Why is my LG TV SmartShare (Media Player) program randomly changes to Sharing OFF on Windows 10?

[wallyricks]

I have owned a couple of LG TV’s over the last 8 years, with the current one being a high-end 77” model.

I am still using LG TV SmartShare (v.33) as my “Media Player” v2.3.1511.1201 for my PC– which was last updated in 2015 but it is still compatible today.  As proof, my latest TV is now 11 months old and I have had zero issue (until you see below).    

link hidden, please login to view

My PC setup is: Windows 10 Pro (with all latest updates) and a TP-Link Archer BE19000 (BE805) router.    NOTHING has been changed on my router, TV (no updated or changed firmware) or any equipment moved around in the last 4 months.

Up until about 3 weeks ago, everything ran just fine.  The SmartShare program was always defaulted to have Sharing ON, upon start of it, which is always when Windows boots).  However, about 3 weeks ago, the SmartShare PC program has started to randomly change its status to Sharing OFF.  I would then have to go into the program, manually change it to ON and then it works anywhere for 30 minutes up to 20 hours, and again, randomly change the Sharing to OFF.

I am an experienced PC user, and I am very sure that this has nothing to do with my WIFI because it’s not a dropped connection or random TV not being found.   Something is happening inside Windows 10 that is triggering this status change.  And it never fluctuates back to Sharing ON by itself.

Being so frustrated, I actually updated the Router to the latest firmware a few days ago, but this problem continues as before.

As an experiment, I installed an alternate Media Server program called Serviio.  One can also see that when my Sharing changes to OFF, the two green lights turn red.

Anyone have an idea of what can be happening after nearly 8 years of not experiencing this?       I am guessing that Windows is triggering some “Service” to stop running, but what can it be?

[wallyricks]

As a follow-up:  I did actually uninstall the application, and made sure the folder and etc. dissapereared. Well, after the re-install, it worked fine for about 20 hours and then just in the past 3 hours, it has stopped working 3 times. So, that was not a fix.

[Alan Potter]

The same thing started happening to my software just a few days ago. If I let the SnartShare window stay on my screen and ON, it works fine. But should I minimize it to tray, it will turn itself off in a minute or two. It's very random. I also reinstalled the program to no avail. Windows 10 user, using 3 LG TVs in the household. Help, anyone?

[wallyricks]

I searched the Windows Logs / Event Viewer and found all 3 of the incidents from last night. They are ALL the same, but I am attaching here a screenshot of one of them (with General and Details tabs) and also the log itself, with the 3 incidents showing. There is really nothing special happening before it happens (with one just back-to-back). All I would do is click Sharing ON (without exiting the program) to "fix" the issue..

I hope that this somehow helps you understand what happens, as I am not so good at this.

Just in case, I also ran DISM ( dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth ) and SFC ( sfc /scannow ) scans to make sure I have nothing corrupt, and both came up clean.

After the reboot, it stayed up for 3 hours, and again, just turned OFF Sharing. I checked the Event Viewer log, and exactly the same error as I posted from before. It's here as the very last attachment.

This is really strange...

[wallyricks]

2 hours ago, Alan Potter said:

The same thing started happening to my software just a few days ago. If I let the SnartShare window stay on my screen and ON, it works fine. But should I minimize it to tray, it will turn itself off in a minute or two. It's very random. I also reinstalled the program to no avail. Windows 10 user, using 3 LG TVs in the household. Help, anyone?

In some way I feel better that it is not only happening to me, but still very frustrating.  Mine started a few weeks ago.   Maybe one of the Windows Updates broke it?  But why does it randomly work and randomly not work?    As you can see, I found the exact error code so perhaps someone with knowledge can help figuring this this out.

[td47]

FYI: the error code 0XC0000374 is a HEAP CORRUPTION in the program you are running, in this case the LG SmartShare program. The error is picked up by the OS Kernel (the NT Kernel internals part that looks after bad memory allocations, de-allocations, and buffer overflows, and invalid pointers).

Basically it is a bug in the LG SmartShare program, and when it crashes, it most likely reverts to default settings, that turns the sharing off. 

You will need to report it direct to LG, this site is ONLY a user to user forum

If you want an in-depth read, check this out:

link hidden, please login to view

[wallyricks]

On 12/2/2024 at 2:49 AM, td47 said:

FYI: the error code 0XC0000374 is a HEAP CORRUPTION in the program you are running, in this case the LG SmartShare program. The error is picked up by the OS Kernel (the NT Kernel internals part that looks after bad memory allocations, de-allocations, and buffer overflows, and invalid pointers).

Basically it is a bug in the LG SmartShare program, and when it crashes, it most likely reverts to default settings, that turns the sharing off. 

You will need to report it direct to LG, this site is ONLY a user to user forum

If you want an in-depth read, check this out:

link hidden, please login to view

Thank you very much for this information.   It is so strange that this started to happen just recently.  Since LG has update their program last in 2015, I highly doubt they will do anything.  I think I will try to remove it and use Serviio instead.

[td47]

@wallyricks You may be correct that a Windows Update has made this start to occur. Both Windows 10 and 11 have been beefing up security a lot recently, to stop bad/buggy executables and apps from compromising the system. It is possible that the LG SmartShare program has "got away with it" for some time, and as you say, best to choose a better, more up-to-date app.

[wallyricks]

As promised:  After uninstalling LG SmartShare and installing Serviio (free version), and running it for 5+ days now - no problems.    

Looks like I found my new Windows / LG  MediaServer.   And the fact that it runs as a service automatically, actually makes it easier.