DVD-Player

[psc]

Hello together,

I just found this forum. Since I have not found my question/problem in previous posts, I'd like to start a new topic.

Generally: My MacBook is my first Mac. I worked on very old versions of MacOS years ago. But I am very found of OS X. It's really a close to be perfect OS for private users IMHO.

But there is a problem with my DVD player. The computer often crashes in this program. This is unusual with such a modern machine (MacBook, 2006, OSX 10.4.9, black (powerful), 2 GB RAM).

It often happens when I made a break in the show and try to restart playing afterwards. First, there is no reaction. Often, I can get it running while playing with the active corners (window shuffeling) and reactivating DVD player. But after doing this some times, the program goes definitely to nirwana (just the colorful rainbow ball is cycling...). I can't change to another program. There is even not the possibility to turn off the computer in a normal manner (short push of the shutdown button and select to shut down). I have to turn it off the hard way (long push of this button). This makes me wonder if I do not loose important data by this...

It happens if I try skipping a few chapters backwards (prev/back buttons), too. This gave me a hunch that the antivirus program running in the background might be involved (VirusBarrier X4). Maybe it tries to check the huge movie file?? Nevertheless, deactivating the background activity (as I was told by their support) did not change the situation...

It is really unclear to me because all other programs are working fine. The hardware itself seems to work without problems, too. I mean I can read CDs and DVDs without any problems.

Therefore I am looking for other advice:
- Has anyone seen this problem, too (I mean everything is working perfectly fine, it's just this DVD player application)
- I thought that DVD player is running natively (not on Rosetta) on Intel processors??
- Does anyone know a solution to this problem?
- Might it be corrected in OSX 10.5 (leopard yeah!), I heard that DVD player shall have a new GUI, maybe it will be different underneath, too?

Thanks for your answers.

Sincerely,

psc

 

[NanoBite]

Hello together,

I just found this forum. Since I have not found my question/problem in previous posts, I'd like to start a new topic.

Generally: My MacBook is my first Mac. I worked on very old versions of MacOS years ago. But I am very found of OS X. It's really a close to be perfect OS for private users IMHO.

But there is a problem with my DVD player. The computer often crashes in this program. This is unusual with such a modern machine (MacBook, 2006, OSX 10.4.9, black (powerful), 2 GB RAM).

It often happens when I made a break in the show and try to restart playing afterwards. First, there is no reaction. Often, I can get it running while playing with the active corners (window shuffeling) and reactivating DVD player. But after doing this some times, the program goes definitely to nirwana (just the colorful rainbow ball is cycling...). I can't change to another program. There is even not the possibility to turn off the computer in a normal manner (short push of the shutdown button and select to shut down). I have to turn it off the hard way (long push of this button). This makes me wonder if I do not loose important data by this...

It happens if I try skipping a few chapters backwards (prev/back buttons), too. This gave me a hunch that the antivirus program running in the background might be involved (VirusBarrier X4). Maybe it tries to check the huge movie file?? Nevertheless, deactivating the background activity (as I was told by their support) did not change the situation...

It is really unclear to me because all other programs are working fine. The hardware itself seems to work without problems, too. I mean I can read CDs and DVDs without any problems.

Therefore I am looking for other advice:
- Has anyone seen this problem, too (I mean everything is working perfectly fine, it's just this DVD player application)
- I thought that DVD player is running natively (not on Rosetta) on Intel processors??
- Does anyone know a solution to this problem?
- Might it be corrected in OSX 10.5 (leopard yeah!), I heard that DVD player shall have a new GUI, maybe it will be different underneath, too?

Thanks for your answers.

Sincerely,

psc

G'day psc & welcome to Mac-Forums.

The problem you're experiencing will hopefully cease if you try this:

Press Command+spacebar to launch SpotLight .... look to the blue circle with a white magnifying glass in the far right of the menu bar ... when the SpotLight text entry box opens type:

com.apple.DVDPlayer.plist

Relocate this plist file (preference file) to your Trash for now and then restart your mac.

