Just tried with a fresh download of the latest TMNT 1.21 RAW. Still cannot play videos. Same errors trying to import any given video to a randomly chosen location in this firmware.

Also as I mentioned I tried a fresh download of JP 1.02 RAW, so it's not a corrupted firmware issue. Yes the user logged in is my only, full admin rights user.

Is there something I can do to "fix" ffmpeg or at least determine if that's the issue? Again I did try putting the exact .exe's you mentioned (freshly downloaded from the instructions you sent) into my PB root folder.

Follow up question: Does the having ffmpeg exes have any effect on importing a video or is that just for playback in PB (when it comes to videos)?

Also just as a reminder, macro upload using either the 0 or the 1 flag that you mentioned in a similar post fails with the same errors, respectively.

Just to quickly confirm. Are all of your ffmpeg executables in a folder called ffmpeg in the pinball browser directory?

Does replacing the Sd card with custom code erase settings and high scores?

Thats very strange again. I cannot see anything wrong, as oga83 mentions, win10 is ok, your path seems to be able to read an write.
I tend to use short paths as possible. But it seems not longer than 250 Charakters, so it should be ok.
But to be sure maybe just create very short path: like c:\temp\ and put pb and jp in there.
Could also try to test if ffmplay.exe is working from command line. open a command line (cmd.exe) and change into the folder of PB and then,
Like "ffplay.exe movie.mp4" when you have a movie.mp4 in the path of pb. movie.mp4 i put in as placeholder for any video you could put there.
with this it should start playing the movie. If ffplay.exe does not work you would get an error message.
As i understand in PB browser ffmpeg is essential for Playing the Videos and when you import them. I am not sure about exporting and importing without conversion.

The Highscore and settings are saved on the SD-Card. If you change it they will be lost. You can save your settings and Highscore on USB-Stick first and reimport them after the SD-Card change. This will get all your highscores and settings back.

in Menue util there should be something like save settings and load settings.

Oh cool. thanks for the info.

The mode is called replace masked.You can define a mask describing the part you want to replace .

No they are in the root PB directory. Should they be in a sub-folder called ffmpeg?

Tried without luck. Cannot play videos, cannot import.

Tried this as well and there is no issue playing any given video in this manner.

I'm still so stumped. I even dug into Windows Event logs to see if any warnings or errors were occurring when trying to play videos from PB. I've come up with nothing.

Thanks for your troubleshooting help! I'll get to the bottom of this eventually.

That's what I figured and that's where they are. Do you think my import errors are directly related to the inability to play videos in PB? Are there any logging tools or specific things I haven't mentioned/tried yet to troubleshoot and determine the root cause of all these issues?

let's get it together, ffmpeg.exe seems to be working from command line. You downloaded everything new. No file permissions errors.
i have to say sorry i am getting out of ideas.

The only things i can think of Virus Scanner? Do you have something additional or Windows default?
Maybe disconnect pc from internet and try to disable virusscanner for a short time to test.

I would set up virtual enviroment and test it there, would be a lot of work, to just do it.

An you could maybe test your image and the pinball browser on a differnent PC? you would only need the free version to check if Videos are playing?

i can not think of more.

Oh you're right, sorry for my misdirection. (I had copies in a subfolder).

I honestly don't think playing or importing videos ever worked for me on this PC with any code or PB version. I have gone through past firmwares, past PB versions too and same results. Unfortunately my only other PC is my work PC and IT will flag it if I download code or PB onto it.

There must be something wrong with how my PC is handling FFmpeg in general. How can I troubleshoot this? Can video cards, drivers, or display settings be part of the issue? If anti-virus could be in play I have no 3rd party virus program going on, just standard windows defender. Something must be getting "blocked" somewhere. Can I see this in Windows Event Viewer? If so, where would I look? Is there any other logging/debugging app that could tell me what's going on?

Hello,

thanks a lot for this soo great tool.
I took a licence and I'm discovering all possibilities.
Some questions :
- Is the licence valid for 2 computers ? As I'm working on a laptop and a desktop, based on my location. If not, how can i transfer the licence? I registered on my laptop but it's not my main computer.
- In the Scenes panel, I was able to extract all strings and wanted to start a translation of my spike 2 game (TMNT), but how to do it? I have seen that i can change the text directly in a scene with success, but what if i want to translate the complete strings.txt file and push it back to the firmware ?
- When I changed by hand in the scene, that created a macro, Is it the only way to push back my translated strings to the firmware ??

thanks a lot

Sysinternals has process monitor and process explorer that might help.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/

OK, but in that case, that would be perfect is the extracted string.txt contains not only the scene number, but also the scene specific tag, as stated in the macro.
We could automate the translation.

