PapaJohn's Products and Services

If everything was running fine with Movie Maker 2, and something happened recently which gives you problems, why not just do a system restore and go back in time to when it was working well? Using the Windows XP® system restore feature is as easy as picking an earlier day from the calendar. It's a great feature (I use it a few times a week).

Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore

Use the Windows XP 'Event Viewer' to help assess problems... Start > right-click on My Computer > Manage > System Tools > Event Viewer > Application. Scroll through the log and check anything with a red Error icon. Double click on the line item to read about what happened.

See Microsoft's "How To: Be an Expert" tutorial for some additional information about problem solving. There's a link to it on the Online... Tutorials page.

Some people have issues that don't have work-arounds or resolutions today. This checklist and website might help you resolve your issue - or it might not. We're all still learning.

If you get the point of seeking help by posting to a newsgroup or forum, and your issue has to do with your computer or Movie Maker crashing or hanging, or Movie Maker not installing or running... do a right-mouse click on your MyComputer icon, select Properties, and include the info from the General tab in your post... that shown in the snapshot at the above right.

To see what pocesses are running on your computer, and how much memory and CPU energy they are using, go to the Task Manager.

Right click on the empty part of the Windows XP task bar > Task Manager > Processes tab

You'll no doubt not know most of the process names in the list. For help with that, here's a good link....

Process Library

Checklist

References are to the website pages... use the menu at the left to go to them.

Movie Maker won't install or run	Problem Solving > MM2 Will Not Install or Run (for MM2.0) Setup > MM2.1 (for MM2.1)
Can't save a movie	Problem Solving > Can't Save A Movie If you try to save a movie to the hard drive and it wants to put it on a CD instead (don't have a suggestion yet for this one).
Audio problems	Problem Solving > Audio Issues
Video problems	Problem Solving > Video Issues
If your issue is specific	Check other pages also... such as Making CDs > Introduction for a disc burning issue
Gather info	For info about your computer, run the Belarc Advisor... there's a link below this table. And check your event viewer (Start > right-click My Computer > Manage > System Tools > Event Viewer > Application > double-click on errors to get some details
MM2 limitations	If your computer and Movie Maker won't do it, maybe they can't. See the section below about Computer and Movie Maker 2 Limitations
Symptom vs. Problem	Think your issue through - many think a symptom is a problem
Hangs/Crashes/Lockups	Problem Solving > Crashes and Hangs - 95% Success Rate
Known hardware issues - MM2 Release Notes	See the section below with a link to Movie Maker 2 Release Notes, with info about: ATI Radeon Capture Device, NVIDIA Video Card, HP DLA Software Burning CDs, Sony VAIO Laptop With NeoMagic MagicGraph256XL Driver
Microsoft Knowledge Base Articles	A dozen assorted items - browse the short list in this table, and then go to the section about Knowledge Base Articles toward the bottom of this page to get more info and links. File Can't Be Imported, 3Com HomeConnect PC Camers, Video Plays Faster Than Expected, Video Age Effects Don't Look Right, Hangs When Using WildTangent Web Driver, Black Window When Recording Via Firewire, Yamaha AC-XG Sound Card Driver Issues, Video in Preview Window During Capture Appears for Only a Few Seconds, 2 Camcorders Attached Via Firewire, Digital Video Camera is not Detected Correctly, MP3 Audio Skips During Image Tansitions, Performance of 1394 devices such as firewire may decrease after you install Windows XP Service Pack 2
This might help	Reinstall MM2.0 or SP2 for MM2.1. For some, MM2.0 problems are resolved by installing SP2 with MM2.1
This might help too	Install the Windows Media Encoder Package > Setup > Other Software... the Encoder Package has many of the Windows Media 9 engine parts, Some that an install of MM2 doesn't include (like it might update your QASF.DLL file if needed)
This also might help	Post to the Windows XP Movie Maker Newsgroup... there's a link to it at the bottom of this page
Disappearing transitions and effects	Scroll down to the Other Issues section toward the bottom of this page
For computer experts	Assess software modules like DLLs... use Problem Solving > Software Modules
Give up - go back to MM1	Problem Solving > Go Back to MM1

If your problem is in a specific area, check other pages of this website also. For example, if you are trying to burn a CD, and get the message 'A recordable CD was not detected..', review the CD Burning... General page in addition to the information in this checklist.

