Hi,
I`m new to Scrivener but as far as I can see it is a very helpful writing program.
While testing v1.60 with german language under Windows XP SP 3 I encountered the following problems:
It´s not possible to take a snapshot. Every time I try - using the menue or the button in the footer of the inspector - the program crashes at once.
If I try to open the audio file in the tutorial the program also crashes.
The program doesn´t run very stable at all. It crashed several times while I was writing.
I don´t know if these problems possibly result from my OS.
Now I´m curious about to get to know all the other exciting features.
Best regards
ulli
It sounds like playing the audio is causing a crash on your system–taking a snapshot plays a .wav file of a camera-click, so that would match with the problem of playing the audio within the editor. Could you please go to the Scrivener installation directory (probably C:\Program Files\Scrivener) and check in the “minidump” folder for any files created about the time of the crashing? If you see some there, please select them all, right-click and choose “Send to \ Compressed (zipped) folder”, then attach those here so we can take a look at the crash report, or send them to windows.support AT literatureandlatte DOT com if you prefer, with a reference back to this thread.
Also, while you’re in the installation folder, please go into the “resources” folder and double-click the camera-click.wav file there to play it through your default media player. Does that work properly?
minidump_ulli.zip (310 KB)
Thank you for answering. 
Attachment: The zip file contains all minidumps that were in the minidumps folder.
Yes, the camera-click.wav file plays properly through my default media player (VLC).
Thanks! Quick check, do you have DirectX installed? With XP you wouldn’t necessarily have this by default. DirectX is necessary for playing audio and video in Scrivener; I wouldn’t expect it to be causing a crash, but it could be doing so. To check, choose “Run” from the start menu and enter dxdiag and click OK. In the system information of the dialog that opens, you’ll see your installed DirectX version toward the bottom. If you don’t have DirectX or need to update, you can grab the installer from the Microsoft site here: microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=35
Thanks again, I’ve checked my DirectX version: no need to update, everything’s fine.
What about the minidump files? Give they a clue?
(Btw: Meanwhile I’ve installed the same Scrivener version under Windows 8 and I haven’t had any problem yet.)
I’ve had to pass the crash reports over to the developers, so I’ll let you know what I hear back about those. A couple other things to try in the meanwhile–
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Disable any other software you run at startup–there could be some conflict here causing the crashing, and we could then narrow it down to find out what specifically. If you run ConstantGuard, make sure Scrivener is on its whitelist; that can cause crashes otherwise. Likewise, if you run RoboForm, be sure that it is updated to the latest version; there is a known issue with that software causing crashes in Scrivener, but I believe the RoboForm folks fixed this with their last update. You can also add the Scrivener program path to the list at RoboForm > Options > Applications Integration to prevent RoboForm attaching to it.
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Do a clean re-installation of Scrivener: uninstall the program, delete the installation directory if it remains (it probably will, since you had some crash reports in there, and the uninstaller won’t touch anything that the installer didn’t create), then download a fresh copy of the 1.6 installer from the website and install again. Uninstalling will not affect your existing projects, which are saved externally to the program (in your Documents folder by default, though you may have chosen another location when creating the project). You can also save your program settings before uninstalling by going to Tools > Options… and choosing “Save Preferences” from the Manage menu button. After the uninstall/reinstall process, just return there to load the saved preference file.
You are very committed, Jennifer, thanks again.
I don’t use neither ConstantGuard nor RoboForm.
Because I updated from v1.57 to 1.60 I uninstalled the program and did - as you recommended - a clean re-installation. But nothing has changed, the problems are still there.
Sorry for the delay getting back. Unfortunately the crash report wasn’t much help, as it doesn’t get deep into the nitty gritty of audio codecs and plugins, which are most likely the cause of the crash. Thanks for sending it though so we could at least take a peek.
Next thing to try, if you’re willing, is to run Dependency Walker (you can download and install that from here) and open Scrivener’s .exe file there to get a list of all the libraries it loads on your system. That may help pinpoint some plug-ins that could potentially be causing the issue. You can save the list as a plain-text file from DW using File > Save As and choosing the “Text (*.txt)” type from the drop-down, then upload that here. (If the forum won’t let you upload a .txt extension, just change it to .zip and I’ll fix it when I download. I know it’s fussy about certain file types and I don’t remember which; .txt might be fine.)
Thank you for being insistent! As attachment the Dependeny Walker file. I hope it helps to find the cause.
Scrivener.txt (121 KB)
Meanwhile I bought a Scrivener license because I like writing with this program.
Nonetheless a working snapshot function would be very helpful.
Gave the Dependency Walker file no clue to solve this problem?
Try this:
On your computer, navigate to the folder you installed Scrivener to. For example, on my machine this is… C:\Program Files (x86)\Scrivener
In that directory you will see a folder called “Resources”. Go into that.
In that directory you will see a file called “camera_click”.
Rename that file something else, like “camera_click_BAK”.
That will stop the program from finding (and therefore running) the audio file when you use the snapshot feature.
Now load up Scrivener and try to use snapshots to see if it still crashes.
Hopefully that will provide a fix (for the snapshot problem at least) until the tech team can find the cause of the system conflict.
@ pigfender
What shall I say: Now I can take snaphots without a problem! Thanks a lot for this idea, pigfender! 
And maybe this gives us a hint to find the cause: All audio files on my system are played by vlc media player 2.08. Do I have to choose an other program?
(But even if the cause of these crashes will remain undetected, this will be o .k. It’s a nice gimmick but I don’t really need to hear that camera click.)
Glad that helped.
Both the Buzz audio file and the camera click are WAV files. It might be worth changing the default program for those files to, say, Windows Media Player just to see if that improves matters.
Thank you, pigfender. I changed the default program and chose Windows Media Player - and booom, Scrivener crashed as before.
Thanks for running Dependency Walker and providing the file from that. You’ve got roughly 1500 DLLs loading, which is quite a lot, but just on looking through it none of the WAV or codec-related DLLs immediately jumped out as suspicious. The best move forward at this point is probably to try systematically disabling codecs you have installed and testing to see if doing so prevents the crash in Scrivener when attempting to play audio. Since you’ve already addressed the audio playing when you take a snapshot (thanks, Rog, for stepping in!), just do this at your leisure by playing a test audio file in the editor.
VLC being the default player isn’t a problem; in fact, VLC has all its own codecs embedded precisely to avoid any issues with external codecs.
O. k., thanks again for your efforts!
I’ll try and will see if there’s an audio codec which causes the crash. And if not: I can live without hearing the snapshot sound.