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  1. Member
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    I'm getting a "The TV Player failed to initialize the video" error dialog when starting the MMC TV Player (tried both 8.7 and 8.8 on the last two Catalyst releases). This is following a re-install of all the ATI software for other reasons on a system where TV Player 8.8 worked fine previously. I investigated all the causes for this error documented on the ATI web site, but none apply in my case. Both WinDVR and NeroVision Express TV displays work fine, so its apparently not a problem with the ATI display or WDM drivers, but with MMC itself. I had a similar problem (different error reported) last summer, which was only fixed several months later when I needed to do a complete re-install of the OS and software for other reasons. I suspect MM TV player is accessing some registry key that the ATI un-installer doesn't clean up prior to re-installations. I have gone through the registry after running the Cat uninstaller looking for ATI entries that are missed--and there are some--but don't see anything that looks like the cause, and don't want to start randomly deleting keys.

    Anyone have a clue as to how to track this down or fix it? I prefer MMC to WinDVR and NeroVision Express for TV MPEG2 captures, and don't want to re-install Windows XP and all my apps from scratch yet again.

    HW: AIW Radeon
    SW: WinXP Home, Catalyst 4.0/MMC 8.7/8.8 or Catalyst 4.1/MMC 8.8
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  2. This may not be the problem in your case, but I get this msg when there is another video player running in the background somewhere....such as Window Media Player, or Kazaa's media player. If I accidentally have something like that open, it will not allow ATI's TV player to open up, and It pops up that msg.

    I also get a failure to open the TV player at random points when it's been opened 3 or 4 times or so, then all of a sudden it won't work, and I resort to rebooting in order to open the TV player... did that on MMC 7.5, and still doing it on 8.8
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    Thanks. They do talk about that cause on the ATI Support site, so I did investigate it on my system. I looked at all the processes running using Task Manager and didn't see anything that might be using the TV devices/resources. Also, other TV viewer/capture programs do work, and I'd think they also wouldn't run if some other process already was using the devices/resources.

    This is a frustrating problem since ATI e-mail support is so unresponsive and their on-line knowledge bases are pretty limited.
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  4. i had that problem a couple days ago when i installed the whole ultra nero 6.0 edition package software..my mmc 8.5 kept crashing especially clicking onto the tv mode after installing nero..after researching a couple sites i found out the wma video files on the nerovision were conflicting with the ati wma video files causing the crash..i uninstalled mmc 8.5 and installed mmc 8.8 and deleted the nerovision software and my ati 9800 video card is back to normal operation with no crashing..it's worth a try.
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    Thanks, I just tried your procedure--also re-installing the WDM drivers before MMC 8.8, and the problem persists. I found out how to generate a startup log for ATIMMC from info in a posting at rage3d.com, and this is what the log looks like on my system:

    [09:31:43] COSIController:AttachFeature: no genUI interface, will load all OSIs
    [09:31:43] COSIController::PaintCache failed to paint to screen
    [09:31:43] COSIController:AttachFeature: no genUI interface, will load all OSIs
    [09:31:43] ResMngr::GetObject CoCreate Error: ClassNotReg CLSID: {CA0974B8-2353-41AC-9562-7FD6BA6B27A3}
    [09:31:43] [MsgBox] Startup: Failed to CoCreateInstance for IID_IRemoteWonderInfo interface
    [09:31:43] [TenFtUI] LoadApplet: Failed to startup applet {F80F96F3-F597-4BBE-9C39-A6F742A06057}
    [09:31:43] ResMngr::Found Feature: Name=DVD Cmd=DVD GUID={5C4A58A0-CA7E-11CF-BD3C-008029E89281} #of Extensions= 0
    [09:31:43] ResMngr::Found Feature: Name=TV Cmd=TV+ GUID={AD74FB65-D55F-11D2-A41B-00104BC83279} #of Extensions= 0
    [09:31:43] ResMngr::Found Feature: Name=Player Cmd=MFPlay GUID={5C4A58AB-CA7E-11CF-BD3C-008029E89281} #of Extensions=16
    [09:31:43] ResMngr::Found Feature: Name=VCD Cmd=DSVCD GUID={5C4A58AA-CA7E-11CF-BD3C-008029E89281} #of Extensions= 0
    [09:31:43] ResMngr::Found Feature: Name=CD Cmd=CD GUID={5C4A58A4-CA7E-11CF-BD3C-008029E89281} #of Extensions= 1
    [09:31:43] ResMngr::Command Line=/TV+ UIO Guid=
    [09:31:43] ResMngr::Loading Feature ID: {AD74FB65-D55F-11D2-A41B-00104BC83279}
    [09:31:44] ResMngr::LoadObject CoCreate Error: ClassNotReg CLSID: {B6761AC7-0F95-4184-8CEE-0E8495BEBD13}
    [09:31:44] TVUIO::PreStartUp - Optional ConO DV failed to load
    [09:31:44] TuneCon::PreStartUp: Gemstar DataEngine is not registered
    [09:31:44] TVUIO::StartUp: Display ConO - Multimonitor mode on via registry
    [09:31:44] TVUIO::StartUp: Display ConO - Invoking Startup...
    [09:31:44] Display::Could Not Localize RegPath for \Title
    [09:31:44] CTvDisp::SetupDriverObject: Using DirectShow Drivers
    [09:31:44] CDrvDisp:SelectDecoder: Name=ATI Rage Theater Video Capture Index=1
    [09:31:44] CDrvDisp:Setup: Starting with 2 Crossbars for Audio & Video
    [09:31:44] CDrvDisp:Setup: Preview Out is not available on Capture Filter
    [09:31:44] CDrvDisp:Setup: Starting up using Format Converter as Capture Tee
    [09:31:44] CDrvDisp:SetDefDispMode: Selecting Video Capture Display Mode: 0
    [09:31:44] CDrvDisp:SetBestCapture: Setting Capture Pin: 720x240 @59.94fps (165722112bps)
    [09:31:44] CDrvDisp:SetVBIFormat: SetFormat: 1 on VBI pin
    [09:31:44] CDrvDisp:SetVBIFormat: VBI pin NOT connected
    [09:31:44] CDrvDisp:SetVBIFormat: MediaType on VBI Pin: Standard Succesfully set to: 1
    [09:31:44] CDrvDisp:SetBestCapture: AIW
    [09:31:44] CDrvDisp:SetBestCapture: Video Delay set to 200
    [09:31:45] CDrvDisp:Setup_LiveStdPerf: Rendering Live Video via VideoPort
    [09:31:45] CDrvDisp:SetBestCapture: Setting Capture Pin: 720x240 @59.94fps (165722112bps)
    [09:31:45] CDrvDisp:SetVBIFormat: SetFormat: 1 on VBI pin
    [09:31:45] CDrvDisp:SetVBIFormat: VBI pin NOT connected
    [09:31:45] CDrvDisp:SetVBIFormat: MediaType on VBI Pin: Standard Succesfully set to: 1
    [09:31:45] CDrvDisp:SetBestCapture: AIW
    [09:31:45] CDrvDisp:SetBestCapture: Video Delay set to 200
    [09:31:45] CDrvDisp:VBISetup: Failed to Load WDM VBI Splitter
    [09:31:45] CDrvDisp:VBISetup: VBI Setup Failed
    [09:31:45] CTvDisp::SetupDriverObject: Failed to initialize Driver
    [09:31:45] CTvDisp::SetupDriverObject:FAILED to SetupDriverObject
    [09:31:45] TVUIO::Startup Failed InitDisplay on Display

