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VFW_E_INVALID_CLSID
Meaning
Windows documents VFW_E_INVALID_CLSID as “This file is corrupt: it contains an invalid class identifier”. Here, a stored DirectShow graph names a class identifier that is syntactically invalid or cannot be interpreted as a CLSID while reconstructing the graph.
Relevant contract
Start with the filter graph, device or persisted configuration that first returned the result.
Evidence worth preserving
- Evidence 1: offending byte range or GUID text.
- Evidence 2: filter position in the persisted graph.
- Evidence 3: original writer build and the expected filter class.
Conditions that can produce it
- Cause 1: the serialized CLSID field is truncated.
- Cause 2: text conversion introduced non-hexadecimal characters.
- Cause 3: custom persistence wrote an interface IID or arbitrary GUID into a class slot.
Retry and recovery
Retry rule: Retry after replacing the invalid identifier; registering additional filters does not make a malformed CLSID valid.
Correction strategy
- Action 1: repair or regenerate the persisted graph from known filter identities.
- Action 2: parse and validate every CLSID before calling COM activation.
- Action 3: keep class and interface identifiers in distinct schema fields.
Example incident
A hand-edited graph file contains a GUID with one missing digit; parsing the identifier before loading identifies the exact field behind it.
How it differs from nearby results
VFW_E_CANNOT_LOAD_SOURCE_FILTER can follow a valid but unactivatable CLSID, while it means the stored class identifier itself is invalid.
Official Microsoft references
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