MCI freezing when trying to play MP3

[bearsomg]

Here is a weird problem, hopefully someone can help...


I wrote a program in C++ using MCI to play MP3 and WAV files. On my development laptop, I am able to successfully play a WAV file with no problems, but when trying to run the MCI open command on an MP3, the program deadlocks right at the point where my software executes the mciSendCommand function with the MCI_OPEN command. The only difference between the code for MP3 and WAV files is that when my program detects a WAV file, it sets the device type to MCI_DEVTYPE_WAVEFORM_AUDIO instead of MCI_ALL_DEVICE_ID.

The strange part is that when I run the program with the debugger (whether it's built for release mode or debug mode) it loads and plays the MP3 fine. I didn't have to recompile it, I just ran with the debugger from the already built program. When I copy the exact same .exe and MP3 to my other 2 computers, they both load and play it fine without the debugger.

Brief Specs:
Dev Laptop (problem occurs on here): Lenovo ThinkPad W520
Sound card: Conexant 20672 SmartAudio
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
The other 2 computers are a laptop and a desktop, the desktop is running Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit and the laptop Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.