying for archival purposes is allowed. Sharing that archive to anyone other than the proper owner, outside of simple viewing that is, is NOT legal, so no Laws are being broken here.

Still if you feel that way that's your opinion.

Others, and you may be one yourself, feel that an investment of $100's of dollars in an very fragile medium such as CD's and DVD's, deserves to be protected. Therefore to copy the original so it can be put away in a safe environment, and allow the copies to take the daily abuse, is a smart way to protect that investment. Fortunately the courts agree upon this (look it up) and copy protections are put in place to try to limit file sharing, not archiving. Remember blank VHS??? blank Cassettes? blank CD's? Every time a new recordable format arrived, the Media makers howl unfair but every time the courts side with the public right to record data they own or that is freely available.

 

Still tho, you miss the point here Walt. I'm not talking or asking questions on how to "rip" or "share" these files, the fact remains that the SonicHDdemuxer.dll interferes with LEGAL programs other than Roxio/Sonic products operations. This dll must register as the proprietary muxer/demuxer for any such operations, otherwise it would not be called during another program's operation. That is not right and reminds us of older media players or other programs that take over file associations without user permissions. Many of us worked hard for years to stop developers from thinking they can take over user machines that way and filters such as this are no different.

 

BTW, upon removal of Creator 09 and that dll, all other DVD creation program crashes have disappeared. Hopefully anyone else having a similar issue will read this and find the way to fix it. I didn't test trying to unregister that particular dll to see if that is a viable workaround or not so I'll do that next. Still ticks me off that I had to uninstall Creator to get other programs to function.

Edited December 29, 2008 by Chappy

[Brendon 198]

Hi Chappy,

 

That particular Sonic DLL first made its appearance in EMC 9, and has been used ever since. It wasn't in EMC 8 or earlier versions when I searched.

 

If it is called when other programs are doing MUX/DEMUX operations [which are not necessarily connected with defeating protection or breaching copyright] then I agree with you about careless or arrogant programming which insists that only "our" unsuitable DLL be used for ALL such operations. I can't guarantee that the offenders will do anything to correct that though, even if they are still with the Company.

 

Regards,

Brendon

[Chappy 0]

Hi Brendon

 

Yah, it's always been frustrating when certain programs decide to take over all related functions by registering their proprietary (insert offending module name here) or take over file associations without user permissions. Back in tha day a group of of us Tech Forum admins banded together to "request" spam the developer's of programs that used this kind of behavior until we forced them to realize how unwelcome that is to us little people. Our forums were full of newer users who were upset that "such-&-such" program launched anytime they tried to view pictures or listen to music, and we just got fed up with it to the point of fighting back..LOL...fun days

 

I am very disappointed to see this from a Sonic filter and have brought this up to the Support staff. I've used Roxio/Sonic since 04 but this problem has me wondering if I will even reinstall Creator 09 again. I've also used Nero 8 alongside Roxio/Sonic suites and I've never had Nero filters cause this sort of problem, nor have the 2 program's interfered with each other...so far.

I still want to test if unregistering the dll with regsvr32 command will make a difference or not, but that's a workaround that should be unnecessary IMO.

 

I guess this whole post is more a bit of a rant in a way, and not so much a question other than if anyone else has seen this problem lately. Needless to say I was quite upset that this conflict cost me 8 dual layer Tayo Yuden DVD's.

Edited December 30, 2008 by Chappy

[Brendon 198]

Needless to say I was quite upset that this conflict cost me 8 dual layer Tayo Yuden DVD's.

Ouch! That's like treading on gold. I feel your pain.

 

Brendon