Game crashes because it won't play videos

[Phil Ken Kastro]

I'm almost positive its a codec issue since disabling video playback is what gets the game past the initial loading screen problem, after selecting which version you want to play. Its affected on both Ys I and II.
Anyone know what codec this game uses or what is needed for it to play video?

[Saralene]

The game uses standard MPEG video. Counterindications are stuff like DVD encoders, some of them install codecs that override the base system codecs and can crash/glitch games. (The Ys games sure aren't the only ones.)

[CyberCrystal]

I too am having this problem. Is there some sort of utility that can help diagnose which codecs are at fault? Or at the least a place where we can download the codecs that allow the videos to play? Ys is the only game that I've run in over a decade that's had issues with video codecs.

[Saralene]

The codecs you actually need for these videos come stock with Windows. That's part of what makes it hard to debug this. Sometimes ffdshow can help you with this, or add it to an ignore list. It's often a media splitter trying to hook the game that causes outright crash issues. I'm not sure how to prevent a media splitter from trying to hook on like that, either.

[CyberCrystal]

I've installed ffdshow and it still crashes. This is the error that pops up on the desktop if I alt+tab from the black screen. http://imgur.com/p3bsoyL

I'm running Windows 8 64bit, nVidia GTX 680 with the most recent WHQL drivers if that helps.

[CyberCrystal]

As an update, I have removed Windows Media Player, restarted, and re-installed Windows Media Player, restarted, and it still crashes when it tries to play the video. I have a log of all the codecs installed from Codec Tweak Tool if that might help you narrow down the problem. I also have steam installed on a secondary hard drive and not the OS drive. I don't know if that might be causing an issue.

[wishbone]

Do you have any codec packs installed? They usually come with an ffdshow/configuration already. If so you need to add your game exe to the blacklist. http://codecguide.com/faq_miscellaneous.htm

[CyberCrystal]

No such luck, poopfist, but thanks for the suggestion. I had tried installing ffdshow to see if I could black list it, but the directions you linked to were probably for a much older version as those options weren't available. I've never installed any codec packs on this installation of Windows. I use VLC and that plays everything through it's own internal codec packs.

So far, tried installing the files to the main C:\ drive, that didn't help. I've closed all running background processes, I disabled anti-virus, I've run ccleaner and cleaned up the registry and all the system temp files. So far, nothing helps. The stupid thing just keeps crashing every time it tries to play a video. Doing a search for "failed : CVideoStream::OpenFile" on google brings up handful of people having this problem with Ys and virtually nothing else.

[Saralene]

Originally posted by CyberCrystal:

Doing a search for "failed : CVideoStream::OpenFile" on google brings up handful of people having this problem with Ys and virtually nothing else.

That's because the specific error message is one put into Ys by Falcom. There are no 'standard error messages' that automatically occur or anything, so any product the issue occurs with will have a different error message.

[CyberCrystal]

The error message being specific to Ys makes sense.

After running the game successfully on my wife's computer, I generated a log from the Codec Tweak Tool on both computers and ran them through WinMerge to view the differences. It seems VisioForge screen capture software never fully removed itself and left a bunch of broken codecs on my system or within the registry.

Steps to fix (for me at least):

Run Codec Tweak Tool[www.free-codecs.com] from free-codecs.com and under the first section called "General:" click the "Fixes" button. Check all of the available checkboxes:

• Detect and remove broken VFW/ACM codecs
  
• Detect and remove broken DirectShow filters
  
• Re-register base DirectShow filters
  
• Clear Windows icon cache (probably optional but I did it anyway)

Then click "Apply & Close". It will go through your codecs and will prompt with what to do with any broken ones, just remove them and let it do it's thing.

You may now succesfully run Ys without crashing when it plays video files! Thank you Sara for helping us get to at least a solution if not the solution. If this helps anybody else, please leave a note letting us know. I'm curious if this is a cure for everybody else!

