To whom it may concern (to a Sony Vegas Pro expert),
Ok so here's the deal: I'm a newbie when it comes to this new occupation of mine as I've been planning on wanting to become a YouTube movie reviewer as my first job (although I've been a member on YouTube since 2009 but haven't figured out what my content would be about back then) and that it has been several months now since last summer that I've been working on my first-ever movie review (which its subject matter would be "The Emoji Movie") when planning out my script, buying some video editing equipment, having to record my review sessions in my own homemade studio downstairs for 10 days straight, editing/revising my entire review on my Sony Vegas Pro software for over a few months 'til it got completed back in January, and especially having to deal with constant glitches and other technical issues throughout those months as I had to continuously visit my local Best Buy store to set up appointments with numerous Geek Squad employees almost every week or month.
Also, something to keep in mind here, my entire movie review has a running time of over 5 hours long just because I never done something like this before when making my own script as well as how much media files I add into my movie review project since I'm not that good with timing to be honest and so I can guarantee you that this will never happen again once I try to contact with someone on YouTube who has any background experiences with doing movie reviews for a living and to be my own mentor online so that I can learn about the do's and dont's of doing a movie review before I'm ready to produce anymore future projects on my YouTube channel this year once I'm properly well-trained enough. So basically, this would perhaps end up becoming the world's longest YouTube movie review when you look at it that way despite being unintentional on my part.
Then later on, still back in January, I had to make my last appointment with a Geek Squad employee when I complained to him about my rendering freezing on me for over a week and so he recommended me to just buy a new laptop that's both more advanced and having more extra space in it since he made it clear that my previous laptop wasn't the appropriate system for my rendering due to having less space in it as he suggested that I should get a gaming laptop that has both a NVIDIA GeForce GTX and an Intel CORE i5 9th Generation system built into it in order to support my software's rendering process but since it would be quite expensive to buy one my grandma had to wait for like a month or two before she's able to receive a Best Buy card that contains like $2,000.
And so once she does, we found the one laptop online that we think would be quite useful for my software and so we buy this new laptop for like nearly $900 (I don't remember the exact price number though) on Best Buy's website back in March during this ongoing Coronavirus pandemic; which it's why we ordered it online instead of going to our store for that obvious reason. The type of laptop that I'm using is an ACER NITRO 5 (with both those two suggested systems built in) and that I also bought a WD easystore external hard drive since I have to save all of my old data from my previous laptop and then plug them in onto my current one (just in case if this piece of detail would be useful or not).
And so this is where my next problem takes place once I get my new laptop set up and ready as I ended up having to contact DOZENS UPON DOZENS of different agents/technicans from Best Buy's 1-800 phone number and then having to be put on hold for hours before getting their Tech Support remote control sessions ready and that this has been going on nonstop for like five weeks now (if I'm correct) without getting any solutions by this point unfortunately and I'm just so sick and tired of this ongoing BS since I've been emotionally and mentally stressed out beyond belief as I just want this to be over and I don't know what else to do to be honest with you!?
So to make this a bit easier to anyone who's reading this post, I'll just break up my entire tedious experience into summary sections via timeline dates so that you can get the context of my situation as well as getting out any vital details that would probably be important for my case while perhaps skipping on any unnecessary details that either have nothing to do with my case or just didn't worked out in my favor because it's really not that easy to summarize my entire ordeal in order to make anyone understand what I've been going through lately so far.
NOTE: I took plenty of pictures on my iPhone of all of my previous sessions with my agents as I had to document them daily for future references and especially for prove just in case (which it's how I'm able to remember and figure out what specific agents and the date of our sessions where).
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April 2: The day when I got to open up my new laptop and then sanitizing it after letting it sit out in my garage for like 5 days when it was first delivered to my house (since the news had said that COVID-19 can only last on cardboard for like a few days as my grandma and I were taking some precautions).
April 4-5: The day when I decided to open up my movie review project after having to re-install my Sony Vegas Pro 16 since my grandma had ordered a downloadable code from eBay but then my project wouldn't open up for some reason as this lead me to contacting Best Buy's tech support agents over the phone for the first time the next day.
April 6: I decided to contact a tech support agent over the phone for the first time before setting up my first session with an agent name Maria Corazon on the agent connector page from Best Buy's website during the afternoon as I had to be put on hold for like an hour or so before we reached each other over the phone due to the 'high solutions' (or in this case a huge waiting line of numerous complaints from unsatisfied customers with their own technical product issues). But since I didn't have a tech support membership as I've never dealt with this before, I passed my iPhone to my grandma to let that agent explain everything to her (while on speaker so I could hear what she's saying) about what's going on and how we need to have a tech support membership in order to set up my session on my laptop and so she agreed and paid $200 over the phone to have that one-year membership on my behalf before we got started afterwards. But then, after I accepted the offer on the agent connector, we dispatched over the phone while she was transferring me to a level 2 agent who would go over the remote control session with me; which took over a few hours during the wait. Once this other agent name David contacted me, we communicated via our chatbox while he remote controls between both my old and new laptops so that he could find out if there's any flaws or errors between them but so far he couldn't figure it out before his shift ended four hours later as he decided to transfer me to my next agent who would help me out but unfortunately that one agent decided to end our next session and disconnect at around 7:21am while I was still sleeping in bed at the time despite having to leave out a small note on my notepad so that he would know that I had to head to bed at around 3:10am since I didn't want to stay up all night long in the morning and so obviously I was pissed off by that.