I also suggest downloading OnyX for intel macs and using it regularly to clean out your mac to keep it running at its best.

I don't think you really need to run an anti-virus program as the FireWall should be enough, but's that's entirely up to you.

DVD Player does run natively on your Mac and I'm not sure about the improvements promised as part of Leopard.

I hope this helps you and please keep me informed of the results regardless as I will watch this thread.

 

[psc]

com.apple.DVDPlayer.plist

Relocate this plist file (preference file) to your Trash for now and then restart your mac.

I also suggest downloading OnyX for intel macs and using it regularly to clean out your mac to keep it running at its best.

First, thanks a lot for this fast answer! I tried your advice already. And during my tests with skipping and pausing a lot it just worked fine so far. Let's see how it is going in the future...

A corrupted plist file was the problem then (???). Who would have thought of that

I will repost if the problem will restart...

OnyX
This is the first time I heard of this program. A quick Google search showed that this free program really seems to be a helpful optimization and tweaking tool.
Just a simple question: Will it take care of problems like that automatically - or does it just help me to find and delete the plist mentioned above as I was doing it with spotlight following your advice?

Thanks,
psc

 

[NanoBite]

OnyX won't chastise the naughty plist file ... but it does offer great cache cleaning and optimising and permission fixing ... all at the tip of your fingers. It's like a spring cleanup all rolled into a little 3rd party maintenance app.

I don't fiddle around with it .... just run it as it is already set ... excepting I want the cleaning or optimising to be system wide ... I like that better even though it's just me here, I run OnyX from the Admin account on my iMac and not from the every day user account I'm currently using.

 

[psc]

I don't fiddle around with it .... just run it as it is already set ... excepting I want the cleaning or optimising to be system wide ... I like that better even though it's just me here, I run OnyX from the Admin account on my iMac and not from the every day user account I'm currently using.

Yes, it is generally better to have two accounts for oneself: a restricted user account and the admin account for the computer...

I am just confused that the program asks for my admin password just at startup. I am rather hesitant to give this password to a new program that I don't know for long... I mean, until now just the OS itself asked for this password, never a program from a 3rd party producer...

Thanks
psc

 

[MacHeadCase]

It's that with OnyX in the wrong hands it could do some damage to your OS system. That the developer made the program in a way that it asks for a password simply protects you in case someone wanted to bugger up your computer while you are away like for instance in a work environment.

 

[psc]

Thanks for this info.

It's that with OnyX in the wrong hands it could do some damage to your OS system. That the developer made the program in a way that it asks for a password simply protects you in case someone wanted to bugger up your computer while you are away like for instance in a work environment.

Yes, it really seems to be an extremely powerful program. I appreciate therefore the developers attempt to protect my system. I would like to define a password for this program. I just don't see why it needs my own admin pw...

Maybe it's not the right program for myself... I actually liked Mac's simplicity

Thanks,
psc

 

[MacHeadCase]

Well since it wants to authenticate the procedure, it is looking for the Admin password, not a password that is only in relation with itself. The Admin password is much more secure than a password that is attributed to an application.

 

[andrebnu]

Yes, it is generally better to have two accounts for oneself: a restricted user account and the admin account for the computer...
psc

Hey man, if `ll be the only user, what´s the benefits of having at least 2 different accounts?

tks

 

[psc]

Hey man, if `ll be the only user, what´s the benefits of having at least 2 different accounts?

tks

Hi andrebnu, welcome to this thread!

I learned that it is generally accepted that it is more secure to use even two accounts for yourself on different OS. One for daily works (restricted without admin rights) and one for admin jobs (see all UNIX systems on which OSX is based on, e.g. UNIX like Linux OS, too; also on Windows systems of course...). In contrast, I do know that most home users do not create a system like that (easyness of use...).

However, I do not like to change this thread into a discussion platform about general thoughts of how a safe system is built. There surely are more experienced users than myself and if there is not already a thread on this topic, well, it might be useful to start one.