[Fadegod]

Originally posted by CyberCrystal:

The error message being specific to Ys makes sense.

After running the game successfully on my wife's computer, I generated a log from the Codec Tweak Tool on both computers and ran them through WinMerge to view the differences. It VisioForge screen capture software never fully removed itself and left a bunch of broken codecs on my system or within the registry.

Steps to fix (for me at least):

Run Codec Tweak Tool[www.free-codecs.com] from free-codecs.com and under the first section called "General:" click the "Fixes" button. Check all of the available checkboxes:

• Detect and remove broken VFW/ACM codecs
  
• Detect and remove broken DirectShow filters
  
• Re-register base DirectShow filters
  
• Clear Windows icon cache (probably optional but I did it anyway)

Then click "Apply & Close". It will go through your codecs and will prompt with what to do with any broken ones, just remove them and let it do it's thing.

You may now succesfully run Ys without crashing when it plays video files! Thank you Sara for helping us get to at least a solution if not the solution. If this helps anybody else, please leave a note letting us know. I'm curious if this is a cure for everybody else!

I attempted this fix with no success. Using the Codec Tweak Tool was simple; I ran through the steps flawlessly, but afterwards I still couldn't load the opening cutscene.

[MOONWΛTCHERV3]

Originally posted by CyberCrystal:

The error message being specific to Ys makes sense.

After running the game successfully on my wife's computer, I generated a log from the Codec Tweak Tool on both computers and ran them through WinMerge to view the differences. It VisioForge screen capture software never fully removed itself and left a bunch of broken codecs on my system or within the registry.

Steps to fix (for me at least):

Run Codec Tweak Tool[www.free-codecs.com] from free-codecs.com and under the first section called "General:" click the "Fixes" button. Check all of the available checkboxes:

• Detect and remove broken VFW/ACM codecs
  
• Detect and remove broken DirectShow filters
  
• Re-register base DirectShow filters
  
• Clear Windows icon cache (probably optional but I did it anyway)

Then click "Apply & Close". It will go through your codecs and will prompt with what to do with any broken ones, just remove them and let it do it's thing.

You may now succesfully run Ys without crashing when it plays video files! Thank you Sara for helping us get to at least a solution if not the solution. If this helps anybody else, please leave a note letting us know. I'm curious if this is a cure for everybody else!

Worked for me! Thanks!

[tokyopunchout]

Originally posted by CyberCrystal:

The error message being specific to Ys makes sense.

After running the game successfully on my wife's computer, I generated a log from the Codec Tweak Tool on both computers and ran them through WinMerge to view the differences. It VisioForge screen capture software never fully removed itself and left a bunch of broken codecs on my system or within the registry.

Steps to fix (for me at least):

Run Codec Tweak Tool[www.free-codecs.com] from free-codecs.com and under the first section called "General:" click the "Fixes" button. Check all of the available checkboxes:

• Detect and remove broken VFW/ACM codecs
  
• Detect and remove broken DirectShow filters
  
• Re-register base DirectShow filters
  
• Clear Windows icon cache (probably optional but I did it anyway)

Then click "Apply & Close". It will go through your codecs and will prompt with what to do with any broken ones, just remove them and let it do it's thing.

You may now succesfully run Ys without crashing when it plays video files! Thank you Sara for helping us get to at least a solution if not the solution. If this helps anybody else, please leave a note letting us know. I'm curious if this is a cure for everybody else!

I could kiss you. Are you Adol?! J/K For serious though, was pulling my hair out looking for a solution and this worked. Thanks man! :D:steamhappy:

[Techspin]

After all that, it still didn't work for me. I played around with the settings in CodecTweakTool_615 until I found the issue. BTW, using Ys I's config.exe to turn off Full Screen during testing helps -a lot- i found.

Here was my fix:
Under Codec and Filter Management/Directshow (x86)
Disabling Haali's MPEG-PS splitter got video working for me.

Hope this helps someone! -Rick