    There are several "failed"'s in there, but whatever they are doing is not affected by reinstalling the WDM drivers and MMC, since the log was the same before I tried your fix of removing NeroVision and re-installing MMC.
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  6. I only get this problem when another app using mpeg2 encoder is running like dvd authors, players etc. If you're running windows 2000 or XP open task manager look in processes and look for ati mmc and close it if it's running.Sometimes it fails to close properly after exiting. Do you have directx 9 installed?
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    Originally Posted by jamawass
    I only get this problem when another app using mpeg2 encoder is running like dvd authors, players etc. If you're running windows 2000 or XP open task manager look in processes and look for ati mmc and close it if it's running.Sometimes it fails to close properly after exiting. Do you have directx 9 installed?
    I've already checked with task manager and don't see anything video-related running (I verified problem occurs right after a re-boot). I've got DirectX 9.0b--even reinstalled it to be sure and checked for problems with dxdiag.exe. The device manager shows that the ATI WDM /drivers/codecs (as described in the ATI WDM readme file) are all installed and working OK, so I don't understand the errors in the MMC startup logfile I posted earlier, which refer to problems accessing one of these.

    I still suspect that MMC has a bug that is causing it to pull obsolete entries from the Windows registry, since every other TV trial app I try works fine.

    Note: I submitted a problem report to ATI over the weekend and still haven't gotten a reply beyond the auto-reply acknowledging the submission. As others have noted, ATI end-user tech support is hopeless if one has a real problem (not one that is "operator error" and covered by their limited FAQs).

    I'd give up on both the AIW and MMC, but as lordsmurf has observed, they are about the only game in town if you want to do direct-to-MPEG2 interlaced captures for recording broadcast content (satellite TV in my case) onto DVD.
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    A follow-up:

    I never did get a response from ATI on this problem. After playing around with other TV capture programs, I couldn't find one that produces TV captures as good as MMC (when MMC is working). However, I figured out a way to get MMC working without reinstalling everything on my system. I realize now that this solution is a great way to cope with the ATI software stability problems I've had over the past several years.

    What I've done is re-partioned one of my disks (I have lots of disk space on multiple drives) and taken advantage of Windows XP multiboot feature to create a second boot partition that has ONLY the basic XP install, ATI drivers, and ATI MMC. When I want to capture TV, I boot to this partition and run MMC. I also backed up the partition with Norton Ghost after the XP install, but before I installed the ATI software, so I can easily re-initialize it the next time MMC breaks and re-install the ATI software again. Obviously, this solution is not applicable for the case where you want to watch TV while you do something else on your system, but for capturing, where I don't want the system burning cycles on other tasks anyway, it is probably optimal.

    (For watching live TV while I do other things, I use another TV player in my default boot partition. That player doesn't produce good captures with an AIW card, but is fine for watching live TV.)

    If you don't run Windows XP, you can use a 3rd-party boot managers to implement a multi-boot configuration. PartitionMagic, which I used to re-organize my disks in-place to create a new partition, also includes a boot manager that would do the job with earlier versions of Windows.
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  9. merl, great tip! Will definitly try that. Great for optimizing captures, specialy on older systems (i have a win98 system i use just for captures.)

    I also have partition magic, do you think it will create a multi-boot for a win98 system?

    BTW, i have a similar problem with an older ATI card (all in wonder pro) when i attempt to watch or capture tv. My post: TV Tuner Problem

    I think you could be close when you say the ati references some old entries in the registry (of some software or driver you installed a while back). I'm in the same boat, so your solution sounds perfect.

    cheers
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    Originally Posted by Keo

    I also have partition magic, do you think it will create a multi-boot for a win98 system?
    Keo,

    I'm not certain if PartitionMagic will do the trick in your configuration, but don't know of a reason either why it wouldn't. The applicable program, included with PM, is BootMagic, which I don't need to use since I have Windows XP in my primary partition. You should use the latest version of PM, which I think is 8.01.