April 7: Then at around 3:40pm, I contacted an agent name Raymundo who went over the remote control session with me for over a few hours before we later called each other by phone so that we could communicate better instead of typing our conversations for the most part and so far he solved my first issue by recommending me to just install a newer version of the Sony Vegas Pro as I decided to install a Sony Vegas Pro 17 to replace my previous software in order to open up my movie review more properly and so I took his advice the next day and it ended up working.
April 8-9: I was able to open up my movie review project after installing my Sony Vegas Pro 17 software during the afternoon but then I encountered my next issue (which became my current issue) when my rendering ends up crashing in the middle of its process (at around 30%) as the rendering only lasted like nearly three hours before it crashed and so my rendering isn't able to complete the whole process unfortunately as I end up having to reattempt this numerous times without any success throughout the next few weeks onward up to this point. (NOTE: my free disk space was 170 GB and my estimated file size was 38 GB during this rendering process at the time) So after finding out that there was this one little pop up message that explained to me that I had three sync issues with my OneDrive due to lack of space, I decided to choose the option of having to delete any unnecessary files or documents that I didn't need in order to make more free space for my OneDrive instead of the other option of having to buy more storage since it was too expensive. However, once I did all of that and decided to test out my rendering again for my second attempt at around 4:19am (my file size was at 36 GB this time), it ended up crashing again like the last time once I decided to check out my laptop during the afternoon since I didn't want to stay up all night without any sleep obviously.
April 10: Then I contacted an agent name Alex at around 6:48pm who put me on hold for hours as he was transferring to my next agent from our agent connector page but unfortunately I never got any connection to my next agent as I had no choice but to close out of my agent connector and wait for the next day.
April 11: During the afternoon, I decided to check out that pop up message that explained that my OneDrive still doesn't have enough free space in it and so I later contacted this agent name Andromeda at around 5:55pm before he transferred me to my next agent at 6:05pm but unfortunately I had to wait for hours before heading to bed early as I had later found out the next morning that my next agent name Lawrence made this little message on my notepad during his remote controlling without my acknowledgement at the time as he wrote, "Hi, Agent Lawrence from Geek Squad here. Upon checking you wanted a call before I can begin working on your computer but sadly it is past your available time of 3 AM. You can feel free to call us back when you are available to start or resume the service. Have a great day!" So basically, he was telling me that my available time ended sooner despite the fact that he was the one who took a long time to reach in contact with me on time as he only got access to my laptop at around 7:37am before he decided to end our session and then being disconnected at 7:44am. I mean...what a frecking joke!
April 12-13: So while my grandma was getting our Easter dinner ready during the afternoon, I made contact with an agent name Ormelis at around 5:00pm before he transferred me to my next agent at 5:50pm as this took several more hours before I reached contact with my next agent name Lance at around 7:29am as he tried to make sense of my situation despite not being familiar with my video editing software (it was a mistake on my part apparently) and so far he haven't found any solutions to my issue here before he made me tried to do my rendering again (my free disk space was at 150 GB and my file size was at 36 GB at the time) but since his shift was about to end within the next hour he decided to transfer me to another agent at around 3:16pm.
April 13-14: So at 4:03pm, I made contact with my next agent name Kevin who suggested that I should try to add more space into my laptop by installing a 30-day free trial Office 365 Home app as it contains more than 1 TB as well as recommending me to increase my RAM in order to make my rendering work more properly but I had no idea how that works since I wasn't too familiar with RAM at the time before doing some research online afterwards before he disconnected with me at 4:45pm. Then I made contact with this one agent at around 6pm over the phone name Alvaro who says that he has experiences with using a Sony Vegas Pro and that the only reason why most agents weren't able to either solve or find the source of my issue is because they usually don't specialize in dealing with video editing issues besides only dealing with technical computer issues instead and so basically they didn't even bother to just double check on my Sony Vegas Pro for any flaws instead of having to constantly try to add more space in my laptop for days. Either way, he explained to me that the main source of my issue has to do with my movie review's file size being too large in order to get my rendering to complete its process and so he recommended with this solution that I should just split up smaller sections of my entire movie review project and then render each of them but since I had never done that before I wanted to ask him that question if he's willing to remote control my laptop and show me how that works as well as asking him my other question if there's still another alternative solution to get my whole movie review project rendered without having to break up sections of it since I didn't wanted to either cut off any of my commentaries, jokes or video clips without having to make them look either awkward or out of place (you can understand that logic there) but unfortunately I accidentally forgot to charge my iPhone as it ended up dying on me during our conversation over the phone at around 7pm as I had tried to let him know from my laptop over our chatbox about what just happened but then he put me on hold for several hours before he ended up disconnecting the next day at 2:22pm as I assume that his tool was messing up or something before trying to reach contact with me again and so I was literally devastated by this situation. Then at around 5:37pm, I contacted this agent name Mario who was transferring me at 5:41pm to my next agent name Drew who I contacted within the next few minutes and so we decided to call each other by phone for like 18 minutes (5:56-6:14pm; I don't remember much of our conversation however) before he transferred me to my next agent at 6:19pm but unfortunately for some reason his transferring process was experiencing a temporary problem as it failed to do so. But fortunately, I was able to contact my next agent at around 9:18pm name Shaina Andrea before she transferred me to my next agent at 9:22pm as I ended up contacting him the next morning.
