HELP!! DEUCE OF SPADES timeline crashing :(((

Deuceofspades

Deuceofspades

Veteran
Hi Guys,

I am in the final stages of editing and my timeline is getting longer and longer. EVERYTHIGN WAS GOING LIKE A CHARM, then suddenly, as of yesterday, my timeline is no longer able to add more scenes. It crashes when I try to import new media. I have a Premiere test Screening of my film DEUCE OF SPADES on October 24rth so I can't afford for Vegas to quit on me now! Please help.

Is there a way that maybe something is getting full (I was thinking maybe a video cache? Or???) and that I may be able to work around this problem by increasing whatever is getting full?

Meanwhile, I started a second timeline (PART TWO) to continue laying scenes down and doing my scene transitions. Everything working good there. All other Vegas projects, scenes etc are working A-OK.

So far Vegas has basically been incredibly reliable, efficient, fast, and has done everything I have asked it to do, without fail. I am so very impressed with this software and very happy with it.

Maybe I am pushing it beyond it's capabilities?? but the film is 2.5 hours long so Vegas is going to have to roll up its sleeve and handle it, somehow.

I need help trouble shooting and fixing this problem.

HELPFUL TIMELINE INFO TO HELP ME TROUBLESHOOT:

1. One timeline, 24p, as always.

2. I then import the different scenes in it (Import Media) as nested projects.

3. Note: Some of the scenes have nested projects in them themselves but Vegas has had no problem with it, you can have a nested project within a nested project - but not more than that - try another generation and it will crash)

All in all, there is a lot of info in each scene (music, color correction filters, velocity curves sometimes, volume and pan curves etc etc...) and the first timeline got to be about an hour and forty minutes and handled it just fine. then when I went to import one more scene, no can do sir, crash crash.

3. Vegas will freeze and I have to use Task Manager to close it, it will not give me an error message, so I don't know what the error is (sorry).

4. I tried putting a scene on another blank timeline (loads fine) and then copy pasting it into the movie timeline and it crashed "exception error" but when I clicked on "Details" it displayed "No details" instead

5. the main movie timeline only has the scenes in it and one more track of occasional narration, that's it. It is only 3 tracks and no other programing except for a volume curve. So it is simple, but darn LONG.

6. I am still able to open the failing timeline (takes about 20 minutes to open up) and it plays fine. I just can't seem to be able to add more scenes to it. I rebooted, no change.

7. I have earlier versions of the timeline, before it got so long, that I could maybe use to rebuild and see if I get the same problem when I get to that length, but that would be a lot of work. Maybe there is an easier way?

8. My computer system: PC WINDOWS XP PRO 34 BIT.

I bet you one of you guys knows just what to do :)



PLEASE HELP ANYONE??
 
I've had longer timelines than that, so I don't think it's a matter of having been pushed beyond its limitations.

I might suggest rendering some of the individual scenes, though, instead of having them all be nested projects.
 
Which version of Vegas are you using? But I had a similar problem a while back using Vegas 6. Are all your imported clips on one drive? That can make a difference. I once had all my imported clips going through 2 different Hard Drives. I was able to by a bigger hard drive and had all the clips on one hard(External) drive.

Maybe if you try that it might fix the problem.
 
capitalP said:
Which version of Vegas are you using? But I had a similar problem a while back using Vegas 6. Are all your imported clips on one drive? That can make a difference. I once had all my imported clips going through 2 different Hard Drives. I was able to by a bigger hard drive and had all the clips on one hard(External) drive.

Maybe if you try that it might fix the problem.
Click to expand...


Clips are on 3 drives, 1 TB each. Music & sound FX are on a forth drive. David, do you think the dirrefent drive addresses are causgin a problem? I am on Vegas 8.0c

My second timeline (DOS PART 2) has clips from 3 different drives on it and works fine so far. I split the clips betrween eh two timelines to see if that would help and to continue working.

Can video cache be increased? IF so, how?
 
David Jimerson said:
I've had longer timelines than that, so I don't think it's a matter of having been pushed beyond its limitations.

I might suggest rendering some of the individual scenes, though, instead of having them all be nested projects.
Click to expand...

I am still tweaking scenes, so I prefer to leave them nested, so I can easily open them and adjust them with "Edit in Vegas" option
 
Deuce, from experience, I am sure, if you get all those video clips on one Hard drive the timeline will open just fine. I went through the same thing as you did. I also restarted a whole new project 3 times, and when I got to the same time length as my other project that would not open, the same thing happened. It kept on happening until I combined all those clips.

And I tried everything before I did that, I increased Page memory and so on, nothing worked. Now I'm no bill gates, so unless you can find another way to fix the problem then fine, but I am almost 100% sure that is what's causing the problem.

Here's what I did.

I went through my original project and wrote down(with pen and paper) the specific clips that were used on my timeline and I transferred those clips to one 1TB Hardrive and it worked fine. I know the way I'm suggesting is and will be a pain, but if you can't find anyway else to fix the problem, I suggest you do it that way.