    In any case, I'd recommend you backup everything on your disks that you care about before doing any repartitioning and installing BootMagic. One of the things to watch out for is drive letter changes when you insert a new partition into your drive sequence. This doesn't matter when booting to the new (video-capture only) boot partition, but can mess up shortcuts and other settings in the default boot partition. Windows XP generally does the "right" thing and gives a new partition the next highest unused drive letter, even if that partition is carved out of space between partitiions on an existing physical drive. Therefore no existing references on the existing partitions are broken. I'm not sure if Windows 98 does the same thing. If it doesn't, then I recommend you do NOT use the PartitionMagic tool for re-assigning drive letter references. I used this once several years ago and regretted it. Better to manually fix any broken references as you discover them.

    Hope you can get the problem fixed, one way or another.
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  11. Hey thanks alot merl, was in the middle of reading up on repartitioning for dual boots on win98. I've done it thousands of time on XP machines but never on win98.. I appreciate the heads up, will avoid me some problems.

    Like you say, no reason not to try on it, since it should give a good performance boost when capturing direct to hd on that type of pc, since i'm experiencing some dropped frames.

    Didn't know about the shortcut issue when repartioning on win98, i know like you say the Pmagic tool works great for re-assigning shortcuts on an XP but win98...yes, better off doing it manualy.
    I know that pmagic comes with bootmagic now, just found out (never really had to use on xp, since i do performance tweaks on em most of the time and use hardware profiles.)
    Very handy tool indeed, hope it works ok with win98

    I was planning on re-installing most of the software anyway on the win98, so worst case scenario if something goes terribly wrong i can always do that. I think all the trouble is worth it for a dedicated PVR-pc.

    I still haven't resolved my tv tuner video display issue the old-fashioned way (ie: driver updates etc..) so I think this is my last resort anyway.
    I strongly believe it's something related to either a piece of softare, codec, or bad driver installed (the pc is 6 years old...) somewhere along the line, so that should clean it up, since the tuner used to work perfectly.

    Appreciate your input.
    Btw, you still use the dual-boot method? and what's the improvement quality of your captured tv versus the old way?
    I just got my digital tv signal back, so I expect a big boost from the analog signal of before. You use digital cable or analog?

    Cheers.
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    Originally Posted by Keo
    Btw, you still use the dual-boot method? and what's the improvement quality of your captured tv versus the old way?

    I just got my digital tv signal back, so I expect a big boost from the analog signal of before. You use digital cable or analog?

    Cheers.
    Keo,

    Yes, I'm still dual-booting with two XP partitions: the default partition for my regular software and the second partitiion only for MMC for capturing video. In the default partition, I use ATV2000 just for watching live TV, not capture. MMC TV Player still doesn't start in the default partition and I've given up trying to fix it there. ATV2000 makes use of the ATI WDM Rage Theater drivers, so clearly the problem is with MMC and not the lower level drivers.

    MMC has worked without problems in the second partition. I don't know that I can comment on quality differences, since quality was acceptable to me before MMC broke in the main partition and since I've been tweaking the capture settings a lot to find the highest VBR settings I can use to fit different length programs on a single DVD +R.

    I have DishNetwork digital satellite TV and usually use my Dish 501 PVR receiver (TiVo-like device) to record programs, rather than capturing live with my computer. The PVR has better scheduling capabilities and stores (or so I've read) a true copy of the broadcast signal. I then playback from the PVR over an S-Video video connection and stereo analog connection to the AIW Radeon dongle to capture with MMC on my computer. Another advantage of this method is that if I don't like the capture result, I can change settings and try again. (I wish there was a way to rip the recordings directly from the PVR to computer, which would be much more efficient and provide the best possible DVDs, but understand from a business perspective why that feature has not been implemented.)

    I mostly capture favorite movies from commercial-free channels to keep in a personal DVD library, so I am motivated to make the highest quality DVD copies that I can. I've relied a lot on info on lordsmurf's web site and from his postings on these forums to develop my capture configuration and procedures.
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  13. Excellent info, as always. I'm on a cable digital looking to buy the personal pvr from my cable company which stores about 50 hours, applying the same solution (ripping through s-video from the pvr).
    Pricy, but worth it considering it does store the signal in digital format.