April 15: My next agent name Daniel contacted me at 4:01am as we went over what my issue is as well as showing him how I render my movie review so that he gets the idea and perhaps to witness the crashing on there so that he could truly understand the gravity of my situation but unfortunately when my rendering did crashed on me at 8:55am I ended up asking him if he witnessed that but he never responded back to me 'til he unexpectedly decided to end our session and transfer me to a different agent at 9:55am (our last conversation was at 5:24am) and so I felt a bit betrayed at that moment. (NOTE: my free disk space was at 136 GB and my file size was at 36 GB at the time)
April 16-17: Then at 3:59am, I decided to test out my rendering for the fifth time on my own (after doing a few readjustments with having to revise/re-edit a few photoshopped pictures for my media files since I felt like I wanted to update them a bit first) and so within the next two or three hours later it ended up crashing again (unsurprisingly). (NOTE: my free disk space was at 126 GB and my file size was at 36 GB at the time) So later during the evening, at around 7:18pm, I contacted an agent name Lee who was transferring me to my next agent at 7:38pm but initially the transfer process has been interrupted like four time before it got successfully reconnected at 9:21pm and so I ended up contacting with my next agent at 9:51pm name Rafael who, despite not having any experiences with using a Sony Vegas Pro after asking him that question, decided to help me out with my rendering issue by asking me to locate my video file (or my movie review project in this case), asking me to split up my entire movie review into sections, and then testing out the rendering process for him; although he seems to have some miscommunication with me because I've been telling me repeatedly that I've been doing what he's telling me to do but he thinks that I wasn't at first 'til I had to keep on correcting him throughout our session. But then, after hours of doing this task, he told me that his shift was ending soon and that he isn't able to transfer me to a different agent since he explained that he was working from his home as this would cause some limited access from his area (like with some other agents I've contacted with down the line) and so he left with to deal with my rendering on my own while he takes down my notes for my next agent to know about in advance and then we disconnected at 12:58am. By the way, he did also explained to me that both my dedicated graphics card and my RAM aren't big enough to support my Sony Vegas Pro as my main cause of my rendering crashes but I wasn't too familiar with what they were at first 'til another agent later on told me what their purposes are for before I even acknowledged that they could be the sources to my issue here afterwards. (NOTE: my free disk space was at 123 GB and my file size was at 38 GB at the time)
April 17-18: So after my rendering crashed again after like a few hours or so during that morning, I contacted an agent name Rick on their Geek Squad Remote Support page at 10:00pm but once I explained to him about my situation as well as him double checking my notes from my previous session with agent Rafael he explained to me that they don't offer any program trainings remotely since that would be an in-home service only ordeal and so as I tried to reply back to him he just suddenly ended up disconnecting within like the next few minutes as I'm not a fast typer and this shocked me a bit. But regardless, I decided to contact someone else as I ended up contacting an agent name Sana at 10:10pm but she also ended up disconnecting from me within the next two minutes after asking her if she has any experiences with using a Sony Vegas Pro before we get started. But fortunately, I ended up contacting an agent name George at 10:13pm who decided to transfer me to my next agent since he wasn't a level 2 agent and so we dispatched at 11:38pm before I got connected with my next agent name Rodney at 1:59am as we started our remote control session the next minute as he ended up communicating with me over my notepad as he explained to me that since Sony is a big branded company as well as my software being a paid program from this manufacturer as he was worried that he would end up clashing with a Geek Squad copyright issue (which I'm paraphrasing what he told me then) and so I was ordered to get my rendering started but first he went onto my preference setting on there to change my settings (I forgot to take a picture of his task for any details in this case) and then he even tried to make me watch a YouTube tutorial that he found after he send me a link from our chatbox when I told him that I don't know how to split up my entire movie review properly but the thing is the video he showed me was how to have the best rendering settings for a Sony Vegas Pro 15 as I ended up wasting my time on watching it with no answers (which I later on uninstalled it since I didn't need it). Not only that but he even decided to install a different video editing software called a Filmora 9 software without even asking me for permission to do so if I wanted him to install a new software or not (obviously I didn't want him to do so as I didn't expect him that he would suggest that to me) and so far that didn't worked either. And so by this point, I was starting to feel a bit annoyed and impatient with him as not only he didn't seem to know what he was doing as well as miscommunicating with me but he even kept on dodging my question like a few times if he has any experiences with a Sony Vegas Pro but he kept on reassuring me that he got this (despite the fact that he obviously had no personal video editing backgrounds). But fortunately another agent name Abby just randomly decided to join our session and so I decided to ask Rodney if maybe it would be best that I should just let him communicate with me for awhile since he explained to me that Abby is an expert with the kind of software I'm using and so he allowed Abby to take over his position so that we could communicate with each other for now on while Rodney would just stay out of the way as we got connected at around 4:40am. So during my rendering process, I asked him to just observe and see how I do this (especially if he could figure out whatever flaw took place on there) and then once I started the rendering I told him that this would take like hours before the crashing occurs so that he would have to be patient and try to witness this issue for himself so that he could get the idea of what I've been going through lately and then he explained to me that he won't be going anywhere while that was happening as well as informing Rodney about what the deal is so that he wouldn't get confused by what we were doing together while I decided to have my late dinner and take a long break before I later double check on my laptop to see how it was going. So once I double checked on it at around 9:15am, I noticed that I was being put on hold before my agent returns (which it would say on my chatbox "waiting for technician") despite the fact that Abby stopped remote controlling at 6:13am before Rodney also stopped his the next minute (which I didn't noticed at first 'til I recently reviewed it from my iPhone's photo gallery) but then an hour later I just found out that Rodney just decided to end our session and disconnected afterwards and I had no idea if Abby took his own word about letting Rodney know in advance about having to keep our session opened all morning so that the rendering can complete its course and to see what my issue is for themselves before getting their answers but either way I was absolutely devastated and disappointed by this callous action and I didn't even know how to feel about this.
April 18-19: Then at around 4pm, I contacted an agent name Zuriel who transferred me to my next agent at 4:16pm before I had contact with my next agent at 4:27pm name Colin as we started our remote control session at 4:29pm and so he has been giving me a few options as he has a wife who is a graphic designer while he doesn't have any experiences whatsoever and since he had been giving lectures from her lessons he was only giving me these suggestions that he thinks will work such as providing me to read this article from a reddit website involving slow renderings on Sony Vegas Pros as well as explaining to me that I'm suffering from a hardware issue, then he told me how both the GPU and CPU works off from each other (since he thinks that would be another concern to my rendering issue but I'm still not sure what they are to be honest here and that he even told me that I have a 9300H in my CPU as a piece of note here just in case) and even trying to recommend me to watch some YouTuber who does tutorials on the software I'm using but since I've already saw some of his videos from before I'm just not gonna bother wasting my time and then he finally asked me to show him how I split up my entire movie review so that he could find out if I'm doing something right or wrong and so far he thinks that I'm doing the right thing here but I'm still not positive if what he's saying is accurate or not but I just went along with it anyways. Either way, we disconnected at 7:14pm so that he could transfer me to my next agent at 7:16pm name Brandon M2 and so he went over the fact that his company aren't allowed to work with cracked versions of Sony Vegas Pros due to being a pirated software (which I knew nothing about at the time) but then I had to explain to him that I'm not sure if my Sony Vegas Pro 17 is a cracked version or not (so far I later double checked on my order from eBay as it explained that it wasn't) while the old Sony Vegas Pro 16 software that he was looking at on my laptop wasn't being used anymore (to which I later on decided to uninstall that software) and then we continued to have a long conversation about any details involving my dedicated graphics card as well as mentioning to me that I need to increase both my RAM and my graphics card to 512 MB (as his own recommendation) in order to make my rendering work more properly. Also, I was about to ask him how I can be able to increase both of them since I've never done that before (especially since I had no knowledge on those two concepts like I mentioned from before) and was hoping that he could help me out with that but since his shift was about to end at the time he was only just giving some updated info and advices for myself to deal with or to go over with a different agent afterwards and so we disconnected at 8:00pm. Then at around 10:05pm, I contacted an agent name Andres who transferred me to my next agent at 10:11pm before I got connected with my next agent at 11:09pm name Isaac who, after explaining all the details to him about my situation, he explained to me that since most agents aren't usually trained in this kind of field he suggested that I should just contact my product's manufacturer as he decided to provide me with the phone number (800-538-7550) to contact with the Sony Creative Support Team (which he was apparently the first to give me this kind of info after weeks of getting different answers from the rest of my previous agents so far) before I thanked him and disconnected at around 12:31am.
April 20: So once I took his advice to call their number the next day at around 7pm, I was introduced with a voice recording that explained to me that due to the long waiting lines over their phone system they would have to put me on hold for like a few weeks (which that's never gonna happen obviously) but fortunately I was advised that I can just go onto their website once they gave me the name of its website address and checked it out online. So I went onto the Vegas Creative Software website that lead me to their service center page where I located their list of email messages to any of their support centers and so I decided to explain everything in full details about my situation to their email address "ProPartsResearch@am.sony.com" before sending my message to them at 8:15pm and wait for their response the next day.
