Quicktime update keeps failing

I keep getting a "encountered a problem and must close" error.

Could you generate another of those errors please, Cassie? Then click on the "Click here" link in the error message box. What ModName and ModVer appear for you in there?

Mod Name: quicktime updatekb489086.exe
ModVer: 0.0.0.0

Good gracious. That's an unusual one. I can't track down any information on that particular one, and can't find it searching on my Lenovo. (That's not cause in itself for immediate concern with regard for malware, though ... it might just be a temporary file of some description created during the update download/install process.)

What version of QuickTime do you currently have installed, Cassie? To check, in your QuickTime Player, go "Edit > Preferences > QuickTime Preferences", and in the "Register" tab, click "About QuickTime". What version number appears? Is it a 7.6.6 or something else?

Hmmm. How about (in QuickTime Player again) if you go "Help > About QuickTime Player"? On mine (I don't have my Pro Key entered at the moment), it says "Version 7.6.6 (1671)".

🙂 Perfect, thanks. That suggests a way in to the problem.

Part of the mystery here is why QuickTime Player is continually trying to offer you an update when you're already fully up to date. That can be a sign that there is old misplaced QuickTime componentry on the PC. The check-for-updates machinery "sees" that old stuff, and thinks you still need to update.

So we're going to go looking in the most likely places for that old misplaced stuff to have been stashed.

First we'll need to adjust some View Settings on your PC.

1. Open My Computer from the desktop or Start menu.
2. In the Tools menu, click Folder Options.
3. Click the View tab.
4. In the "Advanced settings" pane under "Hidden files and folders" make sure that the "Show hidden files and folders" option is selected, and the "Hide extensions for known file types" option is unchecked.
5. Click OK.

Now let's have a look in one of your system directories.

In "My Computer" open "Local Disk C:" or whichever drive your operating system is installed on.
Open the "Windows" directory.
Open the "system32" directory.

What files and folders can you see in there with "QuickTime" in the file/folder name? (On a PC with a standard installation of QuickTime 7.6.6, you should see precisely two files ... QuickTime.qts and QuickTimeVR.qtx ... and no Quicktime folders whatsoever.)

🙂 Morning, Cassie. (Here in New Zealand as I write this reply at least. Thursday morning to be precise.)

That looks to be as it should be.

Could you quickly check the version numbers on those files for me, please? Right-click on each file, select "Properties" and click on the "Version" tab.

My two are showing: "File Version: 7.66.71.0".

(Sometimes an old version of one of those files from a previous QuickTime install can get damaged and stuck down there ... it isn't replaced by the upgrade to the higher version. If that was what was happening to your QuickTime.qts, then usually QuickTime doesn't launch at all. But I'm thinking that subtle damage to a QuickTime.qts, or a more standard damage to an old QuickTimeVR.qtx might provoke relentless update messages for someone.)

Hmmmmm.

Let's try a quick experiment aimed at working out if there's an issue with the preference files (rather than program files) for your QuickTime.

Quit QuickTime if you have it open. Head into your User accounts control panel and create a new user account with full administrative rights.

Log out of the old account and log into the new account. (Don't use fast user switching to move between accounts.)

Try launching QuickTime in the new user account. Try running a file with QuickTime.

Do you still get the update notification, and the error when trying to update? or do things behave a bit more normally?

(If the problem relates to an old QuickTime program file lurking in some unorthodox location on the PC, we could expect the notifications and errors to be happening in the new user account as well. If we don't get the errors in the new account, then I get suspicious about preference files, because there's a different set of those in each different XP user account ... so they tend to cause user-account-specific problems.)

🙂 Excellent news, Cassie. Glad things are working properly again.