    I hear that there are pvr direct to pc solutions already out there, but of course it has to be compatible with the company providing you the signal. My cable company doesn't offer such a device

    As for your dual-boot xp, why not just configure different hardware profiles through device manager and services manager? Might be simpler than 2 os's (since that takes room) and also you can have 5, 10 different configs all set-up to go. That's what I do on my Xp machines, i have 3-4 different configs, depending on the task i want to perform, most of them are streamlined to have the minimum number of services running in the backround. It's quite easy to do, and the best thing is you can select any profile to load by default (unlike win98) at any boot (with a custom time delay, in my case 3 secs to pick the config you want to load etc..).

    All you need is a tweaking/services guide to know what is the good stuff to disable at start-up. Black Viper offers very detailed info and his site is a good start: Black Viper XP Services Tweaks

    PS: still haven't resolved the tuner issue, i'm stomped. I'll try one last thing.. this excellent guide to installing ati cards from scratch...heh
    then i'll do your solution...


    Cheers
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  14. The only time I ever get this message is when there is an active signal being fed into the purple box before I activate TV Player.

    I just make sure the VHS/Beta/Satellite/Laserdisc is connected but turned off, activate TV Player, and then turn on the equipment in question. This solved the problems I was having.

    (It's also not advised to make changes to the registry keys when TV Player is running as this tends to crash the program.)

    I triple-boot between WinME and two different Win2000 Pro partitions, and run MMC 8.1 on two of the three. I run an Athlon 1200 and regularly read the newspaper and goof off on dvdrhelp.com while capturing video. MMC is completely stable. Go figure.
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    Originally Posted by Keo
    As for your dual-boot xp, why not just configure different hardware profiles through device manager and services manager? Might be simpler than 2 os's (since that takes room) and also you can have 5, 10 different configs all set-up to go. That's what I do on my Xp machines, i have 3-4 different configs, depending on the task i want to perform, most of them are streamlined to have the minimum number of services running in the backround. It's quite easy to do, and the best thing is you can select any profile to load by default (unlike win98) at any boot (with a custom time delay, in my case 3 secs to pick the config you want to load etc..).

    Cheers
    Thanks. I hadn't considered using multiple profiles and will look into it. I have used alternative profiles in the past to run with some devices disabled. Does that method isolate the registry changes when others apps are installed and mess with devices and codecs, which I think is what causes MMC to break in my case? In any case, the dual boot solution is not a hassle for me, since I can spare the space for the extra partition and my system boots very quickly.
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    Originally Posted by indolikaa
    The only time I ever get this message is when there is an active signal being fed into the purple box before I activate TV Player.
    Thnaks, I tried this--in fact disconnected the PVR from the purple box entirely--and still get the same error. Guess the cause is different in my case.
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  17. Originally Posted by merl101

    Does that method isolate the registry changes when others apps are installed and mess with devices and codecs, which I think is what causes MMC to break in my case?
    No, it doesn't mess up your codecs or registry entries for any software/hardware, unless you specificaly disable them. For instance a firewall software/service can be disabled/enabled/manualy enabled or enabled for a specific log on user. So it has great flexibility.
    Before using this method, of course the first thing you will do is backup your hardware profile (copy it in harware profiles and rename the copy to "default", very simple). That way you will always be able to boot normaly in case you screw up.

    For XP Pro running on a high end machine, these service tweaks give quite a nice boost to overall performance/stability, for capture i'd say it's ideal. I have profiles set-up for video editing, gaming, photoshop sessions etc etc.. My default profile is a streamlined bare-minimum version, for when i use 10-15 apps at once lol.

    Originally Posted by indolikaa

    The only time I ever get this message is when there is an active signal being fed into the purple box before I activate TV Player.
    I took your advice, or the principle of it, unpluging everything but my network connections, and then launching video player and doing an auto-scan... still no video.. the tuner gets all the channels with sound, but can't display the image. So i guess the inputs aren't the problem in my case. Was worth a shot.
    It's almost like a "codec" issue, you know when you try to play a file you don't have the codec for? you get a blank image but with sound.
    That's what I get with the tuner... Which is a standard phillips tuner.
    Looking at the default ATI codecs that come with the AIW, they are all installed properly, i can capture with the proprietary AIW codecs in Vdub for example...

