Bad media can kill newest Vegas – or …

ritsmer wrote on 12/19/2013, 10:42 AM
Made a project this summer. Vegas worked -as usual here- flawlessly and was rock stable.
Opened that old project this morning in V12/770 to re-render it: Vegas stopped working after some 6.000 frames rendered.
Opened again and simply clicked View + Project media: Vegas immediately stopped working.
Opened again and simply moved the time-line cursor: Vegas stopped working.

Then the old game of time-consuming error-seeking began:

It took about 6 full hours – then I found that Vegas 12/770 obviously does not like simple AVI from one of our surveillance cameras: If only 1 single of these AVIs is present in the project – even if that media is not even used on the timeline: Vegas stops working for next to nothing.

Now I have converted these surveillance camera videos to mpeg2 and replaced them all (took some time because just touching them on the TL most often killed Vegas) – result: The project is stable again and can be edited and rendered.

This makes me wonder:
1) As the Vegas 12 version from this summer handled these AVI’s well why does the last version crash when such an AVI is just present in project media in a 6 months old project ?
2) I can put as much of this “bad” AVI media into a new project made with 12/770 today without any trouble.

Has Vegas really changed its internal structures or whatever from update to update - and so much that such a project made with Vegas 12a makes the current Vegas 12f (??) crash ??

Comments

videoITguy wrote on 12/19/2013, 11:42 AM
Ritsmer, as usual you offer some thought provoking questions..some of your concerns deal with the environs of your choosing - for example do you just allow Windows updates, do you change video drivers? etc.

On the other hand, your observation has strong points in that
1) AVI containers are special because they hold a huge variety of formats.
2) AVI encode/decode has a lot to do with 32bit or 64bit variety of the codec.
3)Some of the usual codecs that were common in the AVI container of the past are not all common in the generic 64bit OS install. This means that a 32bit project edited on an early version of VegasPro is going to be ultra-sensitive in a new version of Vegas.
VidMus wrote on 12/19/2013, 1:10 PM
I think this is exactly one main reason why some can run Vegas with no problems and others cannot. Even with the same extension, the actual type of video file can vary a lot.

So an avi file that is whatever, an avchd file that is also whatever and so on.

The last time Vegas ever crashed on me is when I had a video file on the timeline that I did not usually have.

As long as I use the videos from my Sony cameras I so far seem to be safe.

As for builds, when I find one that works, I leave it alone. I am using build 714 and that is as far as I am giong for now.

If I do try a new build I will make a clone of my system drive first then see if the new build works or not. If not then I can put the cloned to drive in my system and I am back again as if nothing ever happened. Also, as in this case it is best to keep an older cloned system drive handy just in case. Even if the new build works I still want to keep an older system clone handy.

A few extra system drives where things worked laying around can save a ton of time that a pro does not want to loose!

Maybe all video files should be converted to one working format before editing for those who are having problems?
Geoff_Wood wrote on 12/19/2013, 6:27 PM
Yeah, cloning the system seems better that un/re-install because who know what else gets messed up along the way !

I've suspected bad media (I get all sorts of stuff from all over ...) has a bearing on many crashes - not that I appear to be particularly prone to crashes at the best of times (Now I've said that I'd better look out ;-0 ).

If this is the case, I wonder what could be done to make it more robust ?

geoff
Steve Mann wrote on 12/19/2013, 9:20 PM
As VideoIT said, AVI is only the container. Many, many different codecs put their files into an avi container. Most problematic are Xvid and Divx - Vegas never worked will with them. Use MediaInfo to discover what codec was used to make the problem file.

"even if that media is not even used on the timeline: Vegas stops working for next to nothing."

The timeline only contains events. An event is a pointer to the media in the Project Media. If you aren't using it on the timeline then remove it from Project Media and Vegas won't keep looking for it.
RZ wrote on 12/20/2013, 7:45 AM
Quick question: what is your method of cloning the drive. I want to clone my drive when the system is stable. Thanks

RZ
VidMus wrote on 12/20/2013, 8:34 AM
RZ asked, "Quick question: what is your method of cloning the drive. I want to clone my drive when the system is stable. Thanks"

I use Casper.

http://www.fssdev.com/

They named it Casper, as in Casper the friendly ghost. I originally used Norton Ghost which was very unfriendly and said the clone was successful. I decided to see if it REALLY was successful or not and Windows failed to completely load on the cloned to drive. So I found out about Casper on another forum and have been using it since.

After the initial long clone, it will do 'smart clones' that take approx. 6 minutes with USB-2 and much less with USB-3. I use USB-3 on my editing system and USB-2 on my notebook.

On my notebook, I use the same type of hard drive it uses so I can put it in directly.

I have two Rosewill external USB-3 enclosures that I leave half the cover off so I can swap the drives. Sort of like a rigged docking thingy. LOL! I just woke up but my brain is still in sleep land some where.

By the way, I recently tried Acronis and it was not only way too buggy but it has to drop to Linux to make the clones while Casper can stay in Windows.