Feasible?

I got sysmon fired up but I'm not seeing any errors or warnings. During testing of playback only, I see CONHOST.EXE "informational" events around Process Create and Process Terminate for when PB is accessing ffprobe.exe and temp .mp4 files are being generated in /AppData/Local/Temp.

oga83 Is it bad that, for ffprobe.exe a ProcessCreate event occurs, then and a ProcessTerminate follows just milliseconds after? This is simply me selecting a video and clicking Play.

i.e. ProcessCreate

EventData

RuleName -
UtcTime 2020-09-07 18:06:34.366
ProcessGuid {9094b94b-76aa-5f56-3b05-000000001c00}
ProcessId 3832
Image C:\Windows\System32\conhost.exe
FileVersion 10.0.19041.153 (WinBuild.160101.0800)
Description Console Window Host
Product Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
Company Microsoft Corporation
OriginalFileName CONHOST.EXE
CommandLine \??\C:\WINDOWS\system32\conhost.exe 0xffffffff -ForceV1
CurrentDirectory C:\WINDOWS
User DESKTOP-60KTN20\My Name
LogonGuid {9094b94b-54e4-5f56-1ccf-480000000000}
LogonId 0x48cf1c
TerminalSessionId 2
IntegrityLevel High
Hashes SHA1=578C53A7A785A7238272E28C53684FB51995E663
ParentProcessGuid {9094b94b-76aa-5f56-3a05-000000001c00}
ParentProcessId 9048
ParentImage C:\PB_short_path_test\PinballBrowser756\ffprobe.exe
ParentCommandLine "C:\PB_short_path_test\PinballBrowser756\ffprobe.exe" -v error -show_format -show_streams -print_format xml C:\Users\My Name\AppData\Local\Temp\pbi2.mp4

Then the next event is immediately...

ProcessTerminate

EventData

RuleName -
UtcTime 2020-09-07 18:06:34.425
ProcessGuid {9094b94b-76aa-5f56-3a05-000000001c00}
ProcessId 9048
Image C:\PB_short_path_test\PinballBrowser756\ffprobe.exe

Hey oga83 . Unfortunately as I mentioned I don't have any other PC to use, I've got to get this one working. I decided to reach out in the FFmpeg forum itself and a couple of helpful people have had me do some command line tests. In all tests they are saying that FFmpeg (ffprobe.exe specifically) seems to be working as expected. Here's our latest correspondence and their thoughts.

[FFmpeg Forum User] The first log entry appears to show how the app called FFprobe. You
could try to run that same command yourself from the Command Prompt:

C:\> "C:\PB_short_path_test\PinballBrowser756\ffprobe.exe" -v error
-show_format -show_streams -print_format xml "C:\Users\My
Name\AppData\Local\Temp\pbi2.mp4"

When you run that, what do you get?

Also, the final quoted entry in that command is the location of the file
being probed. Maybe try this again, but with you filling in the location
of the file you want to use.

Try posting the complete uncut command and output of those two experiments."

[Tim] Here is the command line output of both tests one after the other:

TEST 1:
-------
C:\Users\My Name>"C:\PB_short_path_test\PinballBrowser756\ffprobe.exe" -v error -show_format -show_streams -print_format xml "C:\Users\My Name\AppData\Local\Temp\pbi2.mp4"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ffprobe>
<streams>
<stream index="0" codec_name="h264" codec_long_name="H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10" profile="Constrained Baseline" codec_type="video" codec_time_base="1/60" codec_tag_string="avc1" codec_tag="0x31637661" width="1360" height="768" coded_width="1360" coded_height="768" closed_captions="0" has_b_frames="0" pix_fmt="yuv420p" level="30" chroma_location="left" refs="1" is_avc="true" nal_length_size="4" r_frame_rate="30/1" avg_frame_rate="30/1" time_base="1/15360" start_pts="0" start_time="0.000000" duration_ts="236032" duration="15.366667" bit_rate="986381" bits_per_raw_sample="8" nb_frames="461">
<disposition default="1" dub="0" original="0" comment="0" lyrics="0" karaoke="0" forced="0" hearing_impaired="0" visual_impaired="0" clean_effects="0" attached_pic="0" timed_thumbnails="0"/>
<tag key="language" value="eng"/>
<tag key="handler_name" value="VideoHandler"/>
<tag key="encoder" value="Lavc57.15.100 libx264"/>
</stream>
</streams>