To do problem solving, one thing you need after running into the symptom(s) is information about your computer and the software on it. The easiest and best way to start might be to get a Belarc Advisor report. It's a wonderful tool that generates an HTML page with summary and detailed information about your computer, operating system, CPU, RAM, hard drives, CD/DVD drives, installed Microsoft Hotfixes, and lots more. It only takes a minute to download the software and get the report. It's a free download from:

Belarc Advisor

Problem solving often gets you into folders and files that are normally hidden from view. To see these and include them in your searches, right click on My Computer > Tools > Folder Options > View > Files and Folders > Hidden files and folders > Show hidden files and folders.

Before changing anything to resolve a problem, note some basic limitations of your computer and Movie Maker 2. Also, check your problem to be sure it is repetitive. Sometimes simple things like closing and restarting Movie Maker, or rebooting your computer, can clear up some minor temporary issues - and if it is repetitive, it may give you strong pointers to the potential problem areas.

Movie Maker 2 runs only on Windows XP®. It does not run on Windows Me and a stand-alone application for installation on other operating systems is not available.

Movie Maker 2.0 does not directly support the use of a digital video camera as a pass-through device when capturing video. See KB Article 814835. However, a capture utility released in April 2003 Windows Media 9 Capture allows you to do a pass-through, saving to a DV-AVI file which you can then import into Movie Maker. MM2.1 supports pass-through.

This Knowledge Base article covers the file types that are supported for importing video footage: KB Article 308464. But the last review date of the article (10/18/01) shows that it applies to MM1. Use the MM2 Help file to see which file types are supported for MM2. And, although the .mp2, .mpg and .mpeg file types are listed and can work in some cases, the playback/importing of an MPEG2 file is completely dependant on the third party MPEG2 decoder installed on the user's machine. Most do not work well. See the Importing Source Files... Video Clips page for more information. Many people have problems when trying to use MPEG2 files.

Video files can be large. Hard drives using FAT and FAT32 file systems are limited to 2 or 4 GB file sizes. Change your drive to NTFS if you need to use larger files. To see which file system(s) the computer is currently using, use Start > right click on My Computer > Manage > Storage > Disk Management. Seek assistance if you are not comfortable changing from one file system to another.

To change a FAT or FAT32 drive to NTFS, use Start > Help and Support > Search for 'NTFS' > Select 'Convert a volume to NTFS from the command prompt' > follow the instructions.

Here are some pointers posted on 10/9/04 from Rino, who was appropriately leary about converting his drive to NTFS, but did it: "Everything came out very successful! I'll post some guides for others who might want to know:

1. To get more information on NTFS file system, follow PapaJohn's Instruction and select "Choosing between NTFS, FAT, and FAT32". All of these are already in your PC.

2. You don't have to Format your hard drive. You can leave all Folder intact in the Volume because you're only partitioning.

3. Try to know your Volume name first hand because you'll be asked later.

4. You're using Convert.exe of your Win-XP and working in DOS --- meaning you've to type-in and always hit Enter key to execute the command.

5. I began from: Start > Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt > type-in convert G: /fs:ntfs > hit Enter key > type-in (Volume name) > hit Enter key. Wait for "conversion complete" words appears at the end process. I used G: drive letter because that is my drive I'm going to convert; therefore, follow also your right drive letters you've chose.

