I have tried just about everything, besides running 32-bit Vegas:
--Uninstall ProTitler
--Turn GPU accel OFF
--Update NVIDIA drivers
--Set to compatibility mode VISTA
and some other things. Nothing helps.
In fact, after just opening the project, preview works flawlessly. After a couple of minor edits, preview crashes soon. The same with rendering the project: After opening the project, it renders without any problem. If a make any change to the project (even if I save the changes), also rendering crashes (after few seconds).
I'm reluctand to install Vegas 32-bit, because I want the extra memory from 64-bit. My project consists of 3-4 hundred clips, in full HD, and it sucks up a lot of memory.
Is 32-bit really the only workaround?

Does this happen all the time regardless of whats on the timeline? My first suspicion (which you may soon rule out!) would be that it may be a piece of bad media.

- Ray
Underground Planet

You are not alone. I am experiencing similar behavior and have yet to pin down as to why. I thought it was a dyeing HDD, but I am now seeing the same crashes with a different drive. I also see the same results when using a different machine and different drives. If after working for several minutes I render a short clip and drag it to the timeline and quickly press "L" for play - Vegas stops working. It does seem however that if I save the veg before pressing "L" - no crash.
Compatibility mode - no help.
GPU off - no help.
I set my autosave to 30 secs. to limit the loss of work from the constant crashes.
I hope it gets straightened out soon.

Muttley: It happens regardless of where on the timeline I put the cursor, but only when I press spacebar to START preview (and on some very rare occasion also when I press spacebar to STOP preview).
Jimsch: I hope so too. And yes, it seems to come more often if I press spacebar rather quickly after placing the cursor on the timeline, than if I wait a little, but still, it happens at least once every 10 minutes of editing (once every 20-30 times I press spacebar). If I open a project and don't edit anything, I can star/stop playing and move around with the cursor many more times, maybe 100 times or more, before it crashes.
Even rendering audio only, lead to immediate crash, since I had done a couple of edits before rendering. Opening the project again and rendering immediately, went well without crash.
I really feel that this has nothing to do with graphic card at all (since it crashed even when rendering audio only). I tried changing audio device type (in prefs) from Microsoft Sound Mapper to Windows Classic Wave Driver. I feel it may have helped somewhat, but again, it crashed eventually, and it's very difficult to tell if the crash probability/frequence was reduced or not. I have sent (from Vegas) at least 40-50 crash reports to Sony, but no response there, no response here, and no response in any other forum (MANY people have different kinds of crash problems with Vegas, one of them being instant crash when using GPU accelerated FX/transitions, which (of course) also I have...).
Anyone who could help out, would be VERY much appreciated!! :)

Got that, but what I was asking was what kind of media is it that's on the timeline. What format? What camera is it from? Does this happen in other projects with different types of media?

- Ray
Underground Planet

Well, going to 32 bit did fix issues for me, but created others.
My crashes were mainly related to the newBlue titler, changing to 32 bit seems to have cleared up copy/paste and clicking crashes. It sounds similar to your issues there. At first, things seem ok, then after some operations, crashes occur. But going to 32 bit meant my 64 bit plugins don't work.
Give it a try for diagnostic purposes! No harm in installing the 32 bit along side the 64. They can co-exist without any problems.

Paul.

Just wanted to add that simply clicking on Win7 compatibility mode while operating in 64bit Win7/Vegas Pro has cleared my NewBlueTitler crashes completely, along with quite a few other crashes, including some surrounding rendering.

right click on Vegas icon, select Properties, select compatibility, select Win7 mode.

I did not suggest this for the OP because he/she is running XP, but this seems to be a healthy setup procedure for Win7.

Muttley: I only have one type of media: mxf files exported directly from XDCAM EX ClipBrowser. My camera: XDCAM EX1 (1080p/25).
I just started a new project, with only 100 clips imported. Edited without problems for half an hour, ...then crashed (approx. 25 clips inserted; 1min20sec of film time).

Interesting!

I am using HDV files initially but was using mxf renders to reduce the loss from codec when rendering.

Maybe its MXF related. I'll use a different codec and see what happens.

Hm, well there goes my theory! I'm a fan of mxf as for me they have played real nicely with Vegas, super smooth playback. Actually rendering to one right now that I will take the edited render into another project and have not had any issues.

Can you possibly upload a smaller source clip somewhere? Be happy to see if it works here.

- Ray
Underground Planet

Muttley: Here's one source clip:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B2LZ75_4uCUQcnpHMGlpV1doU0U

Back to some basics here, get these outta the way:-

1] Have you set Project Properties to Match the Media?

