Chrome and Windows Media Player Acting Up

[TwisterVictor1]

I've had a strange issue with my laptop recently. It's an HP Pavillion that I bought 11 months ago. This seemed like the best category to post the problem.

On rare occasions, Windows Media Player won't start. Usually, restarting the computer resolves the issue. 

Lately, that doesn't seem to work all the time. When I shut off the laptop, it takes a couple minutes to shut off when the screen goes black instead of the five to ten seconds it usually takes. The next time I start it up, the screen stays black when it should be showing the latest picture for the login screen. I have to hold the power button to shut it off. It works normally the next time I start it up.

Edit:  I wanted to add that I use SUPER Antispyware, Malwarebytes, and the virus protection that is built into Windows 10.

The strange part is that this issue happened Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of last week and yesterday as well. It happened twice yesterday with the first time being different. I was using Google Chrome and pages weren't loading, as if the Wi-Fi was disconnected. I thought it could be the same issue and checked Windows Media Player. When that wouldn't start, I knew it was the same problem.

I've run multiple virus scans and didn't find anything. I'm not sure what the problem is. Everything is up to date.

Does anyone know how to fix this issue?

[WAWood]

@TwisterVictor1 

Unfortunately, Windows Media Player (WMP) has a sorry reputation -- so much so that many folks have switched over to using a MUCH BETTER freeware media player -- Video LAN -- which you can get from here:  https://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html

[TwisterVictor1]

I don't really think this is a problem with Windows Media Player since Chrome has also been affected by the problem. The problems with taking longer to shut off and needing a hard restart to be able to log in again give me the impression that there's something more doing on.

I do use VLC for some video files, but I prefer Windows Media Player most of the time. I have experienced minor problems with it, but nothing too serious.

Whatever the issue is, it seems to be getting a bit worse. It happened earlier. When I shut off the computer, the screen turned off, but the computer didn't power down. I held the power button to turn it off after five minutes without any sign it would turn off on its own. When I logged back in, some icons in the taskbar by the power icon didn't load. It took another restart before those showed up.

Could this be some kind of virus that my scans have failed to detect?

[WAWood]

@TwisterVictor1 

A virus? Most likely NOT -- as there would be more serious issues.

If you're set on using Chrome, then check out using Chromium instead.  I used that a lot until I developed a fondness for Opera.

Chromium is a lot newer but does require downloading and installing manually.  You get it, like Chrome, from Google.

[TwisterVictor1]

I'm not sure that either Windows Media Player or Chrome are the issue due to the issues regarding shutting down and needing a hard restart at times when the login screen does not appear. I've had some problems with them, but nothing serious.

The fact that this problem happened once on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of last week as well as twice on Monday and once earlier today gives me the impression that my choice of programs isn't the cause.

If this isn't a virus, could it be some other hardware or software issue that I haven't thought of yet?

[TwisterVictor1]

The problem seems to be getting a bit worse. The laptop won't even shut off when I turn it off the first time when getting things back to normal. It also takes longer for the login screen to show up after the hard restart when it doesn't show up.

It's still happening on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The time the problem starts is varied. The earliest I noticed was 9:30am and the latest was 9:45pm. I've encountered no problems on the other days.

Today, Windows Media Player worked fine for most of the day. When the problem showed up, WMP did start, but immediately stopped working. Once things got back to normal, Chrome acted as if I wasn't connected to the Internet. After about 20 seconds, it was back to normal.

I don't know if it's related, but I noticed something earlier that may or may not be related. I have the latest version of Microsoft Word. I opened it this morning and noticed a generic placeholder image instead of the profile picture I have. I do remember seeing that on other days when the problem has occurred. It's normal now.

I think that the problems with Windows Media Player and Google Chrome seem to be a symptom of the issue. Restarting my laptop resolves other problems with those two programs that I have encountered in the past. Since it doesn't work for this problem, it seems like there is something else going on.

Any idea's what to do?

[WAWood]

@TwisterVictor1 

Sorry, but this could be practically anything -- and we're not equipped here to diagnose or repair PCs.

You MIGHT be able to run hardware diagnostics by pressing the Esc key repeatedly and then, when the HP Startup Menu appears, select Diagnostics (usually F2) and let it run.

[TwisterVictor1]

@WAWood 

I understand. I thought it was worth a try asking here since I have no idea what sort of problem I'm dealing with.