6. No need to restart PC --- it works immediately."

When you try to save a large movie, Movie Maker 2 may stop responding (hang). This may occur when the file size of the movie exceeds the available RAM on your computer. See KB Article 814836 for work-arounds, and Paul McFedries' Expert Zone article Optimize Virtual Memory for Performance for some tune-up advice about your swap file. To access your virtual memory settings, use Start > Control Panel > Performance and Maintenance > System > Advanced tab > Performance Settings > Advanced tab > Virtual memory > Change

The Microsoft article doesn't define how big a 'large movie' is; that's an item that I continue to explore to help you determine it. Experience seems to say that it is more a matter of the overall complexity of the project, not a matter of a long timeline in minutes (I've done them up to 22 hours) or a large number of still images (I've done them up to 500 images). Testing your computer setup and your projects seems to be your best option when it comes to this subject - learn what you can achieve and limit the complexity of your projects based on your porsonal experience. It will vary by the computer and setup.

I received an email on 7/7/04 from someone named David, who said that, when MM2 starts to freeze once he reaches 100 different events including transitions, film clips, audio/music tracks, title overlays and so on, he resolves it by going to his Control Panel > System > Advanced tab > Performance > Settings > Advanced tab > change Processor scheduling from Programs to Background services, and Memory usage from Programs to System cache. The computer needs to be rebooted to activate these changes. He says he's had no freezes what-so-ever since doing this. And he puts the settings back to the defaults when finished his editing session. Here's a reference that explains what he's doing. MCSE Training Kit (Exam 70-270) The reference also suggests things like putting a virtual memory swap file on each disc when you have multiple drives.

Stop a Minute and Think

Before you go into your computer and change things, sit back and reflect a bit about how repetitive your problem is, the circumstances around it, and how many things might be involved. Let me illustrate with a couple nicely written summary emails I received - the first from Dale Myers on 5/10/03 illustrating hardware issues, and the second from Rick Bloom on 5/4/03 illustrating issues with a corrupt video clip:

I'm not saying that Movie Maker 2 is not the root cause of your problem(s). It might very well be. I'm saying that making movies on a computer involves a number of complex integrated processes, and what we usually define as the problem is really just a symptom. Be open to the real problem being something other than what you expect.

Dear PapaJohn,

A month or so ago I was having trouble with my computer locking up or 'Blue Screening' whenever I tried to "Save to my computer" in Movie Maker 2. I remember that you and others offered such solutions as increasing the page size for virtual memory and breaking the movie into smaller bits.

Now my computer is working properly and I think that if MM2 is causing lock-up or Blue Screen problems it is a sign of hardware problems. In my case, my processor and motherboard were both running at nearly 60 degrees Celsius. The local company I bought the computer from in January replaced the mother board and the processor as well as the power supply. Now it runs in the low 40s and MM2 doesn't care how long the movie is. It just chugs along to completion.

When I was in the shop with my computer while the seller was trying to diagnose the problem we put a half hour video that I had recorded onto my HD (and then to a CD) as a MPG file onto the tech's much older (800 MHz) computer and MM2 on that machine chugged right through it as well. Took a while, but it went to completion.

My conclusion. First look for hardware problems. Turn on Task Manager and you can see MM2 pegs the processor to 100% and keeps it there the whole time. And, PageFile Use is not all that much during the process. If you are close to the max temp before shut down, running the processor at 100% for any length of time could push it over the limit.

Dale

"PapaJohn, I finally figured out my problem after hundreds of attempts to find it! Remember it was pausing for no apparent reason in the timeline view when playing in preview. My movie is about 20 minutes long, made up of about 25 clips. Well it turns out that one of the clips is corrupt. When it paused, I would just click play again and it continued, so I never realized the problem was with the one bad file.

Anyway, due to that bad clip, every time I tried to save to my computer, it would quit and I'd get that familiar error message saying it was unable to save due to either not enough disk space or a problem with the source file. Since I was unaware of the bad clip, it was very frustrating trying to get the program to save the file. I assumed that there was a bug in MM2.

