Hi Nadya,
OpenShellAvi also works with an ID or with Fullpath+filename and I use .play method to start animation. I don't remember why I did it this way or why I did not use Open method (its been a while since setting this up and it is working fine). I downloaded the new version and it still works the fine.

I may play around with moving to animation to the status bar when I have some time. It may be that your process is taking most of the CPU cycles and the animation is paused.

Elmer