<format filename="C:\Users\My Name\AppData\Local\Temp\pbi2.mp4" nb_streams="1" nb_programs="0" format_name="mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2" format_long_name="QuickTime / MOV" start_time="0.000000" duration="15.367000" size="1897367" bit_rate="987761" probe_score="100">
<tag key="major_brand" value="qt "/>
<tag key="minor_version" value="512"/>
<tag key="compatible_brands" value="qt "/>
<tag key="date" value="2018-11-08T21:49:34.493414"/>
<tag key="encoder" value="Lavf57.16.100"/>
</format>
</ffprobe>

TEST 2
------
C:\Users\My Name>"C:\PB_short_path_test\PinballBrowser756\ffprobe.exe" -v error -show_format -show_streams -print_format xml "C:\PB_short_path_test\123.mp4"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ffprobe>
<streams>
<stream index="0" codec_name="h264" codec_long_name="H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10" profile="High" codec_type="video" codec_time_base="1001/120000" codec_tag_string="avc1" codec_tag="0x31637661" width="1920" height="1080" coded_width="1920" coded_height="1088" closed_captions="0" has_b_frames="0" sample_aspect_ratio="1: 1" display_aspect_ratio="16:9" pix_fmt="yuv420p" level="42" color_range="tv" color_space="bt709" color_transfer="bt709" color_primaries="bt709" chroma_location="left" field_order="progressive" refs="1" is_avc="true" nal_length_size="4" r_frame_rate="60000/1001" avg_frame_rate="60000/1001" time_base="1/60000" start_pts="0" start_time="0.000000" duration_ts="1577576" duration="26.292933" bit_rate="20046181" bits_per_raw_sample="8" nb_frames="1576">
<disposition default="1" dub="0" original="0" comment="0" lyrics="0" karaoke="0" forced="0" hearing_impaired="0" visual_impaired="0" clean_effects="0" attached_pic="0" timed_thumbnails="0"/>
<tag key="creation_time" value="2020-09-07T19:57:49.000000Z"/>
<tag key="language" value="und"/>
<tag key="handler_name" value="Core Media Video"/>
</stream>
</streams>

<format filename="C:\PB_short_path_test\123.mp4" nb_streams="1" nb_programs="0" format_name="mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2" format_long_name="QuickTime / MOV" start_time="0.000000" duration="26.292933" size="66199052" bit_rate="20142006" probe_score="100">
<tag key="major_brand" value="mp42"/>
<tag key="minor_version" value="1"/>
<tag key="compatible_brands" value="mp41mp42isom"/>
<tag key="creation_time" value="2020-09-07T19:57:49.000000Z"/>
</format>
</ffprobe>

[FFmpeg Forum User] What this seems to show is that FFprobe is installed, and runs correctly, giving reasonable output. That makes it more likely that the log entries you posted are noting a successful run of FFprobe, instead of a failed run. I think that puts the ball back in the PinballBrowser court. Is it getting the same result when it calls FFprobe? And that is a question for them, not for this list.

oga83 Does any of this help?

I had 0 success uninstalling/reinstalling .NET framework, sfc /scannow etc. So I took it a whole step further and reinstalled Windows 10. Same results.

I don't have any AV running beyond Windows Defender. I had already tried temporarily disabling that before.

No I haven't tried a Virtual Env yet, I guess that would be my next step but I have Windows 10 Home Edition--looking online that seems like a sketchy, huge PITA involving more 3rd party Hyper-V installs... The above alone took hours to do and was sketchy in itself.

Also to clarify, I am not the only person having these issues. In this and my forum thread you can see many people having issues when video playback and/or import is involved. Not to mention the resulting firmware not working properly on their pin. I have looked through it all and tried everything.

This makes no sense. Without buying a whole new PC, I feel very stuck at this point.

oga83 do you think you would be able to complete the string extraction, in order to make a translation table that could then be converted easily in macro?

timlah79 : are you using a standard user with all privileges? did you try to check on the admin rights on pinball prowser but also on ffmpeg exe ?
running a 32 or 64 bits version ? with a blank new windows 10 version, you just installed .NET, pinball browser and copy ffmepg in the install folder ?

