Protection error: n Explorer Crash in Windows XP - is it DivX related ?

I've had this weird problem in my PC for some time now. When browsing through explorer windows displaying folders with video files, occasionally I'll get a small window that just says "Protection Error:n" and has an OK button. "n" is a number (I've seen values of 1 and 15) and when you click OK, Windows Explorer just dies - the task bar, application windows and desktop items reappear after a while, but not the folder windows. This has also happened while inspecting a file with GSpot and in that case only GSpot died. It seems to me that all these problems started after I installed DivX 5.1.1 so now I have removed it from my system and have only 3ivX and XVID installed, apparently w/o any problem. Has anyone seen this happen ? If so, do you have an idea of why it happens and how to fix it ? TIA, Pedro.

I've also had AVISynth exceptions while using either DivX, 3ivX or XVID codecs to decode the AVI. Could this be a sneaky CPU feature thing ? My home PC has an AMD cpu - could it be that these codecs are Intel-optimized in such a way that an AMD cpu would occasionally misbehave ? Still looking for a solution...

I do have AMD 2700+ 400 mHz and all those upper mentioned codecs installed (+AviSynth, TMPGEnc, DVD2VCD, MPC, WinDVR3, GSpot and many many more) and no problems. I keep the 'Detail View' at explorer, so those video-files won't try to show up any thumbnails. Then i switched one folder to large thumbnail view (128x128) and bang: i got the explorer to go down every now and then just when opening that folder...) Cannot say any technical about this issue, but it must relate to the decoders trying to make the thumbnail like parallel (DivX 511 & XviD & 3ivx maybe all trying to catch the pic?) Have to check more here too, but for me it's not a huge problem, because i always use the detailed view, give good explaining long filenames to figure out which is which. Maybe you could try the explorer setting "Tools / Folder Options / View and mark "Do Not Cache Thumbnails" or if you have it marked, then take it off and then set "Apply to All Folders". Also you could try "Reset All Folders" and with TweakUi etc "Rebuild Icons"... Just some suggestions! JaTeMaTec

Thanks for the suggestions. I have problems even at the detailed view. I seldom use thumbnail view for AVI files. However, maybe your suggestions will help.

I don't use the tweaked settings you mention in your post. I have a D:\Windows\System32\Divxdec.ax and a D:\Windows\System32\Divx.dll. Are they both part of DIVX 5.1.1 ? Also, GSPOT always lists DIVX decoder twice. I've tried uninstall/reinstall but the registry entries were not cleaned. Thanks again for trying to help!

We did have one user report problems when "Overlay Extended" was enabled in his Decoder Configuration. I'm not sure whether this was a problem in DivX, his drivers, graphics card or DirectShow, but I believe its on the QA list for the next release.

@DigitAl56K: Thanks for your reply. I don't have that option enabled in my decoder configuration (which is the basic free bundle). The protection error is now much less frequent since I decided to uninstall all the other MPEG-4 decoders I had in my system (3ivX, XviD) and keep only DivX. However, it still occurs occasionally while trying to open a DivX AVI in VirtualDUB or in TMPEGenc (via AVISynth). I enabled generic MPEG-4 support, which I assume allows decoding of non DivX MPEG-4 files.