probably not much help with the actual problem, but I worked on a similar sized project and I found it easier to split the project up into seperate smaller veg files.


As far as trouble shooting goes, maybe you can try to dupllicate it on a different PC, it might help to figure out if its a hardware probem, an OS problem, software conflict or Vegas that is causing the crash.


*edited*

also I have had a few wierd crashes similar to what you described, I think it was caused by corrupt AVI files, like out of 50 clips in the bin, when I tried to access certain files, it would crash. I ended up recapturing the video to a different drive and didn't have the problem.

First thought is you may have reached the theoretical limit of what Vegas can handle for your particular system configuration.

Few questions...

a. What version of Windows you running?
b. How much RAM do you have?
c. How big is your Swap or Paging file?
d. Exactly how many files are you loading into the bins at one time?
e. What is the payload (total file size in MB?

I suspect what could be happening is you have a situation where Windows suffers a memory collision during page swapping. Analogy: Two cars approach an intersection at the same time, for some unexplained reason both directions get a green light at the same time. You know the likely result. CRASH!

With computers EVERYTHING that happens must happen in memory. There are two kinds. Your physical memory and virtual memory. When you do intensive tasks, Windows behind the scenes is page swapping like mad. A "page" in this context is a snapshot of a range of memory. Windows shuffles the page back and forth between real memory and virtual memory. If the same memory space somehow gets accessed at the same time by more than one process (what Windows happends to be running) bing, bang zoom or a crash.

Analogy two: Why this is more likely to happen is similar to the children's game of musical chairs. When you start out the chances of finding an empty chair are pretty good. As the game advances it gets harder and harder to get to the empty chair before the next guy.

As Windows gets pushed it needs to swap more data faster and has both less real and virtual memory to do the dance in. In time a bottleneck forms, you see the hour glass longer and longer, your hard drive may start to grind away and if you continue... crash.

If you're using XP, bring up Task Manager (Ctrl Alt Delete) and observe the values under the performance tab. Do this next time you do what causes Vegas to crash. You may get a clue that you simply don't have enough memory to do what you're asking of your current configuration.

Another reason why I think those that keep wanting more and more features for bins are barking up the wrong tree. The more files you have open, the more slugglish system performance because you're going to get into heavy page swapping. On the other hand if you use an application more closely designed to open tiny thumnails (like Windows Explorer) you can (I have) open several thousand files at once and very quickly. The reason is the size difference. With Windows Exploer even thousands of thumbnails isn't going to take up that much memory. On the other hand opening the same number of files (and you're opening the actual file, not a thumbnail) in Vegas can take a huge amount of memory. You see what happens.

Have you had this problem on other projects, or just this one? I ask this because virtually all applications can be made to crash if the file they are loading is corrupted. Not all corruption will cause crashing. However, it is possible that there is something in the set of project files that isn't quite right.

You might be able to test this by breaking the project into two parts. To do this, open a second instance of Vegas. Find a convenient point to split the video. Select all events on all tracks beyond that point (and make sure no events prior to the point are selected). Cut them to the clipboard. Save. Switch to the second instance of Vegas and paste. Save. Edit each independently and see if one crashes but the other doesn't.

Of course, this may not be convenient for you, but it might help determine if file corruption is the problem

Sounds like a memory shortage. If you have the media pool "views" set for thumbnails, try list or detailed. Do the demo download of TaskInfo to see how much memory you are using. BTW, if you are dipping into your virtual memory, try setting it to a fixed min. and max. amount. I use one gig for both settings.
http://www.iarsn.com/taskinfo.html

Craig H.

Great feedback--exactly what I was looking for---Billyboy, I am convinced that your analysis is right on---I am using an older Windows XP based 1ghz machine with 512k memory (thats all I can put into the damn thing). I usually load one clip at a time into a particular bin and the freeze doesn't occur at one consistent point.

I use to edit film and I guess I am trying to extrapolate my technique to the world of NLE editing. I use to keep a binder with every shot listed, organized by type of shot etc----Then I would throw the reel on the flatbed find my clip and cut it out----

I would say that this is a problem that probably is more pronounced for documentarians--we deal with loads of clips and we really do need a way of organizing them. Here is an example, I need to put together a sequence of my subject walking---I have him walking on about 20 different one hour rolls. I wanted to take all the walking shots out of each and put it into a bin entitled Walking Shots. Then, when I get ready to edit that sequence, I have everything exactly where I want it and the process goes fast.

Last question for you guys---If I upgraded my machine to something that could handle mucho ram, do you think this problem could be mitigated.

Once again I want to thank all for their input--You guys are terrific!.