April 21: So once I got their email response during the afternoon, they explained to me that they don't deal with video editing issues since they only specialize in either broadcasting cameras o medical printers and so they recommended me to either visit their Sony Creative Software website or try to call their number at 800-577-6642 as my only options in my case. When I decided to take their advises, I first called their number but this time it was even worst since they aren't able to pick up anymore phone calls by that point due to this coronavirus pandemic still ruining everything for everyone. So when that didn't worked, then I moved on to go onto their website but unfortunately this lead me to that same website that doesn't give you anything else besides trying out their FAQ page (which none of them had any answers to my issue) or go onto their community page (the one that I'm using on here right now) as my only option since there's no way that I'll be able to contact any professional or expert to deal with my issue and that having to give them an email was also pointless as well apparently. By the way, I initially didn't think that I needed to explain all the details to anyone out there who would understand or have any knowledge about my situation since this seemed more like a yahoo answer type of ordeal and that I was concerned that I might end up wasting my time if I don't get a response eventually as I had already wasted all of my time not getting any answers from any of the agents I've contacted with for what seemed like a month now but of course this would perhaps be my last option and just give it a chance since I pretty much had ran out of ideas by this point. Anyways, I later decided to try to research online on how to increase my dedicated graphics card to be on par with the exact number with my RAM and since my RAM was (and still is) at 8.00 GB then I had to increase my graphics card to 1024 MB according to a recommendation chart from an article as well as watching a few YouTube tutorials on how to increase my graphics card just to get a visual example of how that works. So once I tried out those advises, I thought I had took care of that problem when I increased my graphics card from my registry editor page but once I tried to render my movie review again at 11:27pm (my free disk space was at 115 GB and my file size was at 36 GB at the time) it ended up crashing again within the next two or three hours as always (no changes there obviously).
April 22-23: Then at around 10:30pm, I contacted an agent name Isaac M who was checking out the driver updates for graphics on my laptop and that, despite not having any experiences with using a Sony Vegas Pro, he still wanted to find out if he could be helpful with my case regardless and so he went onto my video section within my preferences settings and decided to increase my Dynamic RAM Preview max (MB) from 200 to 4000 (also keep in mind that my max availability is 7016 MB). And so after that, he asked me to go through the rendering process so that he can see if it works or not but since his shift was about to end soon since the rendering would take a long time he at least recorded all of my info onto his data for my next agent to check out just in case before we disconnected at 1:14am. (NOTE: my free disk space was at 111 GB and my file size was at 36 GB at the time)
April 23-24: Then at 1:14am at the same time I got disconnected from my previous agent, I contacted an agent name Scarlett from the Geek Squad Virtual Agent page as I explained to her about my situation but, according to her, she explained to me that since my rendering is suffering due to my lack of space in my graphics card she suggested to me that it would be best to just make an appointment with my local Best Buy store and have a face-to-face assistance with any of the technicians or specialists there so that they could inspect my laptop and see if they can resolve my issue but at the same time she acknowledges that due to the coronavirus situation most stores would be closed and so she thinks that it would be best that I should just wait 'til God knows how long this pandemic lockdown is gonna last for and I seriously didn't want to take that chance since I don't have that kind of patience as well as not wanting to be stuck in my own house doing nothing for possibly months or so. So after that discussion, she just ended our session at 2:00am before I later contacted my next agent at 2:14am name Victor who also gave me the same answer like my previous agent said from before and he even further explained to me that my issue might not be something that could solved online but instead being physically taken into a store in my case and so I tried to ask him even more questions before his shift was about to end soon but he kept on ignoring my questions for like more than 20 minutes before he decided to end our session at 3:25am without even reconsidering if there was another option that I could do instead. So apparently, these two random agents are telling me that it's completely useless to keep on contacting with different agents to deal with my issue since they think that my laptop needs to be improved by an expert at my Best Buy store as my only option despite all the trouble I've been through with the rest of my previous agents for weeks now as if they're telling me that I've been wasting my time for nothing (even though I did received some new info about my issue so that I would know what to do to get more answers)!? Honestly, I didn't even know what to think of that revelation from them as I wasn't expecting that kind of answer but either way I decided to just continue with contacting more agents for that week before I ever change my mind and reconsider on their suggestion if I'm not getting anywhere by then. Anyways, later on during the afternoon at 2:58pm, I decided to check out on my rendering process but this time it looked like it got stuck on 16% while the approximate time was at 00:00:00 and my