I am the only user, a "Local Account Administrator". I have checked rights on everything even to the point of putting Full Control across everything. 64-bit. For the reinstall I used the method outlined here (in order to save all my apps and files): https://www.techspot.com/guides/1764-windows-repair-keep-all-your-files-intact/
After all of this .NET Framework shows as installed already under "Turn Windows Features on or off". Both of these are turned ON. I tried the turn off, restart, turn back on, restart process as well as the NetFXRepairTool.
.NET Framework 3.5 (includes .NET 2.0 and 3.0)
.NET Framework 4.8 Advanced Services

I'm not sure if people have had the no playback issue but definitely all of those import errors/exceptions have been reported before. I don't think I'm using an ARM processor, at least I don't see such a thing in My PC > Properties. I see Processor: Intel(R) Core(TIM) i7 3770K CPU 3.5GHz 3.90GHz
for Windows Edition it just says Windows 10 Home.

It wasn't a repair (I don't think?) but the token id was/is fine. I used this process: https://www.techspot.com/guides/1764-windows-repair-keep-all-your-files-intact/

But Windows 10 comes pre-installed with .NET Framework 4.8... I don't see how to get rid of it and revert to 4.0. Do you know how to do this?

You don't get rid of it. I believe 4.0 or higher is what Oga83 means.

Correct. .NET v4.8 can run anything between v4.0 to v4.8.

I may have missed it, but do you get the same result if you right-click on the shortcut, and select "Run as Administrator"?

Ok well I've had 4.8 all along and yeah as I've read online "The .NET Framework 4.8 is backwards compatible with .NET Framework 4.0 applications."

So I'm still at square one.

Yes I've tried with and without doing that multiple times.

Okay, just thought I'd check, as I didn't catch it being mentioned.
Can you provide the full error in that second screenshot in this post?

See the end of this message for details on invoking
just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

************** Exception Text **************
System.Exception: Exception of type 'System.Exception' was thrown.
at DiskTools.FileSystemExt4..set_Position(Int64 )
at  .(Int64 )
at   .(  , UInt32 , List`1 , Byte )
at   .(  , Int32 , Int32 )
at PinballBrowser.FormMainWindow. (Object , EventArgs )
at PinballBrowser.FormMainWindow.(Boolean )
at PinballBrowser.FormMainWindow.(Boolean )
at PinballBrowser.FormMainWindow. (Object , EventArgs )
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mevent)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ButtonBase.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Button.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

************** Loaded Assemblies **************
mscorlib
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.8.4200.0 built by: NET48REL1LAST_C
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework64/v4.0.30319/mscorlib.dll
----------------------------------------
Pinball-Browser
Assembly Version: 1.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 1.0.0.0
CodeBase: file:///C:/Users/Tim%20Stiles/Documents/JP%20Sound%20Replacement%20(MOVED%204-18x03-19-20)/PinballBrowser756/Pinball-Browser.exe
----------------------------------------
System.Windows.Forms
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.8.4200.0 built by: NET48REL1LAST_C
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Windows.Forms/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Windows.Forms.dll
----------------------------------------
System
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.8.4200.0 built by: NET48REL1LAST_C
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Drawing
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.8.4084.0 built by: NET48REL1
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Drawing/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Drawing.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Configuration
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.8.4190.0 built by: NET48REL1LAST_B
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Configuration/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Configuration.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Core
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.8.4200.0 built by: NET48REL1LAST_C
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Core/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Core.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Xml
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.8.4084.0 built by: NET48REL1
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Xml/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Xml.dll
----------------------------------------
Microsoft.GeneratedCode
Assembly Version: 1.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.8.4084.0 built by: NET48REL1
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Xml/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Xml.dll
----------------------------------------
NAudio
Assembly Version: 1.7.0.15
Win32 Version: 1.7.0.15
CodeBase: file:///C:/Users/Tim%20Stiles/Documents/JP%20Sound%20Replacement%20(MOVED%204-18x03-19-20)/PinballBrowser756/NAudio.DLL
----------------------------------------
Microsoft.CSharp
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.8.4084.0
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/Microsoft.CSharp/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/Microsoft.CSharp.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Xml.Linq
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.8.4084.0 built by: NET48REL1
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Xml.Linq/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Xml.Linq.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Dynamic
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.8.4084.0
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Dynamic/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Dynamic.dll
----------------------------------------
Anonymously Hosted DynamicMethods Assembly
Assembly Version: 0.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.8.4200.0 built by: NET48REL1LAST_C
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_64/mscorlib/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/mscorlib.dll
----------------------------------------
DiscUtils
Assembly Version: 0.11.0.0
Win32 Version: 0.11.0.0
CodeBase: file:///C:/Users/Tim%20Stiles/Documents/JP%20Sound%20Replacement%20(MOVED%204-18x03-19-20)/PinballBrowser756/DiscUtils.DLL
----------------------------------------

************** JIT Debugging **************
To enable just-in-time (JIT) debugging, the .config file for this
application or computer (machine.config) must have the
jitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section.
The application must also be compiled with debugging
enabled.

