I ran into a very weird problem yesterday and has got me confused and was
just wondering if anybody out there could help. I was just sitting here
at my computer yesterday watching a podcast online and everything was fine
At the end of the podcast, I shutdown explorer, and noticed that all my
desktop icons were gone except for the recycle bin and one I made for the
control panel. My Vista sidebar was still there with all my gadgets, but
but about 25 to 30 of my icons were gone. Then I get a windows message that
says:
Catalyst Control Center: Host Application has stopped working( I also now get
this message everytime I boot up my computer, not once, but
twice, first time within the first 60 seconds after windows loads, I choose
close progam, then about 1, 2 or 3 minutes late it pops up again. Always
twice)

and gives me 2 options, A) Check Online For A Solution ( by the way this never
has worked for me on any problem)
and B) Close program.
At this point I though I'd just restore the system to a point were all was well.
I started System Restore, and let it do it's thing, and to make a long store short,
It took me 4 to 5 hours ( as I choose to do a full chkdisk while I was at it)
Finally I was able to restart and get back into Windows. At this point my icons
were back, but now my text files and any media (jpeg, bmp, any video files) seemed
to be gone. After doing a pile of checking, I found out Vista, all on it's own, decided
to select these files, and change their attributes to Hidden. I have no idea why.
I also have a problem, although I don't know if it's related, after I got back
online I decided to check out COD 4 MW , and my new COD 5 WAW to see if
they were still working. And although they run, I am only in a game long
enough for Punkbuster to make it's sweep and I get kicked for packet flow or
something. Now they are both up to date games (all patches, and WAW even has the new
1.4 patch) I even used my manual Punkbuster update tool. It says that for
both games they are up to date. I am at a loss. Has used chkdisk full, there
are no viruses, I was just using Internet Explorer (version 8) and when I
closed it, my computer lost its mind. As far as I know, evrything was fine til
I closed down Explorer and got the Catalyst Control Center message, then things
have been going south. Just thought I'd put this out there and see if anyone has
any ideas. Yes, I have tryed reinstalling Catalyst Control Center a couple of
times. First with the original file, then with a new updated file I downloaded.
I also checked to see if maybe it was out of date video drivers causing the
problem, and they are all current and up to date. Any ideas guys? I would really
appreciate any help. Here is some system information below. Thanks.

Processor: AMD Phenom 9550 Quad-core processor 2.2 ghz
Physical Memory : 4096 MB (2 x 2048 DDR2-SDRAM )
Operating System : Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium Home Edition 5.01.2600
Service Pack 2(32 bit operating system)
Radeon X1550 Series 512 meg ram
(The system is just 6 months old)

When you say you have used a full chksdk and there are no viruses, What do you mean. Did you just run chkdsk or have you ran some type of virus scanning software as well?

Also you said you have done a system restore, is everything working now, except you had to update everything again?

After I Finally got Vista to do a system restore, everything seemed to be close to normal, but like I said before, it seemed as though Vista choose a couple types of files and marked them all as hidden. It seemed to be just text files and image files mostly. I solved that problem and now all thats left is to find out why it gives me the: Catalyst Control Center: Host Application has stopped working twice when I boot up, once when I first boot up, then about 2 minutes later. ( yes I have reinstalled Catalyst Control Center to the latest version, and have also checked to see if my video drivers are up to date, all are fine) I have also checked with Device Manager to see if there are any problems with my video card. According to it and I quote: "This device is working properly."
As for chkdsk, I clicked on both options (Automatically fix file system errors, and Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors) As for viruses, I run Avast constantly and any sign of a virus, and I terminate the connection immediatly. I have also not downloaded anything in recent days other than the official updates for WAW from a trusted clean site.

The other problem is when I try to play COD 4 MW or my new COD 5 WAW, I am in for a couple of minutes then punk buster kicks me out. I have used the manual Punkbuster updater, and it says all Punkbuster files are up to date. And on another note, both games were fine till after this problem started and I got the: Catalyst Control Center: Host Application has stopped working messages. Not sure what is going on. Any help is appreciated Welshy. Thanks

I would suggest doing a memory check. Since you're on Vista just go to the Start menu and enter "memory" (without the quotes) in the search box. This should give you a link to the "Memory Diagnostic Tool". Run that and click on either option (the first will reboot your machine straight away, the second will wait until you reboot yourself). The test may take a while (depending on how much memory you have), but if you get any errors it means some or all of your RAM is dodgy.


edited on Apr. 20, 2009 01:36 pm by lostjohnny

Thanks lostjohnny, did the memory check, no errors, my memory seems to be fine also. It looks like I only need to solve the Catalyst Control Center problem, and the Punkbuster COD 4MW/COD 5 WAW problem. Still stumped.

edited on Apr. 20, 2009 02:44 pm by killcrazyobc

killcrazy m8, sorry I cant help with your problem as such, however I just did a google search for you with the search set as



There are simply soooo many posts on forums that there are too many to list..

Do a search yourself using that search string and you may find an answer. From some I read it could be a need for sp2 or and even windows framework.

Try it and see what you find.. good luck m8

cheers doa

Sorry cant help with the punk buster I had the same thing but the pb update solved mine.

edited on Apr. 20, 2009 05:16 pm by DadofAzz

Here are 2 pics to show you what probs I am getting.

Have solved the ccc ( Catalyst Control Center )problem, and just uninstalled the ccc program as I found out by doing a little research that ATI control software has had known issues with Vista. So it's gone but my video card and drivers are still there working. Now to solve Punkbuster.

Did a bit of searching and the Punkbuster problem may be caused by the service not running. Enter "services" in the Start menu search bar - open it up and scroll down to "PnkBstrA" - right click and then choose "Properties". "Start-up Type" should be set to "Automatic", if it's not; change it, click "OK" (a couple of times?) and reboot.

If it's already set to automatic, of course, the problem lies elsewhere.

I entered "services" in the Start menu search bar - opened it up and scrolled down can't find any "PnkBstrA" Is not listed

edited on Apr. 20, 2009 07:55 pm by killcrazyobc