elapsed time was still moving at over 14 hours of its process (which it's a first time that it didn't crashed this time but instead it stopped its rendering in a different manner without freezing up). So due to that unexpected situation, I decided to just cancel out of it and then later contact an agent at 3:55pm name Evelin who later turned out to be a dispatcher after I explained my whole situation to her and so she decided to transfer me to my next agent at 4:40pm and so I later got connected to my next agent at 5:10pm name Neil Ryan as he decided to go onto my system configuration page to click onto my normal setup before he increased my number of processors from 1 to 8 from my BOOT advanced options page and then clicked on both the debug checkbox and the maximum memory checkbox before he later on decided to perform a full optimization on my laptop that includes updating my graphics card to see if it made a difference as well as using the Tune up to help on making my laptop run faster. After he was done with those processes as it took him nearly two hours to complete (from 6:34-8:30pm), he asked me to try my rendering again and see if it works this time and that we agreed to just wait and see what happens while this would take hours to complete. (NOTE: my free disk space was at 87 GB and my file size was at 36 GB at the time) Then over three hours later at 12:01am, he communicated back to me to let me know that his shift was about to end soon but fortunately he briefed on my data with his co-worker name Isaac M (surprisingly I'm not too sure if it's the same Isaac M from before or a different agent with a similar name as being a coincidence?) who is also one of their experts on this software as well as taking over his position to further help me out with my issue and so I was quickly transferred to Isaac at 12:07am and so I let him know about what we were gonna do while my rendering was still going on without crashing so far (surprisingly) as I just wanted him to wait and see what happens to my rendering process. But then, at 12:50am, my rendering had ended up crashing after having to go through its process for like over four hours (at an estimation of nearly 40%) and so I asked him if he just witnessed that and he said that he did as he decided to go onto my NVIDIA control panel page and ended up changing my 'select the preferred graphics processor for this program' selection as he changed it from 'use global setting (auto-select: integrated)' to 'high-performance NVIDIA processor' as he was experimenting with my settings to see if it made any improvements to my laptop or not as he claimed that he had given my NVIDIA graphics card to maximum power for my Sony Vegas Pro and that I need to restart my laptop in order for the changes to take place. But once I did what he told me to do, I ended up losing contact with him after I reopened my laptop as our chatbox had disappeared automatically and so I wasn't sure if this was an accident on his part or perhaps he decided to close out during the rebooting since he advised me to go back and test out my rendering again after going through that process and find out if it works this time; to which I decided not to 'til the next day since it was late at night (1:20am) and I needed some rest for awhile.
April 25: So once I decided to test out my rendering process at 1:15am (my free disk space was at 76 GB and my file size was at 36 GB at the time), it ended up crashing like before and so it was obvious that his adjustments didn't seem to work out in the end and I just don't understand why nothing seems to be working for me at this point!? So I decided to just take a week-long break so that I could catch up and focus on my college assignments as I had ended up delaying them for weeks due to my constant distraction with having to deal with this issue but at least my professor was nice enough to give his students chances to catch up despite being overdue since I'm not the only one who has been affected by this pandemic from disrupting our daily routines lately (by the way, my professor would contact with his class through our Zoom apps in this situation just like with most other schools these days during this abnormal time).
April 29: So after rethinking over about the suggestion making a phone call to my local Best Buy store, I decided to just give it a chance and see if any of the employees there would be able to make an exception to allow me to meet with one of them in person and perhaps have our own little appointment either at the store (despite being closed to the public), at his/her home or at my home if it gets to that point since I've been extremely desperate by that point despite being an unorthodox scenario but fortunately this one employee explained to me that there's no need for that since they were planning on allowing their customers to drop off their products by their curbside so that they can sanitize them first before they inspect on them at their store and then return them back to their customers afterwards or the other option to just have an employee to visit my house and spend like 30 minutes of our appointment to look over my laptop for me while they are required by law to wear medical protection gears in advanced but they would only temporarily open up for a selective few within the next week and so I just decided to wait 'til then when they open up. By the way, my grandma is VERY strict when it comes to anyone who stops by our house or even for us to go anywhere besides taking out the trash and recyclables and getting the mail once a week as our only exception of going outside while we wear face masks and gloves when doing so and so she strongly disagreed with me having to make any appointments with anyone coming inside our house regardless of whatever good intentions they're doing as a part of their jobs while protecting themselves from possibly getting sick. So yeah, I decided to wait for awhile and see if she would change her mind the next week if it goes well.
