For those persons who get hung up rendering a project and feel they are stuck.: I would recommend you first do the following, close your project, reboot and restart your Vegas app. Then using some of the media assets of video, audio, create a scratch project in random order. In other words don't recreate your original project, just pull some random assets for a quickie project. Make it shorter by far than the length of your original project.

Now render your quickie! First try to render to a different type of output than you had in mind the first time, say SONY MXF. Is that successful? Then try render to your preferred format, does it work?

If you cannot pass these tests- please give us your total system specs and your render choice settings....more more info about your situation.

Recently I have had a few hangs while rendering when nothing has changed on my system.

I normally do the reboot, and re-start the render and all seems OK.

One thing, though. I render I started yesterday got to 100% but never actually seemed to finish. The countdown was at zero but the time taken was still increasing. The file size wasn't changing. The last time this happened I tried quitting Vegas but it totally crashed and I lost the complete render. This time I used the task manager to quit Vegas and the rendered file was there, complete and very playable.

I have been having random hang ups during rendering with VP12 as well. Sometimes it will just hang up, I cancel the rendering but have to shut down Vegas via the task manager. I try again and it will render. Very annoying when rendering long projects that I leave alone and get on with something else. I come back an hour later expecting it to be completed and it has hung up at 30%.

System restore didn't help. I made a quickie (30 seconds) and it worked being rendered as both sony mxf and wmv, does that mean I should try re-rendering the original again?

My normal render settings are:

Audio: CBR, Windows Media Audio 10 Professional, 160kbps, 47kHz, 2 channel 16bit (A/V) CBR

Video: CBR, Windows Media Video 9 Advanced Profile, High Definition (1440x1080), 1.333 (HD1080), 25,000 (PAL). Seconds per keyframe = 5, Overide default compression buffer is ticked and set to 3, Video smoothness set at 100.

I always reboot before rendering, I turn off the internet access and a program called 'End It All' closes down anything else it can (not AVG) and I don't use the computer while it is rendering. I'm not sure what system specs you need other than what is in my profile, please advise.

TVPC - what the test you completed tells us - is that given your system and the render settings that you used for "Quickie" your system is capable of working. Given the limitations that really huge projects with complex tracks might /or might not become a hassle.

Kill Internet acces by disconnecting your cable, then kill any virus program your running as you truly want your render machine isolated from this stuff. Turn screensaver function off and make sure you have no power plan running that allows drives, or other to sleep or hibernate. Some of that may go down into boot bios - check it!

Now, to Phase 2, Begin to parse up your project into separate saved mini-projects - say take the first 1/3 of the project, delete all events after third to end segment and try to render that into a file of its own. The the next third, and the final third. Make sure you save a backup of original project file, then save the parsed separate projects each, with unique names, and always reboot system before renders.

If your first 1/3 fails, parse that one into smaller chunk projects of say 50% each half - get to point to where you can truly isolate what hangs your original project.

How are your CPU temps? Any dust bunnies in your rig? Any case fans suddenly stop working? Have you tried running Intel Burn for, say, whatever length of time it takes to get to your project's 57% mark? I know it's basic dumb, but it's a quick check...

Ditto the dust and fluff. Arbitrary render failures, on different templates would make me at least view the inside of the pc.

Grazie

I have had the same problem since upgrading to Version 12 (both builds). I render everything to Blu-Ray (1140x1080 @29.7fps .m2v) without even as much as a hiccup. Often, my clients need a DVD as well. My system only hangs when I render to .mpg2 at 720x480 with 29.97fps/16:9 aspect. I have made scratch projects using elements of the original project, only to get the same results. I trien rendering it to an avi file at 720x480 with 16:9 aspect & it crashed doing that, as well.
Also, I have done a couple DV projects (720x480 at 4:3 aspect) and render to .mpg2 at 4:3 aspect & I have never had a problem with those renders. For me, this only happens when a render an HDV project to a 720x480ws file.

"I always reboot before rendering, I turn off the internet access and a program called 'End It All' closes down anything else it can (not AVG) and I don't use the computer while it is rendering."

Turn off AVG, it will be scanning your file while its being written. See if that helps.

Paul.

I was just preparing my reply to all the suggestions and have started the render going with the AVG resident shield turned off. When I got to the CPU temps bit, I put on PC wizard to see if that would help and it tells me my CPU temp is 98 degrees C! Something is seriously wrong there isn't it? It's a laptop, not a PC incase that's relevant?

I don't have any symptoms noted on the web so maybe the wizard is wrong?

On well, back to what I started an hour ago (current render without AVG resident shield on suggesting it will finish about an hour earlier than before, if it ever gets there).

VideoITGuy:
I’m just trying it with out the AVG running first (have turned off resident shield, hope that’s enough?) I wonder where you’re heading with the breaking down to three parts bit, I wouldn’t want to have to do that all the time ….

I have no screensaver and all energy plans are off.

I reinstalled again tonight after deleting everything with sony in from the registry but that didn’t help. I didn’t delete the other stuff like the netframework stuff and now wonder it that would make any difference?

Vtxrocketeer & Grazie:
As per post above, temps are apparently too high, I will order one of those compressed air things tomorrow to try to remove any dust. Laptop is elevated so not blocking vents, my house has no heating but the open fire does cause a lot of dust. I think the fan is still working.

