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QuickTime 7.4 breaks movie playback, how to fix
Movies still not playing The QuickTime 7.4 update is proving disastrous for a growing number of users who cannot properly playback videos that previously played normally. As noted yesterday, some movies play without video, others play without sound, and still others don't play at all. A typical report from MacFixIt reader Steve Bunnell:
"Recently upgraded via Software Update to: Quicktime Version 7.4 (92). Many hundreds of old .mpg and .mov files are destroyed under this version of QT. Which is pretty annoying, since I have a presentation in 2 hours. With the newly non-playing movies. Archived copies of the movies are also not playing. This is not a corruption issue."
And a few other typical reports:
- "Yes, all my videos encoded with Tubesock play audio only on QT 7.4, no video,
- "Am experiencing the same problem since upgrading to Quicktime 7.4, even after trying all suggestion listed. My entire library of MPEG-4/.mp4 is now blank but with audio." -- Michael Steele
- "I have Mac OS X 10.4.11 and after installing quick time 7.4 have no sound on movies embeded in the web. Tried removing and reinstalling and no change." -- Alice Friedman
- "We experienced the same issue with an upgrade. The new software plays audio but scrambles the video. This is very frustrating. It does fine with video on the web, but all of the mp4 files are messed up." -- Steve Butler
In these dire cases, when our previously mentioned fixes don't work, your best bet may be a downgrade to QuickTime 7.3, as deescribed below:
Downgrading to QuickTime 7.3 First, make a backup of your current Mac OS X installation with QuickTime 7.4 applied, problematic as it may be. If there is an issue along the way, your valuable data will be safely intact in its current form.
Next, you'll need to perform an Archive and Install process to remove all of the QuickTime update's (and potentially problem-causing) components, and replace them with the components of the older release. Unfortunately, this means you will lose some system settings and some or all third-party system add-ons.
To begin the process, insert your Mac OS X CD or DVD. Restart your machine and hold down the "C" key to boot from the newly inserted disc. Follow the on-screen instructions, and after accepting the license agreement, click "Options." Select "Archive and Install," and check the "Preserve User and Network Settings" option if you'd like to do so.
After the installation process is complete, you will be left with an earlier Mac OS X system that (hopefully) does not suffer from the problems generated by QuickTime 7.4.
Next, download and install the latest version of your OS (Leopard [10.5.1], Tiger [10.4.11], or Panther [10.3.9]) from Apple's download page.
Finally, download and install QuickTime 7.3 from one of the following links:
- QuickTime 7.3.1 for Leopard [10.5.1]
- QuickTime 7.3.1 for Tiger [10.4.11]
- QuickTime 7.3.1 for Panther [10.3.9]
Serious After Effects problems Meanwhile, After Effects users are reporting that the video editing application has been rendered (no pun intended) unusable by QuickTime 7.4.
Phuong Nguyen writes:
"There is a hideous error in the new release of Quicktime that has crippled After Effects causing all renders to crash within 10 minutes of starting them. The error message reads, After Effects error: you do not have permissions to open this file (-54) very bad for folks producing material in After Effects."
Another reader writes:
"After updating to the newest QuickTime (7.4) via software update. I'm running AfterEffects CS3, and after the QuickTime update, have been running into errors as After effects does a render and it gives errors. (The error's being reproduced on all machines that have upgraded to QuickTime 7.4. Exact same files transferred over to machines that haven't upgraded are working totally fine and great.)"
A downgrade, as described above, may be the best prima facie solution to this issue.
Subtitles not appearing A few readers have reported that subtitles for .srt file sare no longer appearing under QuickTime 7.4.
Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.
Resources
If I look at them with Movie Inspector in QuickTime Player, the format is listed as "Apple MPEG4 Decompressor" with AAC audio.
Perhaps there's a particular codec that's at issue here.
"Recently upgraded via Software Update to: Quicktime Version 7.4 (92). Many hundreds of old .mpg and .mov files are destroyed under this version of QT. "
Could this be an issue with the change in QT 7.4 that requires going to QuickTime Preferences>Advanced and selecting 'Show legacy encoders'?
And as a reminder to those in production environments and other necessary areas of work - don't be too quick to apply these updates and upgrades until your other software manufacturers have approved them. (And if you really want to do it, make sure you have a working, bootable backup in place before you do it CarbonCopyCloner is free and only one example of easy to use software that can save your butt and your patience. )
--Good Luck!
iMac Flat Panel G4 - 1.35 GHZ - 1 GB SDRAM
I found out that after upgrading QuickTime 7.4,nearly all of
my movies were "audio only". The first place I knew to check
was MacFixit. Sure enough, I found DragonWizard27 post and followed each step exactly. I'm back to version 7.3.1 and
ALL my movies are playing as they should now !!
Thank You DargonWizard27 and MacFixit.
After sorting through this atrocious grammar, this worked well for me. The only thing I was unsure of was what to do with the Disk Permissions. I selected "Repair Disk Permissions" and that seemed to work.
Quicktime 7.4 was screwing up ALL of my Adobe products (not just After Effects).
In order to get them to open without crashing, after I had downgraded I had to log in to another user account, log out, and log back in to my account. It took five minutes of spinning before my desktop loaded. I don't know if that was just hoo-doo magic, but now they seem to work fine.
Steve Bunnell here, with more info
All of the 'failed' movies were encoded with 'Apple Animation'
The failed movies work perfectly on an iMac running OS9.2 and QT6.0.
'Show legacy encoders' was already checked, good idea though.
Same defect appears on 'pristine' installs- New laptops & in the Apple Store. So it is unlikely to be a third-party problem.
Reverting to QT7.3 with Pacifist _is_ a breeze. But it didn't help me. I'll be trying QT7.2 next. It was way easier than the standard Archive-Install.
My suspicion is that something in one of the recent QT security updates broke the 'Apple Animation' codec. There was something about malicious code creating buffer overruns. Whatever that means.
What this means to me is that I've 'lost' ~4 years of work product unless I manually re-export >2000 movies on an iMac running OS9.2. How long do you think that will take! Yikes...
Thanks for your attention!
Best regards,
Steve Bunnell
Try creating new user. It worked in my case
Or perhaps use camino or mozilla browsers it worked also without creating new user
It's very bad. Now, System Preferences and Preview open, but then immediately crash. Viewing any movie causes the Finder to crash.
This is not repaired by reverting to QT7.3
I can't run software update to get back to QT7.4, since
the System Preferences are shot. It crashes as soon as the main page comes up on the screen.
I guess I'll be trying an Archive-Install, but that won't be fixing the original problem...
-Steve
Therefore, Apple broke the 'Apple Animation' codec in the QT 7.2 or 7.3 release. For this one issue at least, QT 7.4 was not the problem.
I'm not keen on going through that again...
but I suppose at some point I have to- or else I'll never update again!
Steve
On today's MacFixit front page a user posted this solution:
"I found that after installing 3ivx software and then removing the 3ivxMediaImporter.component plugin from the quicktime library folder, I was once again (under Quicktime 7.4) to open and play .mp4 files in quicklook and Quicktime."
I wish to report that this solution WORKED for me. You do NOT need to reboot. Just search for "3ivxMediaImp" and move it to your desktop (making sure all applications that use QuickTime as well as QT itself are closed). Double click on your affected MP4 file and Voilá it works!!!
- by jaffeent1_dotmac September 17, 2008 1:42 PM PDT
- May have a fix...
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(13 Comments)When I change the end of the filename from .mp4 to .m4v the files work through iTunes and the iPhone ? both video and audio work.