MBP - video playback (iTunes/VLC/QuickTime) often completely locks up machine ?

This really has be troubled... No matter what type of video I'm playing back, my macbook pro will often freeze playing back video.. often to the point that it will completely lock up the machine where I can do nothing but restart with the power button.

This has happened with DVDs I've played back, it's happened with content I've downloaded and played in VLC and Quicktime, and now it's also happening in shows I've purchased and played with iTunes.

When I'm playing the media, I'm typically using full screen mode, but I have no major programs running (other than finder and quicksilver.) I have 3GB of ram and have tested the ram a few times and all is fine there.

Is there something that might be causing this happen that I can try to eliminate? I also typically keep my mac in sleep mode when not in use, if that matters at all.

The playback freezing doesn't seem to happen at any consistent time either. Sometimes it will start to freeze and then ends up pulling through and working fine, other times, it's the complete lock-up.

Thanks for any advice. I'm wondering if my machine is somehow defective, but it certainly would be hard to prove since I can't consistently duplicate the locking up behavior.

I had this problem when I first got my MBblack. I did simply did permission reset, u do this under HDD management in system pref's as I remember.

Once I did this I then gave it ago, still had problems, so removed all the app's like VLC, Perian and dixv codec, flip4xxx. I then did the permission reset thing again and then installed all the apps. Rebooted and all the apps started working fine.

Hope this helps. I cannot remember the exact name of the permission restore/reset thing but search around and that's what u need to do...its very easy though...just a click and off u go.

Thanks JenBell for the feedback. I'll try that. Although, I 'think' (and this is just a guess), that possibly the issue could be related to sleep mode? I only say that because it seems like whenever I reboot I don't seem to notice the problem on the subsequent playing of a movie. I typically just close the lid on the mac and put it to sleep, and then I'll wake it and start a movie in itunes or vlc. Maybe it's just a coincidence though (I didn't think the MacOS ran like Windows where reboots actually helped.

More likely doing what you suggested will help. I did install things flip4mac, divx codec, and a few other codecs. I did that because I thought maybe the issue was with VLC and I needed the other codes for QuickTime to play the movies. However, when I ran QuickTime, I still was having the issue.

What bothered me the most was when I had it lock up playing a purchased DVD.

Thanks for the info.

JenBell said:

Once I did this I then gave it ago, still had problems, so removed all the app's like VLC, Perian and dixv codec, flip4xxx. I then did the permission reset thing again and then installed all the apps. Rebooted and all the apps started working fine.

Click to expand...

Frustrating... got almost all the way through a DVD last night and the mbp completely locked up again. Had to hold the power button. Would unstialling apps like VLC, dvixv codec, etc.. .affect how the Mac's dvd player performs? I suppose I could try that, but I'm suspecting something else is up. (This time, I hadn't done a fresh reboot before playing the DVD, but that's a really crappy piece of machinery if I have to reboot before I play videos. I'm about to try reinstalling leopard to see if that makes a difference.)

Use the Disk Utility to reset ur permissions...did this last night on my friends iMAC...and like magic VLC kicked into gear sans MKV files playing fine