I would like to admit to being one of the foolish ones who rushed out to get Vista Ultimate upon its release. I had used MCE in the past, and was impressed by a lot of the features in the Vista version.

While it worked, Vista Media Center was great. However about 2 weeks ago, the Divx updater "request my permission" to download new drivers, which I foolishly allowed. My Media Center no longer works, and I don't know what to do.

I've tried uninstalling DivX, re-installing, installing the ffdshow filters... Just about anything I can try. All movies work fine in Media Player. Here's where it gets interesting - Media Center crashes on the front menu now. If I simply open Media Center, and leave the menu open for about 15-20 seconds, Media Center will crash. Microsoft kindly tell me what if Windows can find a solution for the problem, it will suggest one... However the window silently fades, and I am left with nothing.

In my post-installation glee, I gradually installed various plug-ins. Like I said, I probably got about 2 weeks out of Media Center, and I enjoyed various plug-ins like Big Weather, Big News, My Movies. Then it all went sour. I uninstalled all plug-ins in the hope it would restore my Media Center experience - but alas, it has not.

I'm looking down the barrel of a re-installation (I had to reinstall 3 times due to various driver issues), and frankly I'm not all that keen. Has anyone seen this problem before? Is my only option to re-install?

Really I'm willing to try anything. I don't think its got anything to do with DivX (like the majority of other posts on the forum), as like I said, Media Center crashes regardless of what I'm doing. If I look through my music collection, it crashes. If I do nothing - it crashes! I am at my wits end!!! Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

I can't even use my PC to stream to my Xbox360, because you actually need to launch Media Center on the PC. So I have my computer - doing nothing - and my Xbox360 - doing nothing...

Surely I can fix this without a re-install... PLEASE HELP!!!

I am running the 32 bit version of Ultimate. Currently I have DivX and the ffdshow filters installed. I'm willing to try just about anything to fix this.

have you tried a system restore to a previous point?

also, does it mention anything in the Event Viewer about WHY MCE is crashing?

Error is as follows:

Fault bucket 11717426, type 5
Event Name: CLR20r3
Response: None
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: ehshell.exe
P2: 6.0.6000.16386
P3: 4549b55e
P4: mcstoredb
P5: 6.0.6000.0
P6: 4549bcf9
P7: 114
P8: 222
P9: System.InvalidOperationException
P10:

 

Would I need a point to "restore" to, or do I just rerun Vista setup to restore? I haven't prepared a previous point to restore to, as such. I'm keen to solve the problem, or at least know why its happened so I can prevent it from happening again.

I'm not at my system to see, but doesn't Vista have the same System Restore under Accessories > System Tools, that was in XP?

If not, maybe a repair installation during setup?

Shady

Can I just say that you are a bit of a legend in my eyes at the moment. I didn't need to restore, and although I didn't follow your recommendation verbatim, you helped endlessly with your suggestion about the event register. I pasted that in and, at work, ran different searches through Google.

This is what I had to do - I hope it helps someone else, because I was going insane:

"Go to c:\ProgramData\Microsoft\eHome (and sub-folders) and delete all files"

There was another solution on the net with something to do with creating a new user, but this didn't help. Deleting all the files under eHome solved the problem. Media Center now works - like an absolute charm. I'm happy because I can now use my xbox360, my PC, EVERYTHING! COULDNT BE HAPPIER!!!!!!

w00000t!!

Way to go! I'll be the first to say I rarely know exactly what can be wrong, that's why i just ask as many questions as possible hoping 1 will lead to the answer/solution.

Enjoy your vista ;-)

:)

I have a HP Pavillion Entertainment Laptop running Vista Home Premium and have the HP TV tuner software and hardware installed.

My Windows Media Center has been working for over six weeks and then this morning I had the same problem.  It appears that service was applied during the night and when the system was restarted it would abend.  I tried to do a restore to a point earlier in the week but that also failed.  When I deleted the application data directory entities it started working but then again I had to go through setup again (not a problem - just wanted to mention it).

I thought I'd add the ABEND information that I was receiving after the corrective service was applied:

Fault bucket 163094189, type 5

Event Name: CLR20r3

Response: None

Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:

P1: ehshell.exe

P2: 6.0.6000.16386

P3: 4549b55e

P4: mcstoredb

P5: 6.0.6000.0

P6: 4791a6e6

P7: 117

P8: 222

P9: System.InvalidOperationException

P10:

Sorrym just realized that I used some mainframe terms in my description - safe to say that my WMC would try to start, died, attempted to give me some help and just faded away.

 

Hope this helps someone else.  And, thanks for the information and the site.

I have the solution!

I was also suffering the same problem with media center crashing after 15 seconds, I searched for hours on google and tried all the suggestions to no avail.

I got remote assistance from Microsoft and got a very diligent tech support guy who spent 4 hours trying to figure this out with me. In the end the solution was kind of simple. The problem was that I had an early Vista installation disk and I needed to have a Vista disk with intergrated SP1 to resolve the issue. Here are his instructions that solved my problem, after I had landed my hands on a Vista SP1 installation disk.

This is Muhammad Anas with Microsoft Windows Vista Technical support. Thanks for your time and patience!!

 

It was my pleasure to work with you on your Windows case.  It makes me feel sorry that we could not resolve the issue on the chat.

