Low on Memory error -- Found a cause

johnmeyer wrote on 2/13/2004, 12:01 AM
Several people have reported getting the "low on memory" error in Vegas. After months of stable operation, I started getting this today while scrubbing from the timeline. I re-booted. No go. I tried doing a "repair" re-install. The problem was still there.

I then reset all of my preferences (set reset on startup to TRUE in the hidden preferences menu), and everything started working again.

As I went through the painful process of going through all the preferences menus to get everything back the way it was, it suddenly hit me that earlier today, for the first time, I had decided to do some 5.1 surround work. To make 5.1 work, I had gone to Preferences -> Audio Device tab and changed the Audio Device Type from "Microsoft Sound Mapper" to Direct Sound Surround Mapper." This caused the problem.

I have WinXP Pro (SP1), 512 MB RAM, ATI Radeon 8500 DV, Soundblaster Live audio card, DirectX 9.0a, 2.8 GHz Pentium 4. I am running Vegas 4.0d (Build 205).

Hope this helps someone.

Comments

GaryKleiner wrote on 2/13/2004, 12:09 AM
Some good detective work there. Thanks.

Gary
Grazie wrote on 2/13/2004, 12:13 AM
Excellent John! Thanks . .that's a Keeper, and no mistake - Not wanting you to expereiment any further, really, but have you now been able to repeat the "insect"? - Grazie
bkalamon wrote on 2/13/2004, 5:10 AM
Thanks John for the clues. I have been having the same new problem. I have 4 GIG of RAM with a Duel Processor machine. This has caused a form of "Computer Road Rage" with me lately. I will reset and start again. (I was unaware of a "hidden preferendces menu". PS Peter Wright responded to me regarding this issue on the "Creative Cow" forum and pointed me to you.
SonyEPM wrote on 2/13/2004, 6:34 AM
CTRL+Shift + restart Vegas resets all preferences to the factory defaults. If you need to return all settings to their original values, this is the only method you should use.

BE WARNED: Monkeying the the internal prefs is not advised. Don't touch any of these unless your are told to do so by either our tech support department, or by a Sony engineer. Think of it like regedit- unless you know exactly what you are doing, don't touch it.
johnmeyer wrote on 2/13/2004, 7:55 AM
Sony,

Think of it like regedit- unless you know exactly what you are doing, don't touch it.

Just to be clear, I haven't been monkeying around with it. I haven't opened it up for six months or more, and I only know about it because I saw a post about two years ago that described it.

CTRL+Shift + restart Vegas resets all preferences to the factory defaults

I think I did read this about four months ago, but forgot the key combination (since, thankfully, I haven't had to do this very often). I'll stash this in my Vegas scripts and tools folder so I can recall it next time.

So, just to repeat for Sony's benefit, I only used the hidden preferences menu AFTER the fact, and only to reset the preferences. It had nothing to do with the bug itself.
Spot|DSE wrote on 2/13/2004, 8:03 AM
Good you found this specific one John, there are other causes to this too though. But to reiterate EPM, it's dangerous to mess with the settings. About a year ago, someone posted the recipe for getting to the internal prefs and it spawned a whole bunch of problems for a whole bunch of tinkering users. Imagine if someone like Zippy got a hold of it... :-)
johnmeyer wrote on 2/13/2004, 8:19 AM
About a year ago, someone posted the recipe for getting to the internal prefs and it spawned a whole bunch of problems for a whole bunch of tinkering users...

Spot, I was aware of that, so I took pains in my original post (above) to not state how I accessed the hidden menu.
busterkeaton wrote on 2/13/2004, 10:10 AM
Imagine if someone like Zippy got a hold of it... :-)

Isn't that the plot of every James Bond movie?
riredale wrote on 2/13/2004, 6:20 PM
Too funny. But seriously, there was one change that I made in there that I really appreciate--to make the clips a little less "sticky" when moving them around. Can't remember the exact setting, but if someone's interested I'll go back in my post history.

SonyEPM: in my opinion, this would be an EXCELLENT setting to move into the preferences section in the next update of Vegas.
RexA wrote on 2/14/2004, 1:09 AM
BK

You have some of the best replies in this forum (maybe the net).

Cracked me up again!