I make my regular backup clones just before I shut down. Casper will shut the system down when finished if I set the options to do so.

May not be perfect but it is infinitely better than trying to undo the damage of a flawed upgrade by having to mess with a whole lot of stuff!


john_dennis wrote on 12/20/2013, 8:35 AM
I use GHOST 15 to save images of the boot partition. It has a standalone boot CD that allows me to do standalone backups by entering a valid license key and restores. I never install GHOST on the machine.

I tried Windows 7 Pro built-in image backup and found it worked.

Many people use Acronis TrueImage.

I make a clone of the Windows boot system with no applications installed for every hardware system that I have, then an image of various states of installed applications.
VidMus wrote on 12/20/2013, 8:48 AM
"I use GHOST 15 to save images of the boot partition."

It takes time to restore an image. Time I do not want to spend.

A bootable cloned to drive is a simple matter of put it in and go! No need for a bootable CD/DVD or whatever to start things with.

The smart clones I make are also very fast!

Initial installs can be cloned on another drive that one can go back to if there is a need to do so.

VidMus wrote on 12/20/2013, 9:04 AM
By the way, whenever I get done loading video files for a project I backup those as well. And I make periodic backups while I edit. So if Vegas were to crash and/or I should mess things up then I can easily get back to when things were good.

As for upgrades, NEVER do an upgrade without making some kind of backup FIRST! Be it a clone or image or whatever you prefer! Always provide a way to get back to what you had first. If people here did that then there would no longer be threads and posts asking how to fix failed upgrades!

And make sure that backup ACTUALLY works! Do-not take the backup software's word for it!!!


john_dennis wrote on 12/20/2013, 9:07 AM
I've kept separate drives in the past. With four systems and multiple versions of the systems, the number of drives laying around can get to be a little much.
DiDequ wrote on 12/20/2013, 10:56 AM
Hello.
You can also have a look to Clonezilla, which is free and 4 times faster compared to Norton Ghost. I use Clonezilla for 2 years now, have restored some images without any problem.
http://clonezilla.org/downloads.php
And i'm only using a seven OS with Sp1 - no other updates...
Widetrack wrote on 12/20/2013, 3:35 PM
I've been away from editing for a while, and am just starting to drag myself back up to speed on all the new-fangled stuff. I need to ask some basic questions.

I used to clone my system disks in Win XP, with the freeware XXclone, put the clone in a removable disk caddy, and when my system disk started showing almost ANY disagreeable behavior, I'd pull the current system disk, pop in the clone, and be back in the saddle ( I kept ALL my files on a second disk.)

I upgraded to Win7 about the time I had to stop editing, but could not find software that would clone the system disk so I could use the clone without a lot of messing around.

Do the programs mentioned in this thread make a system disk clone that works as I've described?

I'm probably going to upgrade to Vegas 12 (from 10). Will it work ok with a Core2 duo and Win7?

Thanks for any help.
VidMus wrote on 12/20/2013, 6:37 PM
"Do the programs mentioned in this thread make a system disk clone that works as I've described? "

I cannot speak for the other software's but I do know that Casper does because I use it on both Windows 7 and Windows 8.

farss wrote on 12/20/2013, 7:14 PM
Geoff Wood said:
[I]"If this is the case, I wonder what could be done to make it more robust ?"[/I]

That seems easily enough done to me. The developers just need a test project that contains every know kind of problematic media. Of course this needs to be maintained but that shouldn't be a big task. It'd certainly help if users here sent a sample to SCS every time they found media that caused Vegas to spit the dummy.

The bigger picture issue here though is that code should never crash regardless of the data it's being fed.

Bob.
DiDequ wrote on 12/21/2013, 2:07 AM
@ Widetrack : yes, you can do this with Clonezilla too.
Probably all cloning software can do this today.
What is the difference with Clonezilla ? support of any kind of partition type - you can clone a disk with ntfs, Hfs (Osx), Ext4 (Linux) partitions with Clonezilla.
You can clone any Windows disk from dos, W3.0 to W8.
I had some problems with Norton Ghost and a linux partition. The image / clone is written succesfully, but you then have some problems with file permissions - Windows cannot read / write ext4 partitions today...
http://clonezilla.org/fine-print-live-doc.php?path=./clonezilla-live/doc/03_Disk_to_disk_clone/02-start-clonezilla.doc#02-start-clonezilla.doc for more info (again, it is free - you can give some money if you want as for any freeware.
One of your first setting upon the Cd boot processs is the language setting - useful for non english people, to fully understand what you are doing.

Vegas 12 , seven and a core 2 duo ? Yes, you can work. rendering files will just be longer compared to a today's powerfull Pc - you can render your files at night while sleeping...
Widetrack wrote on 12/21/2013, 7:05 PM
That is all great information. Clonezilla sounds excellent.

Thank you.

But now I'm getting that old itch for more speed and power.

Must . . control . . . gear-lust . . . .