 

You had contacted us with the issue that you were not able to open Windows Media Center. We tried performing various troubleshooting steps and identified that there is a major corruption in the system file directory and with the Media center services. We will have to perform the in place upgrade installation in order to repair or restore the corrupted files. Further, this in place upgrade installation requires the Vista installation disk. Since we do not have one, we suggested you to contact your local support to get the Vista Service Pack 1 integrated disk to perform the same. Once after you get the disk, please follow the below steps for the in place upgrade installation process ,

 

1.       Boot the computer to the desktop and then insert the Vista DVD.

2.       Click on Run setup.exe.

3.       Click on Install now.

4.       Choose the option “Go online to get the latest  update for  installation (Recommended).

5.       Type your product key and place a check mark on “Automatically  activate Windows when I’m online”.

6.       Accept the licence terms.

7.       Choose the “Upgrade” option.

Continue through the in place upgrade installation process. After the installation is over please go to Windows update and install all the updates including the Service pack 1.

I hope this helps other people!

I see this thread has been around since 2007 - here it is May 2009 and the problem still exists.  At some point in the past couple of months, I started to have this issue with Windows Media Center on my Vista Home Premium laptop.

Media Center would crash after about 15 seconds with a "clr20r3" error.  I looked everywhere and tried everything (other than a complete reinstall of Vista).  I think I finally figured it out.

Use Vista's "System File Checker" which looks for and attempts to repair system file problems.  (ref:  MS Knowledge Base)

If you open a command prompt with administrator privileges (start button, type command, right-click on command prompt and choose "Run as Administrator"), then type sfc /scannow.

It will take a while.  When done, it refers you to a log file - which will be enormous, because it keeps being appended to every time SFC runs.  Open it in notepad and scroll to the end.  Look for entries where it contains [SR] Cannot repair member file.

In my case, there were a couple of files that had problems, but the one that solved this problem is "fdProxy.dll".  I was able to find a new copy of this on the web, and (after scanning it with a virus scanner, of course), renamed the old fdProxy.dll and copied the new one into the same directory. 

Note:  you may receive an error saying you don't have permission to rename or copy - if so, you need to take ownership of the file (again using a command prompt Run as Administrator):  takeown /f "c:\windows\system32\fdproxy.dll". 

Then obtain full access rights (again using a command prompt Run as Administrator): icacls"c:\windows\system32\fdproxy.dll" /grant administrators f:.

Then finally rename the file and copy the new one into the same directory.

Hope this helps someone, because this was one of the most frustrating issues I've had with Windows in a while. 

EXTEMELY SAD that it is almost Dec 2009 and Microsoft has NOT fixed this problem - same EXACT problem as described above.

Tried the sfc/scannow - it mentioned a few things it could  not fix - all were just files opened during execution.

So i don't think the fdproxy.dll has anything to do with my issue. also cleared all files under ehome - and under all its folders then, from the various messages in the 'cbs.log' of the scannow, i went ahead and rebooted - still same issue - when it try to open Media Center, it dies after a few seconds, even before the setup, or whether or not i go into the setup.

It's the same "ehshell" event 1001 that everyone talks about but mine is Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit - ZERO service packs, and since SP1 reportedly does NOT have this specific fix, I see no point in installing SP1, unless it will resolve this issue.

It's like Microsoft tries to NOT fix it, so that it forces people to upgrade to Windows 7.

Someone suggested original and/or Windows Vista CD with Integrated SP1 would do the trick. Well, seems like MS should make a fix for this - VERY sad situation indeed!

Here's the details of the event:

Fault bucket 11717426, type 5
Event Name: CLR20r3
Response: http://oca.microsoft.com/resredir.aspx?SID=9296&iBucketTable=5&iBucket=11717426
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: ehshell.exe
P2: 6.0.6000.16386
P3: 4549b55e
P4: mcstoredb
P5: 6.0.6000.0
P6: 4549bcf9
P7: 114
P8: 222
P9: System.InvalidOperationException
P10:

Attached files:
C:\Users\JoeSmith\AppData\Local\Temp\WER975E.tmp.version.txt

These files may be available here:
C:\Users\JoeSmith\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\Report0e16ca5f

Anyone have any clues to the REAL solution, please help, because none of the above worked!

NOTE: I did NOT replace fdproxy.dll because it was not mentioned in the resutling scan log as being a non-repairable issue - a search of the log found ZERO mention of that DLL.

Thanks in advance for any help.

em: -no-spam-->computerz4u [at] - yah00 - d0t - c0m

This is my 2nd day up all nite messing with this thing. WIN764 and MC blows up ONLY upon entering RECORDED TV with exact same error detail described here. 

I tried deleting just the mediacenter.db and it did nothing. I will try to delete ALL. maybe I will get lucky.

Would like to mention that I tried the new user thing. VERY intereting result. I found that upon entering RECORDED TV for the first time, it displays the shows in one line and asks if you would like to see as LIST. I tried LIST and it immediately blew up again. Tried it again with another NEW user and did NOT choose list and voila! worked perfectly. Unfortunately I'm not willing to leave my administrator acct in shambles and I PREFER the list view so I will try the delete all as a last resort.

I identified the problem area anyway. Can somebody fix it?   Far too many people for far too many years have had to deal with this mess. What exactly are updates for?