Thought you might like to know in case anyone else gets that error - check each clip to make sure it is a valid file. If it is any way erratic, it seems it may cause that error.

Regards, Rick

It took a while for me to realize it, but once I realized that the movie was pausing during the same 60 second clip every time, I pulled it from the timeline. Then it played perfectly, and saved it perfectly the first time to my surprise and pleasure! By the way, I suspect a faulty RCA video plug for causing the original corrupt file, although I can't be certain. But there was some flickering when I captured that clip and I did replace the audio/video cables at that point.

Finally, I did run that clip in a couple of other programs - Blaze Media Pro and an ATI video player program and, when it paused during playback, I knew I was on to something."

Hangs/Crashes/Lockups/Audio Issues

The Program Disappears Without Warning

MM2 Shuts Down Unexpectedly

The 'work-around' for many MM2 hangs/crashes/lockups/audio issues, especially those that occur while editing a project (adding a text/credit, moving a clip in the timeline, adding a clip to the timeline, etc.), are to lower the computer's hardware acceleration setting and 'un-register' selected codecs (.ax files) used by other software. Both are easy to test and implement work-arounds for.

For details, go to the Problem Solving... Crashes and Hangs page of the menu, or click on this link:

Microsoft Movie Maker 2 Release Notes

Check there if you have any of the following:

Other Movie Maker Knowledge Base Articles

"This File Cannot Be Imported" Error Message May Be Displayed in Windows Movie Maker - In Windows XP®, when you attempt to import multimedia files into Microsoft Windows Movie Maker version 1.1, you may receive the following error message: This file cannot be imported. Make sure that it is a valid file type and that its contents have not been corrupted.

KB Article 283374 - File Import

Cannot Use a 3Com HomeConnect PC Camera and Windows Movie Maker to Record a Movie Clip - After you upgrade from Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me) to Windows XP®, when you try to record a second movie clip by using a 3Com HomeConnect PC camera and Windows Movie Maker, you may receive the following error message: Windows Movie Maker There is a problem with the video capture device.

KB Article 307080 - 3Com Camera

Video clips play back faster than expected.

KB Article 814837 - Video Clips Play Back Faster Than Expected

Movie Maker Age Effects Do Not Appear Correctly - When you add one of the Film Age video effects to a video clip or picture in Microsoft Windows Movie Maker, you may find that not all the video effects are applied to the video clip, picture, or title in your movie. For example, you may find that the "Lint" effect does not appear.

KB Article 812611 - Age Effects

Windows Movie Maker Hangs When You Are Using a WildTangent Web Driver That Is Earlier Than 2.2.0.100 - When you publish a movie in Windows Movie Maker, the progress bar may not finish, and Windows Movie Maker may stop responding (hang). CAUSE This issue can occur if you have a deadlock in the WildTangent Web driver build 2.1.1.045.

KB Article 317580 - WildTangent Web Driver

You See a Black Video Window in Windows Movie Maker with a Variable Data Rate Digital Video 1394 Device - When you are recording in Windows Movie Maker with a digital video 1394 device that supports non-S100 data rates, you may see a black window in Windows Movie Maker. CAUSE This problem occurs because the 61883.sys driver does not detect the supported data rates

KB Article 324300 - Black Video Window

AutoMovie Editing Style Elements Appear in the Movie After You Clear the Storyboard or the Timeline - When you use an AutoMovie editing style for a movie that you create, and then you clear the storyboard or timeline and apply a different AutoMovie editing style, you may find that elements of the first AutoMovie editing style still appear in the movie.

KB Article 812609 - AutoMovie

Multimedia Programs May Not Work After You Install Windows XP® SP1- If your computer uses the Yamaha AC-XG sound card driver, some multimedia programs may not work correctly after you install Windows XP® Service Pack 1 (SP1). For example: The Sony GigaPocket program may stop responding (hang) when you start it. When you run Microsoft Windows Movie Maker, you may receive...

