project won't open

[juliart08]

Just when I was getting good at editing and spent 3 days working on this project. I try to open my project which I have been saving many times. I get the message: "Failed to Open Document" What is going on? I click OK and it says " Save changes to Untitled?" What is this? Now all my work has gone down the tube.

[Ron P.]

Are the project files and all clips that it uses located on an external hard drive? If so try relocating them to an internal hard drive to see if VS will then open the project.

If you know where on your system the video clips being used are located, try moving them to a new folder. Then try opening the project. When and if VS starts opening the project, you should get a prompt asking if you would like to re-link. If it does get this far, then VS is having a problem with one or more of the clips being used. Re-link the clips if VS allows you to do so.

Then you could try doing a System Restore to a day or 2 ago, and see if your projects will open. There will be some work lost, however it would beat having to start from scratch.

When you saved, did you just Save after each editing session, or did you Save-As and provide a new name for the project file after each session? The latter is a common practice, because if a project file should become corrupt, then at least you would have an earlier edit to fall back on, and not have to start from scratch.

In your reply post in another thread you mention that you can not open any project files. This is real odd, and would lead me to believe there may be problem with your system. Then it could also just be VS acting up.

If you're going to try and reinstall or Repair VS first make sure that all clips being used are backed up, and not located under any VideoStudio system folder, such as ~Program Files>Ulead Systems. Then backup all your Library files, they have the extension of "Dat" and are found in the C:\Documents and Settings\UserNameHere\Local Settings\Applications\Ulead Systems\VideoStudio\11.0 (I think I'm going on memory here as I only have Vista currently). The library files would be:

• VS_Audio.dat
• VS_Video.dat
• VS_Title.dat
• VS_Image.dat

Those are the most important, unless you imported some Flash files into the Flash animation library, then you would also back up the VS_Flash.dat libary. The color, decoration, libraries will be rebuilt upon reinstallation. To back them up simply copy them to some other location on your system.

After you have reinstalled VS, then copy those files back to the proper folder. Windows will ask if you want to replace them, as those files will already be there, select yes to over-write them.

Then try opening a project again, and you may be required to relink to the clips. However if all the clips being used are stored under the same folder, then just relinking one, will cause all the others to be relinked..

[juliart08]

I tried to copy the VS projects from the external drive to the hard drive and got an error "Can't paste because the file is corrupted or unreadable". Now what?

I have been saving with "Save" after each editing session and "Save-As" Both just for safety but that didn't seem to work either.

I can open some projects. Of course they are the ones that are not important and have little editing time. How can I back up the files if VS says it can't because the files are Corrupt or Unreadable?

[Black Lab]

It sounds like you could have a corrupt file. Could be video, audio, almost anything.

I know it doesn't help your situation now, but this is a good example for why you should save multiple copies of a project. A good habit is to, say, save as ProjectA after capturing. Save again as ProjectB after some editing. Save again as ProjectC after more editing, etc. This way if something breaks you can go back to a previous version that works and won't have to start from scratch.

[juliart08]

Yes, Save it more then once but at different places. I saved multi copies on my external 120 gb hard drive. From now on I will save on the internal hard drive and one on the Flash Drive. If I still have a problem then I think I will give up on VideoStudio 11.5+ and try another editing program. This is getting rather expensive and still not be able to edit like the old days. I have used Pinnacle 10.5 and it won't even load since they told me to udate my program and the Tech support is next to worthless. I may go bake to Power Point for slide shows and forget the videos. You guys have been very helpfull in getting me to learn the editing quirks but now that I can edit I can't use them if I can't reopen them.