Encoder 4 Screen Capture suddenly stopped working and unable to get it working

Andy S

Beta member
Messages
4
Location
Australia
I hope I havent given too much info to describe this problem so here goes... I have used MS Expression Encoder 4 Screen Capture since 2012 without issue, it has always opened and worked without problems.

Few days ago I opened too many web pages at once while using Encoder which caused the laptop to choke as these webpages use animated adverts and slow the system down to virtually nothing. After 10 minutes I decided to close things down using task manager until it freed up the CPU and decided to close Encoder too.

When I booted up the next day I found that Encoder would not load at all. The dialog box that usually opens up on the desktop didnt. The icon on the taskbar expanded when I cicked it on but the actual application would not come up. Holding the cursor over the taskbar icon would show a miniature pop-up of the screen capture toolbar but if clicked did not do anything. Right clicking on it and selecting Open also did nothing. There was nothing that would open it. Selecting it from the Start Menu or system tray made no difference.

I searched for similar problems starting with the MS forum when I saw a similar though not exact issue someone had. In the end I tried to reinstall it. I used the original exe file I downloaded in 2012 and also downloaded the latest (service pack 2) suggested by Microsoft. There was even another screen caapture codec file with an .msi extension offered. I first tried the repair option which did nothing, I unistalled it and reinstalled both the original and newer files, the result is the same and it gets back to the point where it shows up as on the taskbar without opening.

I dont understand why it doesnt work (was possibly corrupted) but a reinstall should fix this... that it wont work after a reinstall is the dilemma I have. I have looked at other screen capture programs (none of which are as good) but I need to have encoder back up and running for many reasons, the least of which is gigs of encoder files that need to be processed by encoder into media files otherwise they are useless to me and I need to get the screen capture working for work as well.

I hope someone can assist me in finding a solution or what is preventing it from starting up and running to get this program going without the need to use another program, why it cant work even after a reinstall and work from there. I have had pc freezes before even power failures mid program and nothing like this has ever happened to ruin a program.
 
Maybe the problem is not with the program itself.

Did you do anything other than rebooting? Did you install or uninstall anything or modify any settings?

If you did, I would first check for viruses and then for corrupted files in the OS.

Try running some antivirus programs (rkill, MBAM, Hitman Pro, Adwcleaner, JRT), then open a command prompt as administrator and run

Code:
 sfc /scannow

If nothing works, try System Restore.
 
Hi Thanks for replying.

Been having problems hence the delays here (not pc problems though).

Short answer is no. What happened that night was something I tend to do a lot. I was on the BBC news page and just clicked on about 10 or more links to articles at once and as they all have animated adverts they take forever to load and use a lot of the processor. I was also running Encoder prior to this as I read the news while it churns away.

I havent added anything to the laptop in the past 6 months and probably nothing in the past year - I dont have much need for programs other than some basic stuff loaded years ago. I certainly dont change settings as I tend to believe that is asking for trouble as I dont know enough about computers. The only time I might make changes is the occasional update of flash where the pc asks if I want to allow changes but thats all.

At this point the whole laptop just slowed to nothing and pages werent loading Enc wasnt working and I lost patience so I went into Task Manager and chose to shutdown a few webpages to free up the processor which was still laboring. I chose to shut down Encoder at that point and the laptop came back to life. I didnt start anything else up or do anything else, read the remaining webpages and shut down the laptop for the night after. It was the next day that Enc wouldnt do anything more than indicate it was open on the taskbar. Wouldnt record screen captures, process files, no dialog box on the desktop to access any controls. If I alt tab it shows it there... but thats it.

The only thing I have dne in the days that followed was to remove the program and then try a reinstall, first with the latest download from the MS site and when that didnt work unistall and repeat. Found the original exe file I had and that wouldnt work. I used Revo Uninstaller to clean out the whole thing in case there were registry files doing lingering and still nothing. I ran the windows scan and it showed nothing.

It just wont open, I can reinstall it but not to a point where it works or it is working but somehow hidden - does that make sense? All indications are that everything is sort of okay other than not opening and letting me either process capture files or record new ones. And I have gigs of files that still need processing and without Enc I cant even view the .xesc raw files.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

Oh I ran the sfc /scannow command but nothing happened. It just flashed what looked like a black box but disappeared.
 
How did you run the command? Try this:

Open the start menu, type cmd, right click and select "Run as administrator", then run the command.