KB Article 328435 - Yamaha AC-XG sound card driver

Video appears in the preview window for only a few seconds in your video capture program. If you use a video capture program, such as Microsoft Windows Movie Maker, on a computer that is running Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 1 and Microsoft DirectX 9.0b, your video may appear in the preview window for only a few seconds....

KB Article 830363 - Video Preview During Capture

Problems with Two Digital Video Camcorders That Are Connected to Two Different IEEE 1394 Adapters - When you connect two digital video camcorders to two different Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE) 1394 adapters and you are running in the Camera mode, the first camcorder you attach to the computer may work correctly, but the second camcorder may not work correctly.

KB Article 319739 - Two Digital Video Cameras

When you connect your digital video (DV) camera using a firewire cable, you may experience one or more of the following symptoms: The digital video camera is not detected correctly. Even if it is detected correctly and the digital video driver is loaded correctly, you cannot use the Replay and the Stop functions in a digital video program such as Microsoft Windows Movie Maker. When you try to use Windows Movie Maker with the digital video camera, Windows Movie Maker stops responding (hangs). This problem is known to occur with early Sharp digital video cameras, such as the Sharp Digital Viewcam VL-FD1 camcorder.

A supported hotfix is available from Microsoft, but it is only intended to correct the problem that is described in this article. Only apply it to systems that are experiencing this specific problem. This hotfix may receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by this problem, Microsoft recommends that you wait for the next Windows XP service pack that contains this hotfix.

KB Article 826377 - Digital Video Camera is not Detected Correctly

Audio File Sound Skips During Image Transitions - When you add an MP3 music file to a Windows Movie Maker project, you may find that the sound skips or hesitates during image transitions.

KB Article 812610 - Audio Skips During Image Transitions

CD-R drive or CD-RW drive is not recognized as a recordable device - When you attempt to burn data to a compact disc recordable (CD-R) drive or compact disc rewritable (CD-RW) drive, you may not have the option to send data to the CD-ROM drive. When you view the properties of the CD-R drive or CD-RW drive, you may notice that the Recording tab is not displayed in the CD Drive (drive_letter:) Properties dialog box, where drive_letter is the letter of the CD-R drive or CD-RW drive.

KB Article 316529 - CD-R drive or CD-RW drive is not recognized as a recordable device

After you update your computer to Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), the performance of 1394a or 1394b FireWire devices may be greatly decreased. A digital camera that uses S400 speed is an example of such a device. This problem occurs if you connect a 1394a or 1394b FireWire device to a 1394b port. This problem occurs because Windows XP SP2 changes 1394b ports to S100 speed when you upgrade.

KB Article 885222 - Performance of 1394 devices May Decrease After SP2

A (Serial Bus Protocol) SBP-2 device doesn't work when it is connected to a Windows XP SP2-based computer...

SYMPTOMS: When you connect a Serial Bus Protocol 2 (SBP-2) device, such as an IEEE 1394 device, to a Microsoft Windows XP-based computer, you may experience: The SBP-2 device stops responding (hangs) or does not work, the SBP-2 device is not displayed in Device Manager, IEEE 1394 devices that are already connected to the computer stop responding or do not work.

RESOLUTION: Download the update for Windows XP from the Microsoft Download Center Web site.

KB Article 904412 - Performance of 1394 devices May Decrease After SP2

Other Issues

Disappearing Video Transitions and Effects

Some people have experienced their full sets of video transitions and effects being reduced to just a couple... the reasons, work-arounds and solutions haven't been determined yet.

Some reported resolving it by cleaning up their spyware and adware... for others, that hasn't worked. Another resolved it by removing Cisco VPN software.

If you've experienced and resolved it, I'm very interested in any feedback... online or by email. Here's one forum thread from someone who fixed his issues, combined with Rehan using the feedback to study the issue closer.

Resolved Lost Effects and Transitions

One of the conflicting applications is "Vision6" software from GenevaLogic, a classroom management software... for remote monitoring of students computers. They offer a patch to resolve it.