Paul_w
Just trying that now, resident shield is turned off, I hope that’s enough?

Thank you all for your suggestions, they are very much appreciated (and for those who haven’t checked my profile, I’m in V10, not 12)

Edit. Running it without AVG resident shield on didn't work, still stopped at 57%; CPU usage halved and temp dropped to 64 degrees c.

Edit 2. After half an hour the CPU temp dropped below 50 so I guess (whilst I should get the air thingy), that isn't the cause of my problem? Although am looking at buying an air coolant pad for it as well ....

Holy smoke! (pun intended) Your CPU temps in the high 90's is WAY too hot. Does your laptop fan even work? That sounds very, very wrong. But I guess you know that now.

Maybe laptops can run hotter. On my aging desktop rig, I can't even crack 75*C at 100% CPU load. But if I were you and knew nothing better, I'd make sure that all ventilation works as designed.

So, you're running a Laptop. Are you running it on Battery OR Mains?

Grazie

"the open fire does cause a lot of dust"

That'll be sticky dust. A good blow out will not hurt but I think you really need to open the case up to give things a really good clean given the type of dust that could be getting in there.

Those temperature readings if correct are well into the red zone.

Bob.

Grazie: running on mains.

No. 1 Way too hot. Get those temps down.

No. 2 Check to see IF you have Power Management on. I had this with my Dell Inspiron EVEN in Mains. The power management would try to kick in and in the interim process would flummox anything going on.

Grazie

Grazie: I have power management for the battery and everything on 'never' for mains, are you suggesting I turn it all off?, I never have any obvious symptoms of power management when it's plugged in.

Bob: bearing in mind this is a laptop, should I be taking the screws out to separate the bottom from the top? I have taken the covers off the memory and HD and no obvious sign of dust there but appreciate the CPU and fan could tell a different story.


Interestingly, I tried rendering the other video over night whilst leaving it transferring 22Gb of files over the wifi network at the same time and it worked!!!!! Wouldn't usually do that but felt I had nothing to loose. The only difference with the other video is this one contains natural sound and not a music track, it's still about 10 mins long.

Could it be the first one is more power hungry and it tips the CPU temp up higher which then cuts it out? Still, funny how the second video was stopping at 57% though and now it has worked, especially with another task running at the same time.

"Bob: bearing in mind this is a laptop, should I be taking the screws out to separate the bottom from the top?"

Only if you feel comfortable doing that. Laptops in generalare no fun to get inside.

"I have taken the covers off the memory and HD and no obvious sign of dust there but appreciate the CPU and fan could tell a different story."

Having a look around in there would be a good idea if only for peace of mind.
My concern is the stuff that mostly causes reduced airflow is fluff, fibres of human hair, clothing and particles such as flakes of human skin. It tends to reduce airflow and becomes an air filter itself.

Combustion products from wood fires and cigarette smoke contain tars which are quite sticky. They could coat surfaces and increase thermal resistance between heatsinks and the air flowing over them. From my days cleaning metal speaker grills from pubs and clubs when patrons could smoke indoors, those tar deposits are quite difficult to remove. It took a fair amount of scrubbing with a solvent such as turps or kerosine to get the gunge off.

If you really do have such a problem and I'm not certain you do as you only mentioned "dust" from your open fire, doing something about it being in the air you're breathing might also be a good idea. The ash from wood fires is pretty benign, the incompletely burn stuff in the smoke is another matter.

Bob.

Thanks Bob. I managed to get 7 of the 10 screws out and prised up a little of the top but then left it. I'm going to try to find something online first about what to expect in the sense of wires connected to top and bottom so I don't force anything I shouldn't . I'm going to get the air blower and cooling base in the mean time.

Everything bad about open fires and smokers is probably true in my house so I'll say no more on that!

Edit: When referring to dust from fire, was thinking more about the cleaning out process than breathing the air when it's alight!

It seems that either everyone has run out of ideas or lost interest :(

Needless to say I have tried so many different things over the last few days which have all failed. The compressed air arrived today and the cooling mat. I sprayed the fan area and the processor vent (?) and the (3 fan) cooling mat is in place. Set to render (everything nice and quiet) but still it failed. I had tried to render the video without music or the clip it stops at when at 57% last night and it rendered fine. :(

We still couldn't believe the clip was corrupted though as we had rendered it before so my friend - the video creator and editor, dragged down the original clip from the original media (not project media) and did the colour enhancements and stabilisation as usual but added a zooming in effect this time (don't ask an exasperated me why, because I didn't dare!) but it is now rendering and on 74%! So on the assumption it works, I will be back with the link for all of you to watch it with timings for where the 57% failure clip is! I know you're not interested in it but please humour me because I can finally get it uploaded as part of a series.

I still don't really understand how we fixed it (assuming we have) BUT does the original clip shown in the Project media file differ from the original file taken off the camera?

Expect a beautiful walk along the Cornish coastpath (with music!) when I return (fingers tightly crossed!) ;)

I had same kind of issues after Window8 pro upgrade. Windows will hibernate disk after xx min if videos are located on different disk than system disk. It easy to test when you are rendering your video just by activing your disk some times.
I changed my "Turn off Hard Disk After" setting to 300 minutes from Contorl Panel -> Power Settings -> Creat a new Power Plan . After new plan -> Change plan settings -> Change advanved power Settings.