I would check your cpu fan and temp. The 2.8 will run very warm during
render and if it hits 167F it dumps off and stops everything. This problem
will only happen during render as rendering will max your cpu output.
Open up your monitoring circuit for the fans and cpu temp and watch it
while you render. If you are in hyperthreading it will run even hotter. If
it runs too hot get a new fan and heat sink with a 6000 rpm fan. The stock
fan is 3000 rpm. I had to do this with my P4 2.8.

JJK

You could, if needed - render the file into two smaller files (or three even) - and then use a file joiner program (after the fact) to join them up.

You would have to be sure to start the render of the second file one frame after the first so as to line up - but that's easy enough to do.

Thanks so far everyone. Unfortunately I don't think any of the those are the problem (CPU temp) or solution (render multiple files). The CPU is at about 120F (49C), which is a little warm but not crazy at all. And as for rendering multiple files then rejoining them, can you do that with MPEG 2 files? Regardless, that wouldn't help with the disappearing Vegas Capture.

INFMAN, I can't start from scratch because it's just too big and complicated. There are close to 300 sound files and maybe 150 or so video files, not many transitions (a few dissolves and fades) but each clip has color correcting and sound equalizing. There are about 3 tracks of video and 7 tracks of sound. I certainly wouldn't even consider attempting to start from scratch knowing that that might not even solve the problem.

And by the way, when rendering I close all other apps, including e-mail (except this time). I also tried someone's suggestion, on a different thread, of turning off the preview while rendering, but that didn't help.

By the way, even with a project that big, Vegas is only using 136mb while rendering. That's pretty darned efficient.

One more thing, Vegas does its disappearing act when I render the AC3 file too (right now it's just stereo, for what it's worth). So that's 3 file formats that it does it for, AC3, AVI, and MPG2.

Anyone have any more suggestions for me?

Thanks again,
Fred

You didn't say if or not it crashes at the SAME point or different places. If the former, likely a corrupt track or file. You'll have to hunt it down. If it just crashes all over the place, and you're sure it isn't your hardware, there is a way. BillyBoy ALWAYS finds a way but sometimes the solution is a little off the wall like the following. <wink>

Render in sections as print to tape using DV AVI. Do it in small bits maybe 15-20 minutes each. The advantage is you'll slowly get done and since there's no quality loss you can put humpty dumpty back together again. Also you don't have to redo, which for that size a project and complexity would be nearly impossible to duplicate exactly. The idea is at some point as each section renders when you get ready to put it all back together, the VEG file will be tiny since you're not asking Vegas to do anything but render... so minimial strain and caculations and that render once you get there (the big final one once each section is rendered) will fly.

So render the first 20 minutes to DV tape. Render OK? Then do the next 20 minutes and so on. Once done, drop A-B-C, etc. on timeline and it should render very fast the second time. I doubt Vegas will hang the second time, if it does it probably was a corrupt file all along.

It maybe that the changes made in 4d have just pushed something over the edge in your PC.

I'm no expert in this area and it does seem very odd that the OS is not flagging an error of any kind. Does it crash at the same place?

Also can I make a suggestion. It's probably not going to be a lot of help at this juncture but for the future. If you've got a lot happening then wht I tend to do is rende sections that need no further work to new files. There's no quality downside to that and it cuts final render times down no end.

One of the frustrations I find with all NLEs is if I prerender a section I've only got to move it one frame on th timeline and it needs to be renderrd again. VV seems a bit better at this than Premiere was though.

One other suggestion I just thought of.

You've got quite a bit of memory in your PC. Most apps will not be using much of it. This is just a guess but I've seen this happen on other systems. A block of memory that's not used normally develops a fault but you never see it because nothing is using it. Then you run something that does and it prangs.

Might be worthwhile getting a good memory tester and running that.

have you ever ran a file that big? starting over was the only way that fixed my problem on a much slower system...its very tedious..and damn ..I know your project is much bigger than any project I have done in vegas,

keep the original and try other remedies, at the same time try to build up a new project just in case its the only option

(General response to several replies...)

It doesn't crash in even remotely the same place each time. Earlier today it crashed after a couple of hours, and most recently it crashed after 7 hours, with just 19 minutes left! :-(

I think it's Vegas 4 in general, not specifically "d" that's the problem. I've had problems with other builds, but never in 3.0, which is where I did most work before. (And I can't go back to 3 with this project.)

I guess I can render sections and then combine them, but that means I have to give up a whole day to do it-- I can't just let it render over night, I have to be there to start different sections of it. And then I have to re-render the whole thing as an MPEG 2 so I can burn the DVD, instead of just rendering to that in the first place. So instead of 7 hours it'll take double that.

While the work around works in this case, I'd much rather have the problem actually solved-- I can't keep spending 14 or more hours every time I want to make a test DVD.

As for RAM, I've run memory checking software a few times and it all checks out OK. And while Vegas doesn't use all the RAM, the rendering for the visual effects uses that and more, so if the problem was RAM, those renders would crash, but they don't.

The problem must be in Vegas, and it's not likely to be in my project. If it was, that wouldn't explain why the Capture part of the software crashes too (or rather, just disappears).

As far as I know there isn't a whole lot in common between VV capture and VV itself, no doubt they share some dlls. i wonder if that is a clue.

Any thing else installed before you started having this problem?

You could copy the project and all its media files off to another HD, reload Windoz etc and do a very clean VV install, that may cure the problem.

Have you checked the system error log to see if Windoz ever flagged some related error?

It could be a Vegas problem ofcourse. But suddenly dissapearing might
indeed suggest some faulting hardware. Another thing might be a Virus.

Otherwise the best thing you can try is see if you can load & render the
project on a clean install of both Windows & Vegas.

A bad sector on a harddisk can have such random "errors" as well. Or
output size might get too big if your running of FAT drives (although that
should happen in the exact same spot)

Did you try contacting Sonic Foundry on this? Perhaps they can work with
you with a debug built or something to nail down the problem.

Screensaver kicking in perhaps?

One other thing you might check is the event log in the tools section and
double click on the event that failed at the approximate time. You should
see a whole series of failed events. This might vector you in to the
problem. One other note: You must monitor cpu temp during the render
as if it is just after the render the cpu temp will cool down 40 degrees
in a few seconds.

JJK

Well...I can't add anymore than has already been added - except this.

You know it is possible to open more than one instance of VV - and have each of those instances doing their own rendering.

I've done that in the past....had two different renderings going on at the same time.

It is CPU intensive, to say the least, but....I got both projects done in the time that it would have taken to do only one. Couldn't use the PC for anything else...but I was sleep anyway.

Best O'luck.