MPC-HC hangs during playback when switching to a game that changes the monitor's resolution

My system:
I'm using Windows XP Pro 32-bit, SP3, with all updates -- K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 9.8.0 -- Dual Core CPU -- 2 gigs of ram -- Single 22" LCD monitor

The problem:
When the game Everquest is running in the background, let's say I'm taking a break from the game without shutting it down, and surfing the web or whatever. And I load some music (any type of video) into MPC-HD to listen to in the background for when I return to the game. As the music is playing, and then I click on Everquest in the taskbar to bring the game back to the forefront, the music stops playing. So I tab back out of the game and see that MPC-HC has frozen solid. I have to right click the MPC-HC in the taskbar, choose close. Then I see the message "This program is not responding." I choose "End Now" to force the system to close MPC-HC.

With media playing in MPC-HC, event viewer says Application Hang:
"Hanging application mpc-hc.exe, version 1.6.6.6899, hang module hungapp, version 0.0.0.0, hang address 0x00000000."

With media loaded in MPC-HC but playback is paused, event viewer says Application Error:
"Faulting application mpc-hc.exe, version 1.6.6.6899, faulting module mpc-hc.exe, version 1.6.6.6899, fault address 0x0020f106."

With MPC-HC open, but no media loaded, switching to Everquest does not cause a crash.
With MPC-HC open, and an audio-only file is loaded, such as mp3, switching to Everquest doesn't cause a crash.

Background:
I think I know WHY its crashing. I just don't know how to make it STOP crashing.

This is what I *think* is causing the crashes: my monitor is native 1680 x 1050 and that's the resolution I run it in, and the resolution its in when I load video into MPC-HC. But in Everquest, I just have always preferred 1024 x 768 fullscreen. So when I go back into the game, it switches the monitor's resolution on the fly to accompany my preferred in-game resolution. This is all good, but apparently MPC-HC isn't expecting the monitor's resolution to be changing in the middle of playback. So it goes into some kind of internal infinite loop or something, I'm not sure.

Whether MPC-HC's setting View > On Top is set to "Always" or "Never" makes no difference, it crashes regardless. Whether or not MPC-HC is minimized makes no difference.

Solutions I've tried:
Setting the in-game resolution equal to that of my desktop resolution (1680 x 1050) prevents the crashes. But for me, the game is unbearable to look at in this resolution.
VLC media player doesn't crash and doesn't care at all what Everquest does to the monitor resolution. I just will never prefer it as my primary media player.

Thanks for reading.

Submit a bug report here:
https://trac.mpc-hc.org/report/9

You could try selecting a different video renderer in MPC-HC settings.

Admin wrote:Submit a bug report here:
https://trac.mpc-hc.org/report/9

You could try selecting a different video renderer in MPC-HC settings.

Thanks for your suggestion. I wouldn't have thought to do that. But it turns out the culprit was Video Mixing Renderer 9 (renderless). This also happens with EVR (custom presenter). Most of the other renderers won't cause MPC-HC to crash, but may have artifacts upon switching out of the game, such as no video while the audio continues to play.

I've found that the Sync Renderer is one that remains completely unaffected by game-initialized screen resolution changes. I'll use that one for now, and submit a bug report as well.

Thanks again.

Mention in your bug report that it does work with EVR Sync. They may be able to copy functionality from that renderer to the other two.