Tom Levan wrote:
... Scott doesn't seem to know why (or even care, for that matter) why VSD is calling ffdshow in the first place. Oh well.
Tom
Per wrote:
A tad unfair, wouldn't you say Tom?
No, Per, I don't think what I said is a tad unfair because Scott admitted that the only CC program that uses ffdshow is the Web Video Recorder program. And yet, I have demonstrated that VSD is indeed "calling" ffdshow. Doesn't that prove or at least suggest that VSD is indeed "using" ffdshow in my particular case? Therefore, I would think that Scott would at least be
curious as to why VSD is "using" ffdshow. Plus, I would also think that he (or his tech support team) would at least be familiar enough with ffdshow to
know of some possible reasons why VSD is "using" ffdshow. In fact,
you even suggested that VSD may be "using" ffdshow in conjunction with "bgsound" and then pointed out that "bgsound" is NOT "standard" HTML! Well, I didn't know that (thank you very much, Per, for that info) because I'm not an HTML expert. In fact, I don't even know HTML. That's why I'm using VSD!
So, perhaps "bgsound" is the problem rather than some unknown "bug" on my hard drive. But Scott never mentioned that possibility, and neither did anyone else but you. OTOH, I did ask Spinny or someone else (anyone, actually) to do a test on one of their web sites (even a brand new one-page test web site will do!) using my "bgsound" string and an mp3 file in order to eliminate that string (or something in it, like "bgsound") as the possible culprit. Unfortunately, NO ONE has offered to do this for me---including Scott---even though it would take less than five minutes to do, which is a heck of a lot less time than everyone has spent posting comments to this thread since I made my request and a heck of a lot less time than the FULL DAY (not just ONE HOUR) it would take me to reformat my hard drive AND reinstall Windows AND reinstall all of my software! That's why I responded to Scott's suggestion the way I did.
And, Scott, there wasn't anything in my response to your suggestion that was intended to "shoot the messenger." I'm sorry you got that impression, but I was merely asking you to reconsider your suggestion because it seemed rather extreme to me considering the relatively minor nature of my problem. Furthermore, what Dell asked me to do (install audio codecs) was a typical troubleshooting recommendation for a completely different problem that has nothing to do with VSD. Every audio AND video application I tried on my PC had the same problems playing audio files, regardless of which type of file I tried to play, and the Essentials Codec Pack I installed DID NOT solve the problem. A BIOS setting change is what solved the problem. So, don't blame Dell because this problem has nothing to do with them. However, contrary to what you claim, it certainly does have something to do with VSD because this problem only occurs on my PC when I'm using VSD! This doesn't mean that VSD itself is the problem. It just means that VSD is somehow involved. All I'm trying to figure out is in what sense VSD is involved and why.
Secondly, Scott, your comment that you "would have no idea how to even troubleshoot something like [this]" really shocks me---especially considering the fact that I had previously made a request for someone (anyone) to try to replicate my problem on their PC. Isn't this a standard troubleshooting procedure that your tech support team uses on a regular basis? (The "Help CC solve this: Unable to Save Website" problem at the top of the VSD list comes to mind.) Perhaps you were unwilling to mention (or consider) this procedure because it would be a quick and easy way to eliminate some unknown "bug" on my hard drive as the culprit instead of VSD. Or, perhaps you didn't want to waste any more time on this issue because I'm the only person who has ever complained about it. Whatever your reason for not mentioning this procedure, it could very well be the only thing that would need to be done to identify the real cause of my problem, and it wouldn't take more than five minutes to do! Instead, you would prefer that I spend the whole day reformatting my hard drive and reinstalling my OS and all of my apps, which is something that your 9-year-old daughter could NOT do. And speaking of your daughter, I don't know why you brought her into this except maybe to portray me as an imbecile because of my reluctance to format my hard drive. (BTW, I'm not saying that your daughter is an imbecile. I'm merely saying that I would be viewed as one if my real reason for being reluctant to format my hard drive is that I don't know how to install Windows on my PC, which is something I definitely DO know how to do.) So, perhaps you're the one who is trying to "shoot the messenger" here!
Finally, Scott, I think it's obvious from everything I've said so far that I have more than just "two choices" for my next step in dealing with this problem. For example, I could uninstall the Essentials Codec Pack, and that would remove ffdshow from my PC and prevent it from popping this dialog box up in the future. (I know you've already suggested this, but I thought I'd repeat it anyway.) I could also try some other HTML command (a "standard" one) besides "bgsound" to play my mp3 file, but I doubt that this would make any difference on the apearance of the ffdshow dialog box. I could even remove the HTML object from my home page so it doesn't even play an mp3 so that VSD wouldn't have any reason to call ffdshow. (I've already done this, and the ffdshow dialog box didn't pop up at all.) There's probably some other things I could try that no one has thought of yet, but these should suffice to prove my point. Besides, I'm not just interested in just trying things in order to find a way to stop ffdshow from displaying a dialog box in VSD, I'm trying to understand WHY ffdshow is displaying a dialog box in VSD and what, if anything, I should be doing with that dialog box.
I also think it's obvious, Scott, that I would definitely prefer the choice to "live with it" over the choice to "format" because I've already been "living with it" for the past year without any other adverse consequences occurring. Plus, I think it's sufficiently obvious from everything I've said so far that it would be illogical if not irrational for me to select the choice to "format" because neither you nor anyone else here has mentioned one legitimate reason why "formatting" will make this problem go away. In fact, I think that I can demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt why "formatting"
will not make this problem go away because some of the things that you and others have said on this thread have enabled me to fit the pieces of this puzzle together in a way that is finally beginning to make sense of what is really going on between VSD and ffdshow.
Scott, your comment that VSD doesn't use ffdshow is perhaps the biggest clue to this puzzle because it explains part of the message that is displayed in the header of the ffdshow dialog box. That message reads as follows:
"The application has made an attempt to load ffdshow.
This dialog is shown because the application is not listed in the ffdshow whitelist or blacklist." (emphasis mine)
The second sentence explains why ffdshow's dialog box is popping up in VSD, and that is because ffdshow doesn't recognize VSD as an application that uses ffdshow! The reason ffdshow doesn't recognize VSD is that VSD doesn't use ffdshow (like you said, Scott), which ffdshow has determined by checking two application lists (one white and one black) that are either on my hard drive or on the Internet somewhere. Because VSD doesn't use ffdshow, and because Coffee Cup hasn't submitted VSD to mediacodec.org (the developers of ffdshow) so that VSD could be placed on their "whitelist" (or safe list) of applications that use ffdshow, ffdshow has no other choice but to tell me about it because that's what it's designed to do! Duh!
This all makes perfect sense now, but it didn't make any sense before I started this thread so that I could get some input from all of you. So, I guess this means that I really don't have a problem after all. VSD is doing what it's supposed to do, and so is ffdshow. I just have to decide which is the best way to respond to the ffdshow dialog box when it appears. A little experimentation will be necessary for me to determine that, or I could just ignore the dialog box like I have been doing all along. At least now I understand what's going on and anyone else who encounters this problem---I mean, issue---in the future will be able to read this thread and understand what 's going on as well. So, thanks to everyone for your input. I couldn't have solved this problem (issue) without your help!
Tom
We'll see how W7 changes that if at all.
