I installed the LAME ACM MP3 codec so I could try re-encoding some PVR captures as XVIDs, since otherwise you can’t do MP3 encodes higher than 56 kbps, which is pretty useless. Thank you, Windows.
The problem was, after installing the ACM version of LAME, everything that tried to get the list of audio codecs would crash instead. In Virtualdub, choosing the “Compression” setting under the audio menu led to a crash, and mentioned lameACM.acm in the crash details. Another app that I tried to re-encode a WMV file to AVI was showing me the list of audio codecs, but crashed as soon as I tried to do an MP3 encode.
I couldn’t even uninstall the LAME ACM codec through the Windows control panel, because as soon as I tried to bring up the properties on audio codecs, the whole control panel crashed. I thought about just deleting the ACM files, but didn’t trust Windows not to go completely wonky at that point, and was hoping to avoid having to do that.
Lots of Googling didn’t turn up anything useful about this, which is why I’m writing this entry.
The answer turned out to simply be upgrading to a newer version of the ACM codec. If you Google for [LAME ACM], the first hit is for version 3.97 beta 1, and so that’s what I clicked on and installed. I think I probably scanned through the results visible on the screen, none of which showed a later version on the Google results page (you have another 3.97 beta 1, and a 3.96, and that’s all that’s visible).
After finding and installing a newer version (3.98 alpha 2, dated 3 weeks ago), everything’s working again. Since I couldn’t properly uninstall the old one because of the crashes, I just installed the newer one, hoping it would overwrite the older files. That’s what it seems to have done, since everything is working right now.
Hope that helps anyone having a similar problem.
Good call man… thanks for the info.
Cool! You just saved me from a world of hurt.
Thanks for the info!
You could have uninstalled the driver just from the apps icon in the control panel.
Thanks, anyway
Thank You Man!
I sucked up the same way, but you saved my lifem and prevent me from thousand of angry hours …
ciao
frenkie
regsvr32.exe /u C:\WINDOWS\system32\lameACM.acm
or
regsvr32.exe /u C:\WINNT\system32\lameACM.acm
to uninstall
thanks! (saved me a headache!!)
Thanks for the info man – the ACM driver failed at the end of the install, and since then, anything that accessed the Lame driver or tried to list it even (e.g., some panels in device manager) crashed.
Thanks for saving me a load of time.
Dude… you just saved my life. Ok, a little over-dramatic… but thanks.
I installed LAME 3.98 alpha 6 ACM and I get the same error. I’ve tried removing it and installing older versions but still it spots the newest version (which makes vdub crash) any help on this situation would be much appreciated!
Haven’t experienced lame.acm crashing any of my software but ever since swapping over to Vista, all my conversions in VirtualDub seem to be taking at least twice as long as previously. I use lame.acm alot to re-encode AC3 DD 5.1 down to stereo.(Video: direct stream copy) It used to take 4:30 to 5:30 mins. Now it can take up to 15 minutes. Any ideas ? I’ve tried using different versions of ac3.acm,lame.acm and VDub but always the same. If your wondering why I use lame.acm at all and not just ac3.acm to re-encode; it’s always out of sync (but takes half the time,previously & now)
Thanks, this did the trick. My RiverPast audio converter worked just fine in XP but not Vista. I looked everywhere to see how to uninstall Lame ACM because that’s what RiverPast was telling me to do, but no luck.
Anyway, thanks again, it works now.