Now, I think this may be malware, maybe because of malicious ads. I recommend you run some programs to check. A good starting point (in this order):

  1. rkill
  2. MBAM
  3. Hitman Pro (has a portable version, use this one)
  4. Zemana Antimalware (also portable version)
  5. JRT
  6. Adwcleaner

Please do that and then write back.
 
How did you run the command? Try this:

Open the start menu, type cmd, right click and select "Run as administrator", then run the command.

Now, I think this may be malware, maybe because of malicious ads. I recommend you run some programs to check. A good starting point (in this order):

  1. rkill
  2. MBAM
  3. Hitman Pro (has a portable version, use this one)
  4. Zemana Antimalware (also portable version)
  5. JRT
  6. Adwcleaner

Please do that and then write back.
don't work in android. i am thinking about trying a reboot harddrive and reinstall the programs. some of the programs you listed won't work on this os. i tried to upload shots on Debs computer and worked perfect. so its the tablet . will let you know what happens.
 
don't work in android. i am thinking about trying a reboot harddrive and reinstall the programs. some of the programs you listed won't work on this os. i tried to upload shots on Debs computer and worked perfect. so its the tablet . will let you know what happens.
Oh I'm sorry, I forgot it's a tablet. You should try another browser. (This is an unrelated thread, so if you need help start a new one.)
 
Oh I'm sorry, I forgot it's a tablet. You should try another browser. (This is an unrelated thread, so if you need help start a new one.)
issue fixed. reformatted and new os. works perfect so it has been acting up with slow downs and freezeing up. then the pictures. i am guessing that the os wasn't stable or missing something. the keyboard seems to be working better. anyway, thanks for your help fellow, see you around, Dan
 
How did you run the command? Try this:

Open the start menu, type cmd, right click and select "Run as administrator", then run the command.

Now, I think this may be malware, maybe because of malicious ads. I recommend you run some programs to check. A good starting point (in this order):

  1. rkill
  2. MBAM
  3. Hitman Pro (has a portable version, use this one)
  4. Zemana Antimalware (also portable version)
  5. JRT
  6. Adwcleaner

Please do that and then write back.



Hi again, my deepest apologies for the delay in getting back to you. When one thing goes wrong everything else bad also seems to happen at the same time.

I did manage to run the scannow command and it came back after completing the scan with a message that read - windows resource protection did not find any integrity violations.

I loaded all the programs you listed and the malware programs didnt find anything serious when they ran the scans, just a lot of tracking cookies, but nothing else.

Once I ran Malwarebytes and got it to remove the rubbish it found, Zemana and ADWcleaner found even less and JRT had nothing and RKill reported this..

Checking for Windows services to stop:

* No malware services found to stop.

Checking for processes to terminate:

* No malware processes found to kill.

Checking Registry for malware related settings:

* No issues found in the Registry.

Resetting .EXE, .COM, & .BAT associations in the Windows Registry.

Performing miscellaneous checks:

* No issues found.

Searching for Missing Digital Signatures:

* No issues found.

Checking HOSTS File:

* No issues found.

So what I got from this was that there likely wasnt anything around to cause this. Nothing in the registry etc.

When I finally got around to removing and reinstalling the Encoder program, it loaded as it had done before. I opened it and an icon came up on the taskbar, but it didnt open on the desktop. It just did the same as it did the day I found the problem. It came up as open but was not usable.

Of course I cannot fathom what is going on as I didnt change anything and nothing malicious seems to have been put onto my computer. It just wont open! It says it is installed, it says its there to use, but just cant be accessed. I am really pulling my hair out now.
 
For future reference, the whole point of Rkill is to run it before the malware removal software.

If it's not a Windows problem (apparently it isn't) it has to have something to do with the software. If you are using the latest version with default settings and meet the minimum requirements, there is no reason why it would fail.

I have three suggestions:

1. If this is not the latest version of the software, update it.
2. Uninstall the program with Revo Uninstaller and manually check the following locations and delete everything:
a. Install folder (e.g. C:\Program Files\(Encoder))
b. C:\Users\username\AppData\{Local,LocalLow, Roaming}\(Encoder)
Then reinstall and try opening it.
That should remove any custom settings you may have made before that screwed things up, if you did.
3. Since this could be a bug, use alternative software. Best place to start: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=encoder+4+alternatives&t=brave&ia=web and https://alternativeto.net/software/microsoft-expression-encoder/

Good luck.

By the way (Encoder) is just a guess. The install folders and data folders are probably different.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom