Microsoft rolled out a total of seven different security bulletins on Patch Tuesday, six of which have been flagged as critical for all Windows versions on the market.
It turns out that one of the delivered bulletins is actually doing more harm than good. Users are complaining that MS13-057, installed as KB 2803821 on Windows 7 and as KB 2834904 on Windows XP, is breaking down video rendering on a number of machines.
Microsoft explained in a security advisory that this particular patch was aimed at ?Windows Media Format Runtime 9 and 9.5 (wmvdmod.dll), and at Windows Media Player 11 and 12,? but Adobe users complain that half of their videos turn black in Premiere Pro CS6 after deploying the updates.
?For some reason, the problem is only occurring when I use files larger than 1GB. When I switch to a lower quality video file that is 160MB, for example, I don't have the problem of missing the upper half of the video. I also tried exporting to see if the problem gets corrected during the export process but it also comes out missing the upper half of the video,? one user described the problem.
Microsoft is yet to comment on the issue, but another Adobe user claims to have found the cause of the issue. The MS13-057 bulletin is apparently messing up video decoding on a number of machines, so the only way to deal with the problem is to remove the update until Microsoft rolls out a fix.
?We have narrowed it down to windows updates under MS bulliten MS13-057. Specifically, on XP kb2834904 and on windows 7 kb2803821,? another user detailed the problem.
?For us, it occurs when decoding WMV9 files. Not all uses of WMV decoding are affected, but I confirmed that when connecting the WMV decode DLL to a sample grabber for RGB32 video, the frames arrive black on top, so that points directly to decoding internals of the WMV Decode dll. You can uninstall these windows updates to resolve your problem.?
If you wish to uninstall the patch, simply go to ?Add/Remove Programs? in Control Panel, click on the ?View installed updates? link in the left sidebar, search for KB 2803821 on Windows 7 and KB 2834904 on Windows XP, and then hit the remove button.
Botch Tuesday: Redmond frags video codec 'Fix' for flaw in codec has video editors screaming and gamers steaming
Last week's Patch Tuesday has reportedly gone sour, with one of patches released by Redmond causing trouble for video playback.
The 34-bug patches issued on July 9 include a fix for Microsoft's WMV codec used in wmv9vcm.dll, wmvdmod.dll for WMF Runtime 9 and 9.5, and wmvdecod.dll in WMF runtime 11 and Windows Media Player 11 and 12. The vulnerability in the codecs could be attacked with a crafted media file that gets past input validation features, crashing them and giving remote attackers the ability to execute arbitrary code.
However, InfoWorld is now reporting that the patch is causing problems in video playback, with the most common symptom being that it blacks out the top half of the video content.
Adobe users have found that the blackout applies to high-quality large video files under Premier Pro CS6, with the symptom also appearing in exported files. Adobe describes the problem here, with the recommendation that if users need WMV files, they need to roll back the relevant patch.
Other reports of the problem listed by InfoWorld include TechSmith's Camtasia Studio and Serif MoviePlus X6.
The video cutoff, shown in Camtasia Studio
The bug's also upsetting people in gamer-land: as soon as they installed the update, Steam users started suffering the same symptom in cut scenes for Dust: An Elysian Tail and Ion Assault.
The only workaround right now is to uninstall the patch associated with MS13-057
