Shareaza

Just downloaded shareza for the first time. Looks nice.

I'm trying to preview a file that's downloading, but nothing seems to happen. I click on "play".... nothing. No reaction. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Windows XP SP3

I now have a complete file. When I play it I get audio, but no video. The viewing area is just black. It's like listening to radio.

Install some codecs, like for example CCCP.

To preview a file, some parts of it are required. Avi files, ie, store some information at the initial part of the file that is required to be decoded, so if the first bytes are missing, the file cannot be previewed. Other files, like JPG, show blank areas. MP3 can be played without problems (well, the missing parts are not played )

preview doesn't work anymore anyway, now all you can preview is the 1st chunk of data and you get a warning from vlc that your avi is corrupt, even when playing the partial doesn't get you any warning....

before, you got that message only when you also got it when playing the partial file...

Don't make generalized statements... .avi is a container format, which means that an avi file does not necessarily use the same encoding then an other avi file - which in turn means that just because one avi file does not preview, this doesn't give us any information about whether others do - or don't.

Might I ask whether installing the codec pack I linked to did any good (on players OTHER than vlc, which doesn't use external codecs)?

ok i did a little test today,
i installed shareaza 2.2.1 on an old computer, downloaded an avi video and tried to preview the file when i got a bit of data.
preview worked in shareaza and i could watch the preview file using my fav video player (vlc, windows media player & media player classic)

so seing this, i installed ver 2.3.1 (both over previous version and after desinstalling existing version) and start downloading the same file. again preview worked nicely as above.

i then tired with 2.4. incomplete file are now ".partial" files. download the same file and previewing again is still working

going to ver 2.5, this time preview doesn't work with shareaza and can only watch the 1st chunk with vlc & MPC, WMP says it had a problem with trying to play the file.
And that even if i can watch every chunk when playing the .partial file.

installing 2.5.5 and same behaviour as with ver 2.5

so what have the codec to do with the preview not working??

Download previewer code was lost with old media player code (it was part of player). So in new Shareaza versions previewer was implemented as external plugin named "Shareaza Preview Plugin". You can add external programs as previewers for needed file types. I recommend to add "DivFix++" program first.

oh ok, so now at least i can make preview to watch with an external player. Thanks!!

Ryo-oh-ki, I think the new preview plugin is a cool thing, however a lot of people seem to have problems with it as they do not know that further configuration is required to make it work. Maybe we should add a page to our installer (just like the one with the security link) or to the quick start wizard to make this fact known better...? An other possibility would be to show a message box the first time a user wants to preview a file type that currently cannot be previewed.

since ver 2.6, using divfix to watch preview is acting a little weird.
i'm using win 7 and with that version, as soon as the file is opened in vlc, it forces win 7 to stop using aero (performing a problem resolution says that DesktopWindowManager is not activated despite program being started and set to automatic). up to that nothing too anoying since as soon as i close vlc, everything goes back to normal except for my taskbar which is getting resized to the minimal size (while it's set to being lock!!). with ver 2.5, aero wasn't stop.

again, can someone reproduce that on their computer or can someone points out if some change has been made in the preview setting (since i'm using the exact same version of divfix i was suing with 2.5)

thanks

well actaully it's not only preview watching but watching any video launched via shareaza.

What media player(s) are you using? In case you're using Windows media player, have you gotten the right codecs installed?

i'm using VLC latest version

if i double click on an incomplete video file, finished video file or a video in my library, the aero thing in win7 get removed (as long as vlc is open) and my task bar get resized

if i preview the created preview file or the complete file directly with vlc, everything's fine and acting normal....

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just did a test after typing that, i've tried using media player classic instead of vlc for previewing with shareaza and everything went fine!

If it is indeed a VLC related problem, there is probably not much we can do. But would it be possible for you to make a print screen of the way VLC looks when started from within Shareaza and an other one where VLC has been started from within Windows Explorer...? Maybe there is something we can do - and if not, we could forward these images to the VLC dev team so that they could solve the issue with their program.

I have a vague recollection that the compositing window manager required for Aero is not compatible with all possible video rendering modes. No idea why starting from Shareaza would make a difference, maybe you have two different versions of VLC installed or something?

only have one vlc version installed.

normally vlc (and taskbar) looks like this:


but opened thru shareaza i'm getting this: