Trouble Exporting Projects - Stops Rendering At Random Points

GrantTheHierophant wrote on 11/5/2023, 3:19 PM

Hello, I am having trouble rendering a video project.

I am using Vegas 20, a clean install with no third party plugins.

The render stops randomly when I'm trying to export it. Sometimes it stops at 6%, 16%, 22%, 74%, 90%, etc. There are no special things about these locations. No special footage, no interesting cuts or memory intensive adjustments. This is just video footage with audio leveling and the occasional PNG tweening and audio file stinger to compliment a joke in the video.

Task manager open, on a later render attempt:

An earlier rendering attempt that also froze in a different place:

Current attempt as I type this (so far so good, though it is taking forever):

Sometimes it renders all the way through, but it is extremely unreliable. I would say that only happens once every ten or so tries.

This problem occurs on a few other projects of mine, as well. Usually projects that similarly used drop 60 fps footage, occasionally mixed with 24fps footage captures when referencing other materials. (e.g. Video game footage is 60 fps, whereas I might make a joke about a movie and use a clip to compliment the video, and this movie clip will be 24fps)

When I export project files, I usually just leave my computer and let it do it's thing while I do something else around the house. I am not stressing the computer in any fashion.

The workaround I used for the last export in this series was opening a new project and importing the .veg file of the last project, then rendering that. I have had mixed results, but it worked last time. I am currently trying that again for this export as I type this.

Usually when I render, I will shut off most other programs that consume CPU or GPU, like Discord or Steam.

The video footage is VFR, but I've also tried reformatting it to a solid, fixed drop 60 and this did not help at all. The same rendering problem occurs when I swap out the footage.

It is infuriating me to no end.

Also Vegas Pro crashes a lot. But I cannot tell if this is normal. It happened regularly when I used 13, 14, 16, and still happens regularly with 20. I will play a clip and the video preview will freeze, and then when I stop the playback it will freeze and not recover, leading to a force-close every time. This happens on every single project I've ever edited across two computers. I am unsure what is causing it, but would this be a factor in my render stopping on exports?

I am exporting onto my D: drive, the HDD that also houses all footage I use in projects. It is 6TB and has a 5400rpm as a result (slow spin).

PC specs:
- AMD Ryzen 5 5600G
- ASUS Nvidia 3070ti Graphics Card
- 64GB DDR4 Ram
- 500GB NVMe M.2 - Vegas 20 is installed on this / This is the boot drive for the computer
- 6TB 5400rpm HDD - Source of video files
- Running Windows 11 - 64 bit

I am running a clean install of Vegas 20.

In my video preferences tab, I have 39192 MB devoted to the dynamic RAM preview max. Even if I reduce this to 8,000 MB the problems still occur. Yes I have also tried setting it to 0 MB. No it didn't fix anything. I also have GPU acceleration turned on (don't worry I've tried turning this off, it changed nothing, it is not the solution to my problem).

Things I have tried already:
- Enabling / Disabling GPU acceleration
- Changing the playback preview quality (it still stutters, freezes, and crashes even on Quarter Draft settings)
- Disabling the preview window when rendering (changes nothing on my PC, export stats like 'Average Speed:' and 'CPU Usage:' stay the same)
- Disabling "Enable So4 Compound Reader for AVC/M2TS" in the Internal tab
- Disabling "Enable OpenCL/GL Interop" in the Internal tab
- Disabling "Enable multi-core rendering for playback" in the Internal tab
- Creating video proxies for files in use / library
- Closing all other applications while using Vegas Pro 20, including File Explorers and Chrome
- Keeping projects smaller (Most of my projects are long-form, 10-120 minute long videos. In this particular case, it is about 13 minutes long)
- Reinstalling Vegas Pro 20 (this is usually the go-to, no it does not work)
- Resetting Vegas Pro 20 preference settings (see also 'Reinstalling...')
- Updating my graphics card drivers
- Updating my OS
- Freeing up space on the M.2 and HDD. The HDD has 1776 GB free still. This did nothing.
- Using task manager to set affinity for Vegas 20 so it uses less CPU cores
- Going back to Vegas 16 (This did not work and has never worked, don't even start with this)(I upgraded to Vegas 20 thinking it would help, it did not)
- Setting priority of Vegas 20 to high
- Running Vegas 20 in administrator mode
- Importing the .veg file into a new project and exporting from there (Mixed results, sometimes works? Not the best solution, would prefer something more solid and less ephemeral)
- Changing the name of the exports (i.e. instead of "TwoBlobsPlay_Kirby64_03" it would be something like "TwoBlobsPlayKirby643"), (or instead of overwriting the previous file from a failed attempt, I would name it something else instead to create a new .mp4 file)
- Tried rendering with a CPU powered export
- Tried rendering with a GPU powered export
- Tried rendering at drop 30 instead of drop 60 / Tried rendering at 60 solid instead of drop 60 as well
- Crying

I don't understand what is going on. I'm currently looking into my hardware (my RAM and my Mobo) to see if they're contributing to this. I'm am frustrated and at the end of my rope. In the future, I will also try exporting to my C: instead of my D:, but I don't have much room on my boot for this kind of stuff.