May 3-4: So I called back my Best Buy store during the afternoon and this other employee later gave me some updates as I later passed down my iPhone to my grandma (while on speaker so I could hear their conversation) and so far he reassured her that their employees are following safety procedures before they enter anyone's homes but the only catch here is that due to the fact that my issue is related to my Sony Vegas Pro instead of my laptop, he made it clear that 95% of their employees aren't professionally trained in dealing with any video editing software as they only specialize in general computer/technical issues and so he advised that I would possibly end up wasting my time with making an appointment to have any of them to come over to my home as he could only give me a different suggestion to perhaps stop by my college's computer lab since that would be the only area that's still open while most of the campuses are closed off to the public for now but I'm still skeptical about that decision since I don't think that would work out in my favor. Then later on, after my grandma made a phone call to one of my older cousins who lives out of the state and being told that she has some knowledge with doing video editing and especially rendering videos (although she did admit that she never used a Sony Vegas Pro before besides only using an iMovie app in her case unfortunately), I decided to take my cousin's advice over the phone to just test out my rendering process throughout the afternoon and evening by first creating a new project from my Sony Vegas Pro and make a very short video project as an experiment to see if it gets rendered faster and so it only took like a few minutes to complete it (which was a 2-minute video that had a free disk space of 66 GB and a file size of 326 MB) and then I later test out a much longer video project and so it only took like over two hours to complete it (which was over an hour long that has a free disk space of 67 GB and a file size of 9 GB) and so far they've been proving to work just fine as well as it's not over extending its file size based upon on how long the running time a video project should be. Then at 7:00pm, I decided to test out my rendering process on my movie review and see if it also works or fails (I had a feeling that it's gonna fail anyways) and so far as I expected it ended up crashing within the next nearly six hours of its processing as it crashed at around 30% as it would keep on displaying that 'VEGAS Pro has stopped working' pop up box whenever the crash occurs. (NOTE: my free disk space was at 63 GB and my file size was at 36 GB at the time)
May 4: So during the afternoon, I decided to call back my Best Buy store for the third time and ask another employee if there was another way to get my issue resolved without having to deal with contacting anymore agents and so he suggested that I should try to call them again but this time ask them to pass the phone to their supervisor so that I can ask him/her if they're able to somehow back track my data in order to get back in touch with Alvaro since he was the one who was an expert on my software as well as the one who gave me the answers to my issue before we lost contact and so when I did took his advice I wasn't able to contact their supervisor but then I was later transferred to a level 2 agent who explained to me they're not able to back track my data to any of my previous agents since my sessions with them were done at random locations as they're hard to track down by record unfortunately. However, despite him constantly interrupting me when explaining any specific details to my issue, he ended up giving me a solution out of nowhere when he said that I should install a Zip file so that I can download my entire movie review project onto that file and then let it automatically compress the whole thing before I ever render it since he thinks that would reduce my file size after explaining those details to him and so I only let him know that I have a 7-Zip file if that counts and he said that it does but since he wasn't allowed to go through it with me he decided to provide me a phone number that I can contact with to go over this instruction with them. But unfortunately, the phone number that he provided to me only ended up leading to the Sony Creative Support Team as this agent apparently didn't even bother to be more specific about who I was contacting with as I thought it was gonna give me a backup number to call a much higher level agent when he explained that I can always make a call to them anytime (more miscommunication apparently). So either way, I'm not too sure if what he was saying is legit or not but I'll reconsider that option later on if I ever end up running out of options. Then at 8:16pm, I contacted an agent name Jennie who transferred me to my next agent at 8:22pm and so I got connected with my next agent at 10:01pm name Rafael (again, I'm not sure if I'm bumping into the same people or it's just coincidentally that I'm meeting with different agents that so happen to have the same first name every time?) who decided to call me instead since we were having some disagreements with the option he was giving to me on our agent connector page for awhile and so we talked over the phone like over two hours as we were trying to figure how what would be the best solution after I repeatedly explained to him that having to contact Sony's support center was impossible since I've already done it twice with no success and so, despite him not being an expert on my software, he suggested to me that I should first get my laptop checked out by an employee at my Best Buy store somehow since they're the only ones who are able to increase both my dedicated graphics card and my RAM (as in replacing my old data card with a new one to be more specific here) as he's not able to do so legally on his part after I asked him if he could since I still don't know how to increase my RAM on my own (although the only way for them to inspect my laptop is to have them come over to my house as I just realized that for a moment but it would cost money however) and then once I'm done with that task I would later have to uninstall and then reinstall my Sony Vegas Pro 17 back onto my laptop as a way to refresh it before I test out my rendering process afterwards as my only option according to him; although I was a bit skeptical of his instruction but for now I would just give it a chance and see if he's correct eventually. Also, he decided to increase my Tune up in order to make more extra free space in my laptop just to make things a bit easier for me despite not being able to increase my RAM on the other hand. And so we disconnected at 11:58pm.