2] Have you a separate Media drive to System drive? Ah, SSD!

3] How much is left available on your System drive? Does this matter for SSDs?

4] Have you got and have you scanned your VST Folder for new/old VSTs?

Grazie

Edit: Just read your input on my 2] and 3].

I've seen the same problem. I've found that setting video preview resolution to a low setting, and making the video preview window size smaller, allows me to preview my HD footage.

Grazie;
1) Yes (Adjust source media to better match project or render settings)
(actually sounds like the opposite...?) Should I deselect this option?
2) Yes, SSD for system, and HDD for media
3) SSD: 139GB free (out of 238GB)
HDD: 190GB free (out of 465GB)
4) Don't know what VST's are... What should I do, and how?

Mxf is long GOP. I don't know how many people remember that a while back Vegas would crash if you put too many long GOP clips on a timeline. On my system it was just under a hundred individual long GOP clips. The reason was that Vegas (or any other editor for that matter) would have to buffer back to the nearest existing iframe on each clip in order to be able to handle each of them from before this iframe. The problem at the time was that Vegas only had so much memory set aside for this buffering and as you would approach this limit, timeline performance would slow way down, then it would start crashing.

I bring this up because the fix was to up this amount of memory to something beyond what most people would need. The problem is still there, you just don't run into it on a normal (or even a quite a bit bigger than normal) sized project.

I never really trusted the new limit, and when I work with HDV, I render it into large chunks. I find this really speeds things up and since the mpeg2 video can be smart-rendered, there is no loss from this consolidation. In terms of this problem, it is not the length of time of the video, it is the number of clips.

I bring this up because it sounds like you are sticking boatloads of long GOP mxf on the timeline all at once and may be running into this limit again. The behavior that you are describing sounds exactly like this. How many clips do you have active at once in this project?

Also, does anyone know what the number of long GOP clips that can be handled at once was bumped up to? There has to be a limit to the memory set aside for this buffering, but I have no idea what this limit currently is. I just know that it's there.

Doug,

Nvidia 301.42 seems to have stabilized my system - even with mxf files. Instant playback after making moves and edits is now okay, no more crashing. Got my fingers crossed. Hope it works for you.

Jim

Guys: My problem was finally solved!!!!! YES - YES - YES!!! :)

After 2 weeks of constant search for a solution to this problem, which was so serious that editing was almost impossible, I have finally edited for 2 hours without any problem at all. I actually "feel" the difference: The slight latency after pressing space bar until the preview starts, is gone. SVP never hangs anymore! JIPPY!! :) :)

Thank you all for your valuable contributions to solve this problem. I appreciate every one of them very much! One guy suggested a fix, and it worked! :)

Conclusion:
1) Go to Preferences/AudioDevice Tab: DISABLE TRACK BUFFERING IN VEGAS 11pro! Made my day! :)

Then I found another source of occasional hangups as well: Windows Media Player!
2) Close the Media Player while editing. It causes problems (at least for me...).

Laurence,
You may be right.
I edited without any trouble almost 20 minutes of video on timeline, and then the problems started all over again, almost as frequently as before the fixes I described above. Anyone who has a good idea for a workaround?

I tried the newest NVIDIA 301.42, but no difference for me.
If I press and hold space bar (generates many start/stops), it'll crash sooner or later. No other editing activities cause crashes. Only start/stop playing from timeline, causes crash every 5-10 minutes. Weird...

Dag, I may have found the answer to our problem with very frequent crashing on playback.

When I checked the Detail Report for the crash it listed an "Unmanaged Exception 0xc0000005"

So I did a search to see if anyone else had this and what they found.

From the Sony Vegas forum:
"This may not help in your situation but it helped me with my weird Vegas 10d crashes.

Do a Vegas "reset to default values"

Close the program. Now press CTRL+SHIFT while double-clicking on the program's icon to launch it. Continue to hold the CTRL & SHIFT keys until the program is fully up and loaded.

In newer programs, you will see a window that asks "Do you want to reset all preferences to default values?" Place a checkmark next to "Delete all cached application data" and then click Yes."

I tried it and so far so good!!

Just remember to check all of your preferences as they will be reset to default values.

Hope it helps.

Hello Jim!
YES! YES! YES!!!!!
Thank you soooooo much, Jim!

It works!!! After resetting all parameters and deleting all cached application data as you described, it's been rock stable, even on the big project with hundreds of clips!

I have to admit, I was quite sceptic to this procedure, but it turned out to be THE fix for me!

Thank you all, for all your valuable input. Without them, I would probably have stopped using Vegas at this moment. Now I'm "back in business" and enjoy editing a lot :)