I am still just interested to get to know a solution to the problem posted at the beginning since it is still not resolved... Hopefully, you do know a suggestion?

Other suggestions are very welcome, too!!!

Thanks,
psc

 

[NanoBite]

G'day psc,

Sorry to read your problems with DVD Player haven't resolved themselves.

Can I suggest you download VLC and try playing the DVD through that? I know this doesn't answer any of your queries but it would certainly rule out the DVD disc.

VLC Link​

 

[psc]

G'day psc,

Sorry to read your problems with DVD Player haven't resolved themselves.

Can I suggest you download VLC and try playing the DVD through that?

Thanks a lot. I have already tried it

It seems to be a great program, especially if I consider that it allows many options that the original player doesn't. But it has some issues by itself.
1) it is not as stable as it should be at the moment. It had some crashes, too.
2) it does not integrate as well as the original. The original gives the option to be used by this remote control managed environment that is very cool

Conclusion to now:
I have posted my question on different boards and have not got a working solution until now. I have the impression that there might be something wrong with the program itself that was preinstalled. I won't use more of my or other people's time to seek a magic solution...

I therefore will reinstall the system in the future to try a definitive solution. However, I will do this with leopard since it is coming out soon (yeah!) and it is known to have a new version of the player included. I do not like to invest more time into the actual flawed system. Hopefully this new player is working out of the box

I hope that leopard brings the option to delete (= format?) the existing system completely and install a fresh OS as it was included in 10.4 (as I have seen it on apple's help pages). This would be the best way to prevent any carbage to survive, wouldn't it?

I am just wondering where I can find all my important files that need a backup before this. I mean: my private files are no problem. My multimedia files can be restored from my home server.

It would be very helpful if you could tell me where I could find my eMails and items from my address book since these are the most important things on my macBook. Are there any other important files to be considered?

Thanks a lot!

psc

 

[NanoBite]

Your emails (hopefully you're using Mail.app) can be found here:

YourUserAccount>Library>Mail.

Here you will find a lot of folders and somewhere in there should be a folder with your email address. Your emails have the generic mail.app icon and have 4 numbers followed by the .emix prefix.

The following is taken from the Mail & Address book help files:

Backing up your email

You can back up your mailboxes to a CD or another disk. To do this, you can either copy the Mail folder in your Library folder or create an mbox file, a common format for storing mail messages.

To save the contents of all your mailboxes, hold down the Option key and drag the Mail folder (located in the Library folder of your home folder) to your desktop or to another disk. Copying the Mail folder only backs up mail from POP accounts, or mail from an IMAP account that you've copied to local mailboxes. When you are ready to restore the Mail folder, choose File > Import Mailboxes, select Mail for Mac OS X, and locate the Mail folder.
To create an mbox copy of a mailbox, drag the mailbox from the mailbox list to your desktop.
To create an mbox file with just some of your messages, select the messages, then choose File > Save As. In the Format pop-up menu, choose Raw Message Source, then enter a name and save the file.
You can copy mbox files to CDs or to other disks. When you want to restore your mail, choose File > Import Mailboxes, select Other, click Continue, and locate the files.

Backing up Address Book

You can create a backup copy of your address book, so you can easily recover your original information if you make inadvertent changes.

It's a good idea to back up your address book before you make extensive changes, such as importing new addresses or reorganizing groups.


To back up your address book, choose File > Back Up Database and choose a location for the backup file.

To undo all recent changes and return to your last backed-up version, choose File > "Revert to Database Backup" and locate the backup file. Any new cards or information you've changed since you last created a backup will be lost. Any deleted items will be recovered.

To save a copy of your Address Book for safekeeping, copy the Address Book file to another location (such as an external hard disk or a CD).

If you have a .Mac account, you can also use Apple's iSync to back up your Address Book to your iDisk. For more information, open iSync and choose Help > iSync Help.

 

[psc]

Thanks a lot, Pulse-8! This info is of great value!

Well, "see" you in Leopard then

Have a good time!
psc