For example:

<configuration>
<system.windows.forms jitDebugging="true" />
</configuration>

When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception
will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the computer
rather than be handled by this dialog box.

Okay, so there is a NullReferenceException being thrown in this PB library. Can't help farther than that, since it's not a public/open library. (Likely something oga83 wrote specifically for PB..)

I just did the worst thing ever and downloaded PB, the latest JP 1.02 LE firmware, and ffmpeg exe's onto my work PC. I can now play videos from PB on this work PC. I have not tried uploading a video file. I need to delete this soon or I'll get flagged by my IT dept.

Either way I wanted to mention that going to "Turn Windows Features on/off" reveals that my work PC has < 4.0 (aka 3.0, 2.0 etc) disabled by default and the 4.0 shows as 4.7. Does this help? Screenshot attached.

I guess my next question is does anyone's PBrowser on a PC with 4.8 allow them to playback videos from the Videos tab? I hope I'm not going to have to buy a new PC and just to continue working on custom code.
2020-09-11_20-41-59 (resized).png

i7 3770K CPU 3.5GHz 3.90GHz This an Intel Processor, so you not have an arm processor.
.net 4.8 should be downward compatible. i can play videos with a set up like in the picture.

there seems to be something wrong. but i am out of ideas.
from the error message i would say:

"System.Exception: Exception of type 'System.Exception' was thrown.
at DiskTools.FileSystemExt4..set_Position(Int64 )"
it's trying to open the image file file but fails, ext4 i think is the filesystem in the image file.

CodeBase: file:///C:/Users/Tim%20Stiles/Documents/JP%20Sound%20Replacement%20(MOVED%204-18x03-19-20)/PinballBrowser756/DiscUtils.DLL

this seems to be failing part. But the DiscUtils.DLL runs on a lot machines and i don't think it's corrupt. And you downloaded it serveral times.
You downloaded the Image too several times. So the image seems to be ok, and this same image works on other pcs too. (again i would shorten the path).

Have you tried to do sounds (import/export)? sorry if you mentioned it before.
Have you tried to modify messages?

I don't think we will be getting it run on the installation that you have running on your pc now. You tried so much to repair it.
My guess is that if you did a clean installation it would work on your pc. But i can understand that you will not want to do this.

for this i would go with Virtual enviroment. Like virtual box or something similar.
You would download this software and create a virtual PC. In this virtual pc you would install a fresh windows 10 to check if it works.
There should be some Howtos out there. This is still a pain, but maybe less than installing your pc.
dotnet (resized).PNG

Could you perchance send him a debug dll with a .pdb file to run and create the issue? It would then possibly give a line number that you could see which call's failing? Just a thought. (Yeah, i'm a .NET developer too, though I do more server-side things.)

Edit. Darn duplicate. Sorry.

Did not mean to offend. I don't know how many lines of code you have in that function, and a null reference error could happen on just about anything. (Again, speaking from *cough* experience.)

Tests of ram stability was performed ??

Thank you ALL oga83 cabal Coyote BENETNATH ! I broke down and just bought a new laptop ... I couldn't take the troubleshooting any longer since it seemed there'd be no resolution. The new laptop has Windows 10 Professional, i7 Core Intel, and .NET Framework 4.7 Advanced installed. It works with both playback and import of videos in PB, yet my other PC doesn't. It's a mystery wrapped in an enigma....

It's just so odd b/c on the problem PC my .NET Framework 4.8, processor, everything fits the bill as per what you all have said. It's not a file path length issue, corrupt FFmpeg, nor corrupt firmware either. I've ruled all of that out (as noted in previous posts). I have had no other issues like this with any other app/program on that PC either. It's a high performance gaming tower for all things video and audio. Perhaps wiping it's Windows 10 Home OS and HDD altogether would fix all of this but that's not a procedure I want to go through and I still feel like there is some other conflict that wouldn't resolve. You would think somewhere in some logging utility I'd see what the heck is going on but it all looks good from what I've tried.

Coyote How do I test RAM stability? I'm willing to try that as one last hope.

Anyway if you guys come to an epiphany within the next 30 days, I could return this laptop and you'd save me $1.2k!! For now I need to get back to being creative instead of spending hours into insanity trying to fix this stupid PC.