why is this happening, im starting to hate this program

cyprusx · Post by **cyprusx** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 10:44 pm

i have made numerous saves of my project at least 40 and 99% of them get file reading errors. i have lost so much hours becuase of the program. is there a solution. when im running the program my cpu usage hits 99%. is there any chance of recovering my saves

MrA · Post by **MrA** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 12:03 am

Looking at your system profile, you lack a serious amount of memory. One gig is by far the _best_ minimum, and a good 3d video card.

Notice I said "good", doesn't have to be great, just be sure you can use DirectX 9. (think the "c" version close to the latest)

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 2:21 am

Prevention is better than cure.
I split a big project up into several smaller projects. Then if one 'breaks' you don't lose the lot, just that small part. Going even deeper, when i work on one of those 'parts' when I reach a critical point - a point where I am happy with what I have done so far, I save the project under a new name.
The easiest way is to place a 2 digit number on the end.
MyLittleproject01
MyLittleproject02
MyLittleproject03
....
MyLittleproject15
and so on. This provides you with a sort of "Project Restore Point."
If the program displays the error you mention, or simply you change your mind about something and wish to turn the clock back, you can revert to an earlier copy.

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 4:08 am

As I stated in your other post, your problems are surely due to the lack of RAM and lack of hard disk space for your swap file. How much free space do you have on your system drive and how much free, contiguous space is there for your MSP temp files?

troppo · Post by **troppo** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 5:49 am

I would agree with the previous posters. However, i would also recommend streamlining your current system to determine if this is where your problems stem from. Get an external hard drive (firewire connect if possible) and save project to this, check for file errors.
De-fragment your hard drives.
Make one drive your 'system' drive with your software and window installs, and the other drive should be your 'scratch' drive. Make this drive empty and de-frag again.
Shut down any extra processes you have running and that you dont require. There are obvious ones (like firefox) and less obvious ones. Some websites list the processes you can do without.
Change your display settings to the old look windows, with no extra eye candy. Especially no fade effects and turn off 'show window contents while dragging'. That should give your graphics chip a bit of a break.

All this is a bit time consuming I know, but if it speeds things up, then you know your system is at fault.
Following the above advice I was able to edit quite happily on a 2.4 Pentium 4 with 1 gig of ram. It was slow, but it was fairly stable.

cyprusx · Post by **cyprusx** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 5:53 am

sjj1805 wrote:Prevention is better than cure.
I split a big project up into several smaller projects. Then if one 'breaks' you don't lose the lot, just that small part. Going even deeper, when i work on one of those 'parts' when I reach a critical point - a point where I am happy with what I have done so far, I save the project under a new name.
The easiest way is to place a 2 digit number on the end.
MyLittleproject01
MyLittleproject02
MyLittleproject03
....
MyLittleproject15
and so on. This provides you with a sort of "Project Restore Point."
If the program displays the error you mention, or simply you change your mind about something and wish to turn the clock back, you can revert to an earlier copy.

what do you mean by splitting projects, if you mean saving under different names. it doesn't work

cyprusx · Post by **cyprusx** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 5:56 am

what really irritates me is that im 98% finished but i have to keep redoing my project. is there something i can do to prevent errors beside upgrading my pc, so i can finish my movie. are file reading errors permanent

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 11:06 am

cyprusx wrote:.......what do you mean by splitting projects, if you mean saving under different names. it doesn't work

Taking as an example a two week cruise I had earlier this year around the Eastern Med. Rather than attempting to do the whole two weeks all in one project, I split it up into the various locations visited.
Cyprus
Athens
Dubrovnik
Corfu
and so on.

Then you tackle each of those as an individual project. Later in the DVD Authoring Stage (MovieFactory/DVD Workshop) you can treat them as separate titles. Alternatively save each individual MediaStudio Project and then import them all into one new MSP Project to merge them.

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 1:53 pm

cyprusx wrote:what really irritates me is that im 98% finished but i have to keep redoing my project. is there something i can do to prevent errors beside upgrading my pc, so i can finish my movie. are file reading errors permanent

Nope, I'm afraid not. You are not only short on RAM but seriously lack HDD real estate. Add some RAM and another big HDD and I bet your problems might go away.

Gra · Post by **Gra** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 7:05 am

Hi
As well as what Troppo said shut down any anti-virus type software when you are editing as that can conflict and cause problems.

Steve's advice is also good regardless of wheather you have hardware problems or not. If you breakdown your project in this way it is more practical to work on and when you have finished all your parts, you can import them into one timeline to make one big project. On top of Steve's suggestion I always make a separate copy of my larger projects in a different folder, saved under a different name and save between them often. In only takes a few seconds but if MSP does throw a wobbly then it saves a whole buch of hours trying to recreate what you have lost.