c.zito

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

after installing Mountain Lion on my Retina MacBook Pro .avi and .flv files arnt creating thumbnails anymore despite having Perian and DivX installed both together and each one indevidually even triend uninstalling both. Files work perfectly in quicktime but dont create thumbnails like .mp4 and dont work in Quick Look, instead it just shows a spinning wheel and never loads. All of this used to work in Lion perfectly with either Perian or DivX installed but now neither. Ive used someone elses older MacBook Pro on Mountain Lion and their files show thumbnails like it should.

 

I've loaded console to see what it says and displays the message:

 

16/09/2012 23:02:57.120 QuickLookUIHelper[9440]: Failed to communicate with qtkitserver: Connection invalid

16/09/2012 23:02:57.120 QuickLookUIHelper[9440]: Failed to initializeServer(), returned 5

 

Please help its so frustrating!

MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012), OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Sep 16, 2012 3:11 PM

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

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  • Helpful answers

  • by NOYBUS,

    NOYBUS NOYBUS Sep 21, 2012 4:12 PM in response to c.zito
    Level 1 (19 points)
    iTunes
    Sep 21, 2012 4:12 PM in response to c.zito

    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.

  • by NOYBUS,

    NOYBUS NOYBUS Sep 21, 2012 4:35 PM in response to NOYBUS
    Level 1 (19 points)
    iTunes
    Sep 21, 2012 4:35 PM in response to NOYBUS

    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.

  • by NOYBUS,Solvedanswer

    NOYBUS NOYBUS Sep 21, 2012 4:41 PM in response to NOYBUS
    Level 1 (19 points)
    iTunes
    Sep 21, 2012 4:41 PM in response to NOYBUS

    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.

  • by c.zito,

    c.zito c.zito Sep 22, 2012 2:43 AM in response to NOYBUS
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 22, 2012 2:43 AM in response to NOYBUS

    GENIUS! fixed it right away after replacing the file and restarting! Thanks!!

  • by jianglai,

    jianglai jianglai Sep 28, 2012 1:59 PM in response to NOYBUS
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 28, 2012 1:59 PM in response to NOYBUS

    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.

     

    Thanks!

  • by maxijazz,

    maxijazz maxijazz Sep 28, 2012 10:44 PM in response to c.zito
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 28, 2012 10:44 PM in response to c.zito

    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.

  • by NOYBUS,

    NOYBUS NOYBUS Sep 29, 2012 8:00 AM in response to jianglai
    Level 1 (19 points)
    iTunes
    Sep 29, 2012 8:00 AM in response to jianglai

    > 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

  • by jianglai,

    jianglai jianglai Oct 5, 2012 10:29 AM in response to NOYBUS
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 5, 2012 10:29 AM in response to NOYBUS

    Much appreciated!

  • by jpfritz,

    jpfritz jpfritz Jan 21, 2013 10:58 AM in response to NOYBUS
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 21, 2013 10:58 AM in response to NOYBUS

    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

  • by smeradonna,

    smeradonna smeradonna Jan 31, 2013 1:15 PM in response to c.zito
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 31, 2013 1:15 PM in response to c.zito

    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...

  • by DD7ZY,

    DD7ZY DD7ZY Feb 13, 2013 5:09 AM in response to NOYBUS
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 13, 2013 5:09 AM in response to NOYBUS

    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!