P.S
Also try this temporary thing that might work. Unplug all your external Hardrives, and load Vegas and the original project that crashed, let it load with the "Missing Media" thing, then after that plug your Hardrives up again.

If that does work, it will only work temporarily until the timeline gets longer.

Good luck, I know exactly what your're going through my friend. Here's my original Thread.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=103880
 
capitalP said:
Deuce, from experience, I am sure, if you get all those video clips on one Hard drive the timeline will open just fine. I went through the same thing as you did. I also restarted a whole new project 3 times, and when I got to the same time length as my other project that would not open, the same thing happened. It kept on happening until I combined all those clips.

And I tried everything before I did that, I increased Page memory and so on, nothing worked. Now I'm no bill gates, so unless you can find another way to fix the problem then fine, but I am almost 100% sure that is what's causing the problem.

Here's what I did.

I went through my original project and wrote down(with pen and paper) the specific clips that were used on my timeline and I transferred those clips to one 1TB Hardrive and it worked fine. I know the way I'm suggesting is and will be a pain, but if you can't find anyway else to fix the problem, I suggest you do it that way.

P.S
Also try this temporary thing that might work. Unplug all your external Hardrives, and load Vegas and the original project that crashed, let it load with the "Missing Media" thing, then after that plug your Hardrives up again.

If that does work, it will only work temporarily until the timeline gets longer.

Good luck, I know exactly what your're going through my friend. Here's my original Thread.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=103880
Click to expand...

CapitalP thank you for the tips. I will keep these suggestions in mind if we cannot find an easier way to fix the problem.
 
David Jimerson said:
Right-click on the toolbar (the one with the Start button), choose "Task Manager." Go to the Performance tab. Page File Usage will tell you how much RAM you're using.
Click to expand...

Do I want to do that while playing that timeline? Or while it is opened, but stopped... Or??

I did it while playing the timeline #2 (currently 51 minutes long) and it showed 2.36 GB

Physical memory = 3141880
Available = 1509088
system cache = 2752460

Kernel Memory Total = 334204
Paged = 280988
Nonpaged = 53216





Which "video cache"?[/quote]
 
LOLl I know nothing about video cache, all I know is that one time when trying to copy paste a nested project back into that failing timeline to see if that could work, it gave me one error message about video cache. That's why I figured there is something called a video cache and it is no happy :).
 
Without seeing the actual error (not that I'd necessarily be in any better shape if I did :) ), I'm not sure what the "video cache" problem is.

I think this is probably a RAM issue. Though this isn't 100% true, it's like you have 100+ projects open at the same time. I'd suggest mixing at least some of them down.
 
David Jimerson said:
Without seeing the actual error (not that I'd necessarily be in any better shape if I did :) ), I'm not sure what the "video cache" problem is.

I think this is probably a RAM issue. Though this isn't 100% true, it's like you have 100+ projects open at the same time. I'd suggest mixing at least some of them down.
Click to expand...


So render some of the scenes as .... what format? I guess a .mov uncompressed file? And see if that helps?

I am reluctant to do so because I constantly reopen the nested project to do menute adjustment as I watch the MAIN timeline.

I have another idea, let me know if you think this will work (if the MAIN timeline cannot handle the entire movie as nested projects in one huge MAIN timeline)

How about I use two timelines , like I am doing right now, PART 1 and PART 2, dividing the film in half, so about 75 minutes in one timeline, and 75 min in the other. Continue to work, alter, massage, with the convenience of seeing nested projects which are easy to reopen, further edit and then save, and they automatically update the MAIN timeline that way.

THEN, when time comes to do the DVD, render each timeline as a .mov uncompressed lossless quality file and import these two files into one big timeline and THEN render that for DVD architect ?
 
I would never use .mov if you want to work with the file again in Vegas.

I'd render as a Raylight 720/24p AVI. Make sure, though, that in Raylight control, you have "make self-contained AVI" checked.
 
Faith,
I think this it what he is talking about. Also you might want to check your start up and disable things that are really not need to free up some resources. One thing that would prob. really help in the future is going to 64bit os and then using Vegas 64.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ogLYLloxpU
 
I had very similar problems that were solved by switching to Vista 64-bit and 8 GB of RAM. Pain in the ass, though. And Vegas still has a heck of a time trying to play back HD files.

That's why we switched to Final Cut Studio 3 and a new Intel Mac. Very nice. And it's good to be working with a truly professional system. I'll always love Vegas but there are many arguments to be made for indie filmmakers to work with Final Cut.
 
David Jimerson said:
I would never use .mov if you want to work with the file again in Vegas.

I'd render as a Raylight 720/24p AVI. Make sure, though, that in Raylight control, you have "make self-contained AVI" checked.
Click to expand...

Why would I need to work with the file again in vegas, give me an exemple. I figured that if the film needs more work, I just work on my two timelines again, where all the mxf files are, no?

Another thought: Could I render the two timelines seperately for DVD architect, and then in DVD architect, put them together on the same DVD architect time line, and then burn the DVD that way? Is that doeable?
 
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