Illegal Operation error when playing media files

[bradfield]

I've been having problem playing media files in Windows Media Player. Everytime I tried to open a file (.mp3, .avi) I'll got a message "This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down" with detail as "MPLAYER2 caused an invalid page fault in module MMSWITCH.AX at 015f:01984e86". It first happened when I installed Windows Media Player 7, but once I uninstalled it and opted for WMP 6.4 I still have the same problem. I can open some of the files on Real but not all of them, there's also the same problem there too. What should I do?

[Cricket]

Hi bradfield,

Which Windows are you using? How long has that installation been on your system...when was the last time you did a clean format and re-install?

Do you have a lot of background programs running on your computer?

Have you scanned for viruses, spyware and trojans?

What about cleaning out the Windows Temp and Temporary Internet Files folders?

Cricket

[GaryRouth]

Hi bradfield, hi Cricket, & all

Take a look at the bottom of the screen this link points to, and read the line under "bugs" - it's the exact same error you are experiencing. It has to do with filters for avi and audio playback that collide with that messy error. One filter is called TFM in winamp, and the other is the mmswitch.ax="Morgan Stream Switcher" which deals with multiple audio streams it seems:

http://www.tfm.ro/audiofilter/_detailes.html

See if this might be a clue to help you find a solution.

It looks like a file used by IE, not just Media Player: on a hunch I searched for "mmswitch.ax" in my Win98 registry, and found it under "Explorer" (seems reasonable, if it has to do with streaming media). It was in both Current_User and Users/Default/ ... here's the location once in those hives:

HKEY_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Explorer\DocFindSpec MRU ---and the key that it's a value for is simply "b".

My first guess at a fix might be to uninstall WinAmp, Real, and Media Player, then download a recent version of Media Player, and then try IE6 Service Pack 1. See if you're illegal operation free at that point. Then install Real - and check for errors. Then if you want to try WinAmp again, you can try it. If errors only start after one of the installs, you've found a bug that there may be a patch for (sometimes such patches are in the future!)

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[bradfield]

Hey! Thanks a lot guys!
I'm happy to report that the problem has been solved and things are running very smoothly now. The error was indeed caused by the MMSWITCH.AX file, which I got whilst trying to download codecs for playing DivX movies. I also learned that WMP 6.4 is running better for my system (Win98) rather than the latest version which tends to bloat with too many stuff, especially since my hard drive is so full of god knows what and I'm too lazy to remember to cleaning things up as often as I should.
Cheers,