2/21/07 forum post... custom skins or themes for windows XP. I was using Flyakite OS X and my transitions and effects disappeared right afterwords. When I removed Flyakite OS X, the transitions and effects reappeared...

.... and a followup post of 3/5/07 said "... My problem was solved (without uninstalling flyakite) when... I copied the "moviemk.exe" file from a computer that was working fine and all the other .dll files to my laptop and everything seems back to normal.... One thing I noticed was that the icons stayed as "Win XP" instead of the "Mac OS" icon which flyakite changed.

... and a post of 6/27/07 "...I figured out how to bring it all back if you have FlyakiteOSX, without uninstalling the entire program. =) ... Go to Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs > FlyakiteOSX (Change/Remove). There should be a box that comes up with a list of components to delete. Click on the grey arrow to the left of 'System Files', then 'EXE System Files', then check the box for 'moviemk.exe', then click on Uninstall. Reboot your computer and voila, the transitions/effects are back and you still have Flyakite!

10/18/06 forum post... using Movie Maker for quite a while... and lost all its video effects and transitions... created a new name of the PC and deleted the one that was messed up, now its okay.

6/27/06 and later forum posts by various users say... uninstalling the Bricopack Windows XP screen themes was the solution... all the effects and transitions are back...

9/29/06 forum post... for some odd reason, all of my Fade In/Out effects were gone.... > 10/2/06 - I had the same problem. Actually, it was more like a prolonged migraine headache. I tried EVERYTHING (except reformatting my hard-drive). Anyway, I noticed that the program was intentionally seeking the corrupted .dll files for the effects and transitions. No matter how many times I copied, deleted, or reinstalled the program and those particular .dll files, the program kept locating the corrupt ones, regardless of where they were stored (found this in the files accessed search, immediately after I used the MM2 program).

I also knew I had a moderate amount of spyware junk on my computer, so I have been working to clean that up. Anyway, I ran the F-Secure Blacklight and then the latest Ewido, and it cleaned up two trojans. Next thing I noticed, to my surprise, all of the effects and transitions mysteriously reappeared, even though I did absolutely nothing to the Movie Maker program itself.

9/29/06 forum post... I had this problem also. I tried the DLL trick which did not help. I noted the administrator did not have the same problem as the user account. I gave the user account local admin rights and now it works. I would imagine granting the user rights to some folder would do the trick...

6/27/06 forum posts... it might be the Bricopack Windows XP screen themes.... installation caused the problem and removal of it restored the missing effects & transitions.

6/10/04 forum post... after installing MM2 half of the effects were gone and all transitions. The cause was the radeon Multimedia center and drivers. They do not support some of the effects with Direct draw 9. Try to download the latest MMC and catalyst drivers.

Newsletter #34 was a special issue about how to check and clear your system of adware and spyware. Click the image to read it.

The steps are to use Ad-aware and Spybot (newsletter links are still good) followed by HijackThis (current link... HijackThis) and CWShredder. The newsletter suggests emailing the HiJackThis log file to someone who can interpret it.... today it's done in seconds by a great online website HijackThis.de Security.

Newsletters are published weekly to subscribers only, but posted online for open viewing a couple months later. Use this link to the Products and Services page for more info and to subscribe.

Microsoft Movie Maker 2.1 - part of SP2

If the above hasn't resolved your issue(s), try reinstalling Movie Maker 2 over your existing software. The installation package is no longer a stand-alone one for Movie Maker... but part of the large Windows XP SP2 package available at:

If none of the above resolved your issue(s), post your problem on the Windows XP® Movie Maker newsgroup for peer support:

microsoft.public.windowsxp.moviemaker

If you still need to dig deeper and are skilled enough with computers to get into DLL and registry issues, here's a list of the modules used by Movie Maker and issues and resolutions posted about them since the beta version of MM2 was released. If you are not sure, stop and seek help.

Movie Maker 2 Software Modules