    Stomped..
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  18. I just went out and bought a new AIW Radeon 7500 (OEM box), installed it, and tried to start up the TV application ... only to encounter the same error message that started this thread. This really pisses me off ... because the ONE thing I want to do with this card is capture analog video. I don't think I can do this unless I can launch the TV app.

    My full system specs are in my profile here, but a couple of noteworthy compnents are:
    * w2k sp4
    * directX 9.0b
    * MMC 8.9 (8.1 was on my install disk ... but the first thing I tried to do after installing the software was launch the TV app ... and when I got that error message I went to ATI website and upgraded the software and apps)
    * Radeon Display Driver 7.991 (also called 6.14.10.6430) ... upgraded from 6.14.1.6292 that came on install disk
    * Catalyst 4.3 (ditto)
    * All of my other drivers etc. are up to date (mobo chipset, etc.)

    I try launching the TV app right after booting, so I KNOW I have no other "video related" apps running. And I don't see any processes through Task MAnager that look like they might cause conflicts, either. I've tried the suggestions on ATI's support site ... but cannot find the cause of the problem. I DO have several DVD-related programs on my PC ... but none of them are running when I try to launch the TV app. Surely it's not a problem if they are just ON my PC. Applications like: DVDDecrypter, CopytoDVD, Ulead's Video Studio 7, Blindwrite, DVD Shrink, the suite of Veritas software that comes bundled with Sony DVD burner, etc.

    Just thought I'd describe my setup ... and see if any of you who have also had the problem also happened to have similar setup? I'm wondering specifically if DirectX 9.0b is a common link?

    Also, if any of you people have ever resolved this issue, please let me know! And I'll do the same. Otherwise I may be returning this ATI card, reinstalling my old ASUS card, and just getting a bare-bones analog capture card.
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    Originally Posted by haw

    Also, if any of you people have ever resolved this issue, please let me know!
    No, I've still got this problem though I continue to tinker with fixing it. My solution is still using multiboot to boot to a separate "capture-only" XP partiition where I haven't installed any other applications and MMC 8.9 works fine. And, I use ATV2000 in my default partition to watch TV but not for captures. All this works, but I'm still extremely annoyed and frustrated that MMC is so fragile and opaque that it seems impossible to fix in-place after its configuration breaks. So, after years of using several AIW cards with MMC, I've decided to pursue another solution.

    I'm looking into alternate hardware/software that will better serve my needs for TV watching/capture from my satellite TV system. I'll probably go with a standard graphics card and external analog-to-DV encoder that will feed DV directly to the computer via Firewire. I haven't figured out, however, which application software I would use for TV watching and real-time MPEG2 conversion/capture. There's a ton of relevant info for this type of solution here on dvdrhelp, but I haven't sorted through all of it yet.
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  20. Have you tried turning off services, programs or hardware drivers one at a time? Maybe you can find whats conflicting with MMC.
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  21. No I have not tried turning off my drivers, services, etc. to see if I can isolate the problem. In fact ... in my initial post I had intended to ask "what is the easiest way to troubleshoot / isolate the cause of the apparent conflict?" But I got so verbose that I forgot to ask!!!

    As luck would have it, I had JUST set up a dual-boot configuration on my PC ... so I could try out Adobe Premiere (which requires XP). So I had a virgin XP parition just sitting there, ready to go. When I booted into the XP partition and installed the ATI drivers / software (and then upgraded all that to their latest stuff listed on their web site), I had no trouble at all with the TV program. Captured some sample analog video and it looks fine at first glance. Am just now about to look closely at it.

    So the dual-boot option certainly works ... but I also am unhappy about the fragility of the driver / app. If and when I figure out the cause of the conflict, I'll be sure to post what I learned.
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