HRESULT 0x80040205 (VFW_E_FILTER_ACTIVE): meaning and diagnosis

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VFW_E_FILTER_ACTIVE means the requested operation is not permitted while the DirectShow filter is active.

Could be also:
Constant	Type	OS
EVENT_E_INTERNALEXCEPTION	HRESULT	Windows

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EVENT_E_INTERNALEXCEPTION	EVENT_E_INTERNALERROR

VFW_E_FILTER_ACTIVE

VFW_E_FILTER_ACTIVE is a DirectShow HRESULT. An active DirectShow filter is running or paused and may own streaming resources, allocator buffers or worker threads. Operations that change topology, allocator properties or some media types must wait until the filter is inactive.

How to handle it

Stop the filter graph through IMediaControl::Stop and wait for the state transition to complete.
Apply the configuration or reconnect the pins only after the affected filters are stopped.
Restart or pause the graph again after the change if the operation requires media to be cued.

Do not treat this as a codec failure. It is usually an ordering problem in the application's graph-management code.

Microsoft: DirectShow filter states

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