Random Crashing/auto close while rendering (v8.0c)

Murgs001 wrote on 5/2/2009, 4:16 PM
Hi all, I'm really hoping someone is able to assist - I've searched this site and tried Googling, but haven't been able to see a solution anywhere.

I've been having incredible frustrations trying to get Vegas to render anything longer than a few seconds at the moment, with the software randomly crashing out (it definitely appears to be random, crashing at different % and frame number each time). Last night I kicked off 2 attempts overnight, and each time I came back to find the app had closed itself. I watched it run this mornig and stared at task manager, and the behaviour seems to be that the CPU activity at some point just drops to zero, even though the software status continues to tick away. I didn't wait more than that this time.

Event viewer shows just 1 'Error' entry which might be related:

FileMgr::StartLogFiles: Operating system error 2(The system cannot find the file specified.) occurred while creating or opening file 'C:\Documents and Settings\Sanford Tong\My Documents\Sony Media Libraries\Default_log.LDF'. Diagnose and correct the operating system error, and retry the operation.

(Note: I checked - this file does exist. Perhaps there is a corruption? How can I repair this if so?)

In general, I'm running XP SP3, Intel Q9400 Quad CPU, 4GB RAM, 8800GTS based vid card.

Media is generally a combination of .mt2 and wmv, 1440x1080 (HDV), mp3, wav.
Plugins used other than those that come with Vegas include Izotope Ozone 3 (VST), Sonitus audio plugins, Magic Bullet Looks (all fully registered versions)

Given the poor stability, I'm at a point of considering rendering a tiny piece at a time. However I wonder about the feasibility of sustaining with this platform if it crashes this often? It's a shame since I've always found Vegas very easy to use, but the amount of acrobatics I need to perform to make it work at the moment is incredibly frustrating!

If you have a few things for me to try, that would be wonderful and very much appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Regards,
Sanford.

Comments

TheHappyFriar wrote on 5/2/2009, 4:52 PM
try turning off all plugins/fx & see how it works then.

Also try rendering half, then half, then half, etc. until it stops crashing. Could be it's running out of memory.
blink3times wrote on 5/2/2009, 9:28 PM
You can try this work around. Quite a few seem to have cleared up the render crashing with it.

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=648152
farss wrote on 5/2/2009, 9:35 PM
I'd be more inclined to suspect some form of hardware / driver issue related to the use of the Magic Bullet plugins. It's crashing too quickly I think for it to be running out of RAM.

Bob.
Murgs001 wrote on 5/3/2009, 12:06 AM
Hi there - thanks for the responses so far. I will try out CFF explorer tonight and see whether that helps. Unless it's to do with something not supporting beyond 2GB (which it sounds like this tool is meant to address), it shouldn't be a RAM issue, since Task Manager was still reporting around 2GB free. Perhaps the fact that it didn't drop below that by much is a clue that we may be on the right track.

Thanks again for everyone's contribution - I will let you know what happens. Need to head off to a film shoot now.

Regards,
Sanford.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 5/3/2009, 6:37 AM
HD is what brought up the RAM issue from me. I've had that happen.

but it's not with the amount free, it's the amount Vegas uses. Once is reaches point X it runs out & can crash.
blink3times wrote on 5/3/2009, 7:32 AM
I'm not so sure that's true happy (or Bob). I have lots of ram, but was still receiving lots of seemingly random crashes with avchd. Sometimes an hour into the render and sometimes right off the starting line. raising the 2 gig flag has solved it.

None the less, it could well be timeline related (some plugin doing the crashing)..... time will tell I guess.
Murgs001 wrote on 5/3/2009, 2:51 PM
Hi everyone,

Unfortunately I don't think this has worked. I installed CFF explorer and set everything as advised. The 2 minute track got much further this time (around 87%), but then pretty much sat there for the next 4 1/2 hours without progressing further.

I tried to kick it off again this morning, selecting only the first 30 secs or so, and Vegas self-closed after 25 frames...

I'll try disabling MB Looks and see if that helps...any other ideas? Note that I did not set any dlls related to MB looks. I wonder if that might help?

Regards,
Sanford.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 5/3/2009, 3:03 PM
I'm not so sure that's true happy (or Bob). I have lots of ram, but was still receiving lots of seemingly random crashes with avchd. Sometimes an hour into the render and sometimes right off the starting line. raising the 2 gig flag has solved it.

yeah, it's not how much you have but when vegas can't use any more. That's separate of how much you have. It's between 2.5-4gb, I forget.
farss wrote on 5/3/2009, 3:15 PM
Going back and reading the OP this is not a typical crash at all. I cannot find out what a ".LDF" file is or might be. I did find that Infraview uses a .LDF file extension, cannot imagine why it's creating a log file that cannot be accessed.
Could it be that Murgs is running the Media Manager and that's what's causing the problem?

Bob.
MarkHolmes wrote on 5/3/2009, 10:34 PM
I have had very similar problems and also run the 8800 gts. Maybe I should try switching out the video card...
Murgs001 wrote on 5/4/2009, 4:37 AM
Hi all,

With further experimentation, I've found that it is much more reliable rendering 720p. It's pretty hopeless at 1080p (HDV, not full).

I guess I might need to live with that for now, unless there's anything else obvious that I might be able to try. I wonder if it's any more stable running a 64-bit OS with more addressable RAM?

Thanks for everyone's input so far.

Regards,
Sanford.
farss wrote on 5/4/2009, 4:51 AM
If that's making a difference then I'd suggest you try Blink's idea of increasing the amount of RAM Vegas will use.

Bob.