May 6: Then at around 12:07am, still out of desperation, I try to test out my rendering process again hoping that it would work this time (regardless of my RAM not being big enough however) and so it crashed again as I didn't think it would make a difference by that point as I had no other choice but to reconsider on Rafael's advices. (NOTE: my free disk space was at 81 GB and my file size was at 36 GB at the time)
May 7-8: Then at 6:35pm, I contacted an agent name Raul who transferred me to my next agent at 6:39pm and so I got connected with my next agent at around 8:14pm name Sophia who initially tried to call me over the phone twice since her phone reception was all static on her end while I was able to hear her but since she wasn't able to hear me we just decided to communicate from our chatbox instead and so after I explained everything to her in great details she tried to mess around on my laptop for a bit to figure out what she could do to help me with my case by checking out my PC application as well as checking out my task manager and even starting her verification phase of my system scan from my administrator command prompt but so far it's been confirmed that my windows resource protection didn't find any integrity violations and so she just decided to end our session and disconnect at 8:58pm after not being able to figure out how to fix my issue; although she did shared me a link to that Sony Creative Software website but obviously that wasn't an option for me. Then I later contacted an agent at 9:14pm name Rudy who decided to provide me with their 1-800 tech support phone number and so I was initially confused by this and asked her why she can't just call me instead since it would be much easier for me to explain everything to her in great details without having to repeatedly type a huge block of words explaining about my situation to every agent I contact with every time but for some reason she didn't responded back to me for the next 8 minutes 'til she explained to me that she wouldn't be able to call me since her tools weren't working due to limited resources at her home (no surprise there) and so we just decided to disconnect at 10:01pm before I contacted someone else. Then I contacted an agent at 10:03pm name Odette who also told me that she isn't able to call me from her home either as she also recommended to call their tech support phone number and so I decided to move on to a different agent who is willing to help me out for once as we disconnected at 10:06pm before I ended up contacting my next agent name Robert who also gave me the same reason as the other two previous agents (which it's kinda crazy in my opinion) due to his limited resources at home but he was still willing to try to help me out anyways regardless of his lack of experience with my software after I asked him about it but then as I was trying to wrap up with typing in my response to his question about what do I want him to know about it he just randomly decided to abruptly end our session and disconnect at around 10:35pm without even giving me a reason for why he did that to me (unless he was just being an impatient douche about it but who knows)? And then I contacted an agent at around 11pm name Shaina Andrea (like seriously...I'm starting to think that I'm contacting the same people every time) who transferred me to my next agent at 11:03pm and so this next agent would be my last one so far as I ended up contacting this agent name Alex and so far he told me that he knows all the above after asking him if (1) he has all of my data with him, (2) having any knowledge or experiences with using a Sony Vegas Pro and (3) having any knowledge with using a 7-Zip file (just in case) as it seemed to me that maybe I'll be lucky this time despite everything I've been through. So once we get started with our remote control session, he asked me to try out my rendering process while he observed (my free disk space was at 77 GB and my file size was at 36 GB at the time) before he later advised me to stop my rendering and then start rebooting my laptop after he double check any of my older notes from having a brief conversation with one of my previous agents for more info. And so once we rebooted my laptop, he also advised me that my laptop requires a minimum of 16 GB of RAM instead of just 8 GB in order to run my software more properly due to my video length or size being too long (which I believe he was referring to my file size) and this would be the reason what my rendering wasn't able to complete its task with the current amount of RAM I have on my laptop and that he recommended me to upgrade my RAM card physically by contacting my Best Buy store (to which I wasn't at all surprised when he brought up that solution that quite a few of my other agents had been recommending me so many times now). Also, before we ended our session, he finally used my Tune up to clear up more free space on my laptop afterwards and then we finally disconnected at 1:30am as he reassured me that he knows what he's talking and to just trust his word on it (to which I'm already starting to believe that this suggestion is my only final solution in this mess I'm still currently here).
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~SIGH~ Ok...so now that I finally got all of that out there in the open and I apologize if my entire complaint here was a bit too tedious and exhausting to go through all of that since having to summarize my rest of my experiences with my tech support agents for over a month can be quite hard to break it all down into smaller sections as you can understand how extremely stressful this has been for me lately, I just want to ask anyone here if you have any actual answers that would be very useful to fix my rendering issue without having the option on either having to drop off my laptop at my Best Buy store's curbside or to have one of their employees to stop by my house to check it out (which I still don't want to do since it's too expensive) during the next week? Because I can tell you right now that I seriously just want to move on and work on my other movie review projects for this year as well as dealing with other things in my life such as my social media (Facebook to be more specific), doing more drawings on DeviantArt, and especially going back to my other personal goal of going on a diet and exercise (which I'll be doing it indoors for now once this pandemic goes away).
Not only that but I want you to understand that since this is for my new job on YouTube, I need to make a lot of money from my ad revenue (Patreon) in order to support myself and as backup for my future goals in life such as getting a car someday, hoping to go to the Tokyo Summer Olympics opening ceremony next year as my golden birthday wish (which means I can have plenty of time now to save up more money for both the tickets and for the flight travels), and more importantly planning on getting transferred and enrolled into a 4-year private art college program in Minneapolis, MN but I need to have $40,000 in order to get in so that I can prepare for my future careers in both filmmaking and animation someday.
So yeah, all I'm asking here is for someone to give me a different answer to my issue so that I wouldn't have to worry about either leaving my laptop to some random employee who would mess around with it for God knows how long or to have someone visit my house and pay them a ridiculous amount to cash to them just to inspect my laptop for only 30 minutes. But then again, if what those agents are saying about having to increase both my dedicated graphics card and my RAM is true and that this would be my only best bet, then I guess I would have no other choice but to reconsider on that suggestion unless someone here has a better alternative solution instead of having to go through all of that for next week perhaps?
By the way, if anyone is curious to know, the name of my YouTube channel would be my full name and I only have like 25 videos on there (along with 7 subscribers) and so I'm pretty much just a small channel and not all that popular (yet).
Anyways, please respond and give me an answer ASAP so that I can get all of this done and over with and I also don't mind if anyone here does go along with me and exchanging instructions between each other in the comments section as I don't seem to care how long this will take since time is nothing to me by this point but it would still be great to get things done much sooner. Also, I'll definitely share you some of my pictures of my entire ordeal while we talk it out with each other for better context. Thanks for understanding.
Sincerely,
Dustin Schaefbauer
P.S.
I'm new to this community page as well as being a new temporary member on here so that I can get any answers in any way possible.