Comments

Former user wrote on 11/5/2023, 3:31 PM

@GrantTheHierophant Have you tried creating a copy of your project & all associated files, pasting those onto your main NVMe M.2 drive, then run/render your project solely from that M.2 drive? That way you're taking your HDD drive out of the equation.

To create your video info needs to be gathered from your D-drive & then written back onto that D-drive -

Google -

"When moving big files, HDDs can copy 30 to 150 MB per second (MB/s), while standard SATA SSDs perform the same action at speeds of 500 MB/s. Newer NVMe SSDs can get up to astounding speeds: 3,000 to 3,500 MB/s.When moving big files, HDDs can copy 30 to 150 MB per second (MB/s), while standard SATA SSDs perform the same action at speeds of 500 MB/s. Newer NVMe SSDs can get up to astounding speeds: 3,000 to 3,500 MB/s."

GrantTheHierophant wrote on 11/5/2023, 3:49 PM

@GrantTheHierophant Have you tried creating a copy of your project & all associated files, pasting those onto your main NVMe M.2 drive, then run/render your project solely from that M.2 drive? That way you're taking your HDD drive out of the equation.

--

To create your video info needs to be gathered from your D-drive & then written back onto that D-drive -

Google -

"When moving big files, HDDs can copy 30 to 150 MB per second (MB/s), while standard SATA SSDs perform the same action at speeds of 500 MB/s. Newer NVMe SSDs can get up to astounding speeds: 3,000 to 3,500 MB/s.When moving big files, HDDs can copy 30 to 150 MB per second (MB/s), while standard SATA SSDs perform the same action at speeds of 500 MB/s. Newer NVMe SSDs can get up to astounding speeds: 3,000 to 3,500 MB/s."

I suppose I could try but that does not seem like a good solution. There is not a lot of space on my C: drive (190ish GB until full), and most of my projects contain quite a lot of different files off of my 6TB D:. I keep most things in my Video Projects folder on my D:, which also contains all my sound effects libraries, my video files that I use for jokes in my videos, and images that are similarly used. The "Video Projects" folder alone is about 2TB of material.

Though, I do not use it all at once, obviously, it is still not prime. Some of my projects have video files that are up to 10GB, footage of games that are 6 hours in length for example. And this is on top of the other clips, images, and sounds that I add to the timeline over my footage. Some of my projects are an hour long, and require all sorts of materials from all over my D: drive. I cannot afford to copy-paste-export-delete for every single project I work on.

I have tried installing Vegas 14 in the past to my D: and had trouble with plugins that come with the software (empty FX libraries). Would installing Vegas to my D: work in my favor?

I also have a second NVMe (2TB) that I use to store my video games on, and that occasionally has more space (and I can always clear space on it) than my boot drive. Would it help to install Vegas onto that, and then move all my important project files to the E: as well? I still don't see this is the best case scenario, but if it helps I can give it a try. I'm not sure if it's more important that I put it on an NVMe or that it remains on the C: drive, which is what I assume was the intent for a video editing program like this.

Can I keep Vegas on my C: and work off of my E:? Would that help?

GrantTheHierophant wrote on 11/5/2023, 3:56 PM

Not to mention that this would be bad for archiving purposes. I like to be able to go back to old projects and muck around whenever needed. Changing file locations and having to reconnect them each time makes it futile.

Former user wrote on 11/5/2023, 4:56 PM

Would installing Vegas to my D: work in my favor?

No, I would suspect quite the opposite, you've already got a bottleneck with your media passage to the HHD, adding Vegas to that workload wouldn't be good. Don't forget even though your files & Vegas would be on the same drive all info still needs to pass through your CPU, GPU, RAM...

I also have a second NVMe (2TB) that I use to store my video games on, and that occasionally has more space (and I can always clear space on it) than my boot drive. Would it help to install Vegas onto that

Keep Vegas on the C drive.

I understand moving all files would be difficult, perhaps just try rendering to a different M.2 instead, that way info is only coming out/read from your D drive & is being written to a fast M.2 drive,

..................

I have two fast M.2 drives (specs in Signature), one is for Windows & programs, the other is for temp project files where i also render to. I have other SSDs which have an assortment of media etc.. & a couple of 12TB HHD which i use solely for archiving. If i wanted to work on one of those archived vids I'd copy it to a faster drive.

EricLNZ wrote on 11/5/2023, 6:56 PM

@GrantTheHierophant You don't say (unless I've missed it) what exactly happens when your rendering fails. Does your system shut down or just Vegas freeze or crash or shut itself down?

I've read many times that you should read your source files on one drive and write to another. So @Former user's suggestion that you try rendering to a different M.2 instead is what I'd do.