Quick Look only showing spinning wheel but never loads .avi and .flv files

Same problem. I have a MBP upgraded from Lion to Mountain Lion that plays avi files in quicklook no problem, but my MP upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion to Mountain Lion will not play avi files in quick look no matter what I do.

I've tried installing and uninstalling DivX, most information I've seen says DivX does more harm than good.

I've tried downgrading to perian 1.2.2.

I've tried installing quicktime 7 and changing the default player for AVI to quicktime 7.

I've verified that there aren't any extra codecs in HD/Library/Quicktime that shouldn't be there.

The preview icons in the Finder and ability to play with quick look are simply gone.

I am showing the same errors in the console:

9/21/12 4:27:38.817 PM com.apple.quicklook.satellite[642]: Failed to communicate with qtkitserver: Connection invalid

9/21/12 4:27:38.818 PM com.apple.quicklook.satellite[642]: Failed to initializeServer(), returned 5

I found something that looks promising:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4165276?start=30&tstart=0

I recently restored from a time machine backup and that is when this problem started.

Just replaced the file they are talking about from another machine and rebooting to try it.

Bada bing, it worked!

To recap, I grabbed com.apple.xpchelper.cache from /System/Library/Caches/ on another machine that was able to quick look avi files and dropped it in the /System/Library/Caches/ on the machine that was NOT able to view avi files with quick look, rebooted, and voila, it works again.

Hi Noybus, would you be kind enough to post a com.apple.xpchelper.cachesome where I can download? I deleted my cache and there is no way to get that file back.

Thanks!

I found those:

9/25/12 03:15:04.653 AM com.apple.quicklook.satellite[15978]: Failed to communicate with qtkitserver: Connection invalid

9/25/12 03:15:04.654 AM com.apple.quicklook.satellite[15978]: Failed to initializeServer(), returned 5

after i restored OSX Server 10.8.2 from Time Machine.

I did confirm that /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.xpchelper.cache is missing, too.

As a fix I did install 10.8.2 combo update and so far, so good. No more errors in log. The missing com.apple.xpchelper.cache was installed by the combo update, too.

> Hi Noybus, would you be kind enough to post a com.apple.xpchelper.cache

> some where I can download? I deleted my cache and there is no way to get that file back.

www.vintageapple.org/com.apple.xpchelper.cache.zip

Much appreciated!

Thank you very much it definitely solved the avi quicklook problem and as an added bonus, it also solved the .wav quicklook. I receive my telephone messages via email in .wav format so having lost this functionality was pretty annoying. Thanks again

Thank you very much for the solution. I am using DeployStudion to pull a thick image. It seems that while creating or deploying the image to machines, DeployStudio clears the System/Library/Caches with the undesired result of not showing thumbnails on all Macs in my environment. I cannot possibly go to all machines and reinstall Mountainlion as suggested in other threads. With an additional task in the deployment workflow I copy the file to the machines but that's kind of a bricolage. However, I just noticed that there is a newer version of DeployStudio which I am going to test tomorrow...

Thanks for providing Zip file, did fix my problem. i am able to reproduce the problem! In my case it is caused by a software named "Mobile Partner" coming from Huawei and is neccessary for the Huawei E176 USB UMTS Stick. Once i have installed the software "com.apple.xpchelper.cache" disappears from the caches folder! Maybe any other software is making same kind of problem. Real bad if a software installer deletes important files!