The recent update broke Zoom Player (but I fixed it)

[Mystix]

Hi there. Since the recent update, when I tried to watch videos, I was getting some strange sub-type of errors?

I Verified the installation, and it downloaded over 1000 files. But then trying to launch Zoom Player after it finished, it crashed with errors (something about it wasn't installed via Steam or my hardware was changed. Neither of which error message was true in my case).

I finally managed to fix it by completely uninstalling and then reinstalling it.
So, if anyone else was having similar problems, you may have to also do a complete uninstall and reinstall. Good luck.

[romulous]

Hi,

I'm glad you managed to fix the problem. The error you received - was it the one shown in the following screenshot by any chance?
http://i.imgur.com/p5FtSrx.png

Regards,

romulou

[Mystix]

Hi. Sorry I didn't take notes of it (I was just going by memory as I made my previous post), but yes, I think that looks like the first error I was receiving.
But then I got different errors after trying to verify the install, and only a complete uninstall and reinstall seems to have fixed it.

[romulous]

Yes, that error itself would have taken a full uninstall and reinstall to fix - verifying the installation would not have been quite enough (I explain why below if you are interested). There is another way to fix the issue that does not involve an uninstall/reinstall, but there are a few steps involved and an uninstall/reinstall may be quicker and easier for many people. Having said that, I will be happy to do a short guide (with screenshots) for anyone else wanting to fix the error without having to uninstall/reinstall.

Basically, the problem is that prior to v9.4.1 (which is the update that has just been rolled out), there was an error in one of the profiles that Zoom Player uses to play back media files. In fact, there are actually two separate profile files for each media type that Zoom supports, and the error was in both. When you verify the installation through Steam, only one of those profile files would have been downloaded - and to fix the problem, both profile files need to have the correction applied. That's why the verification did not work, but the uninstall/reinstall did.

I do apologise for the inconvenience! This particular error was only detected recently, and at that time, a check was done of all the other profiles Zoom uses to play back media - the good news is that this was the only profile that had an error in it and that once it is fixed on your installation, you should have no more problems with the profiles.

Regards,

romulous

[Mystix]

Well, it didn't take me too long to uninstall and reinstall, and I think that might be a relatively easy way to get it working again for anyone else that may have the same issues. The only thing is that it seems my custom-settings were changed backed to defaults (key commands, mouse-wheel commands, etc...), but it only took me a few minutes to change things back to how I like again. Cheers! :)

[romulous]

Yes, that is the downside to a full uninstall / reinstall - any custom settings will be lost. What you can do is to do an export of your Zoom settings before you uninstall, and then reimport them after the reinstall. You can do the settings export via Advanced Settings (click the Help/Export button, then Export->Settings).

romulous

[Mystix]

@Romulous : Thanks for the info, and to the Zoom Player team. Keep up the good work.
As an up-&-coming Indie Game Developer myself, I know first-hand that bugs and other unforseen problems have a way of sneaking in at times. :p Anyways, I'll try to keep in mind about the export/import stuff if I need to uninstall/reinstall again at some point (in fact I should make an export file now just to have it saved as a backup).

[romulous]

Thanks LoneWolfDon - much appreciated :) I keep an export of my Zoom settings myself - it makes it easy to restore my preferred settings after I have changed a number of settings to try and replicate a bug report for example.

romulous