Vegas 9.0 64bit "Not Responding"

kosstheory wrote on 1/12/2010, 11:47 AM
I recently upgraded to Vista Ultimate 64, because I'd heard from a reliable source that most of the bugs had been worked out in both Sony Vegas 64 and Vista 64. So, far I have been enjoying the increased performance, but I've run into a few snags, so I'm not quite yet ready to go to accounting and ask them to pay for a full retail version.

Has anyone else had this problem where Vegas will frequently hang, and say that it's "Not Responding"? I never really had this problem running 32 bit Vegas on Windows XP64, but it happens all of the time now on Vista 64 and Vegas 64. IT will just hang until I choose to close the program and restart.

I thought it might be a permissions issue, so I set vegas to always run as administrator, but this hasn't helped.

Furthermore, now, seemingly after changing the program to run as administrator, I can't drag media from a folder onto the timeline, even if it's a supported format, like a wav file or jpg.

As it stands, I'm not sure that the net increase in productivity is any better than when Vegas 32 ran solidly on XP 64, because I have to keep stopping and restarting, sometimes losing a little progress in the process.

Has anyone else seen this?

I'm seriously considering upgrading to vegas 64 bit, but not until I'm certain this isn't a systemic problem that cannot be resolved.

Thanks

EDIT: I wanted to add that right now I have to either use the explorer from within vegas or add media through the file menu to add media to the timeline.

Comments

TeetimeNC wrote on 1/12/2010, 12:29 PM
Since going to Vegas 9c (from 9b) I find Vegas 64 to be much less stable on my Vista Home Premium 64 bit. This is especially true if I am working with AVCHD footage. With Vegas 64 I get frequent "Not Responding"s followed by freeze up, and red frames on the timeline.

Jerry
kosstheory wrote on 1/12/2010, 3:11 PM
Update:

I think I've stumbled onto a clue.

I've noticed that the problem seems to occur when I try to perform another action while Vegas is trying to stabilize the playback in the preview window.

For instance; if I try to start playback and then pause it before the fps in the preview window has stopped ramping up to the playback rate. It usually takes about a second for Vegas to ramp up the preview playback, and once it has the app won't go into a "not responding" state.

Unfortunately, this severely hinders my ability to edit voice over audio, as many times you just want to here a syllable or two for syncing purposes, then shift accordingly, and replay for accuracy.

Now, the question is, what is causing Vegas to ramp up to the playback value, and what is it doing during this time; what is it accessing that is causing the fault; hard drives, memory, processor, audio/video drivers. Something is screwy in the implementation on 64 bit systems that didn't cause problems on 32 bit systems. I've been editing like this using Vegas for years now, and this just became a problem. Keep in mind, this is pretty much the exact same system, just a different OS and 64 bit version of Vegas.

I repeat, if I wait until the preview is rock solid at the project frame rate, the system will not go into a "Not Responding" status, hang, and eventually crash.

So, what's up?

@Jerry:

That doesn't make any sense at all. Things should get better as you update, not worse. I'm starting to think that maybe Vegas' coding doesn't account for some of the advanced features of Vista 64, like superfetch, and indexing, and something is conflicting there, or the way the 64 bit version is written to handle memory and drive access isn't jiving with vista.

Surely more than two people have had this problem?

Please, any input is helpful here. Even if it doesn't come from Sony. Bob? You usually have some helpful hints.

Thanks
SonyMLogan wrote on 1/12/2010, 3:22 PM
kosstheory:

Could you update your system specs? That information helps us narrow down the problem and gives you a greater chance of creating a fix, or at least a workaround.

Thanks,

- Matt
VanLazarus wrote on 1/12/2010, 3:32 PM
My problem with Vegas going unresponsive was solved by installing the latest motherboard drivers for my computer. It seems that "generic" SATA drivers from Windows 7 were causing my 2 1.5 TB hard drives to stall for up to 30 seconds at a time, freezing Vegas. Once I updated to the latest drivers, Vegas runs fine.
kosstheory wrote on 1/12/2010, 3:39 PM
Good call, Van. That makes a lot of sense, and seems to fall in line with what I've been seeing.

Unfortunately, there is no update for this board. It's an ASUS PW5B-LA, made special for HP, that has very little support. I still have the same drives and video card, however. I'm willing to bet that the SATA drivers might be the problem.

Another update:

With UAC enabled, I cannot drag and drop from windows explorer or folders tot he timeline, even when running as administrator. With UAC disabled I can. Looks like Vegas' handling of permissions is definitely at fault where dragging and dropping is concerned, right? To be clear, I started trying to run Vegas 64 as Administrator to see if that was causing my problems with "Not Responding," which led to my discovery that it causes vegas to prevent dragging and dropping. If I run it regularly, not as admin, I have no issues dragging and dropping, but why would the admin not be able to use this functionality?
kosstheory wrote on 1/13/2010, 4:01 AM
Update:

I was finally able to edit for a few hours straight without the "Not Responding" error.

I think I stumbled onto the problem quite by chance.

In an effort to reduce processing load, I turned off most of the A/V effects while I was doing the edit. I had been applying some audio compression, some color correction, and brightness, and I was using a plugin made by Izotope called Ozone, as a mastering effect.

Like I said, everything ran just fine without those on, so I'm leaning toward Ozone as the culprit, though I haven't had time to test out this theory properly yet.

This is the latest version of Ozone, 4.0 , and I've never had a problem with older versions, but I think that this might be the first version written with a 64 bit architecture, and it seems there may be something rank going on when Vegas needs to communicate with it.

I'll let you all know what I find.
farss wrote on 1/13/2010, 4:31 AM
"Bob? You usually have some helpful hints."

Pardon my tardy reply.
Firstly I'm running Vegas 9.0c under WinXP 32bit and I can provoke the same problem. I'd suggest you try reducing the amout of preview RAM.
Also as you've noted you just have to be patient with V9. If you start trying to make it respond when it is busy doing something else you seem to increase the risk of something going awry or getting it completely locked up. Then you may have to wait a while Windows does something like prepares it's fault log.

Bob.
pavlas_petr@centrum.cz wrote on 1/13/2010, 1:47 PM
Today I did my first succesfull rendering into MPEG2SD!
I have PC 64 bit, Win 7. Used to have two Vegas (64+32) and also Sound Forge and DVD Architect on it at the same time. I never was succesfull to render into MPEG2SD, it always stopped, froze, only shot down CTRL+AL+DEL worked to bring my computer to cancel the Vegas 9.0 c Pro.
Today i finally followed the instructions from Sony and UNINSTALLED ALL SONY PROGRAMMES EXACTLY ACCORDING TO THE FOLLOWING LINK and it is working now! I better installed only the 32 bit version after that.
http://www.custcenter.com/cgi-bin/sonypictures.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=4844&p_created=1259016132

TRY THIS PROCEDURE AND LET US KNOW IF IT HELPS TO SOMYBODY.
kosstheory wrote on 1/17/2010, 10:23 AM
The Ozone 4.0 64bit plugin was the problem without a doubt. I haven't yet had an opportunity to roll back to the 3.0 version to see if it's just the 64bit 4.0 version, but I have managed to edit with any problems when that plugin is not being used, and so far Vegas 9.0 64bit is rock solid. I've also noticed performance increases, probably due mainly tot he 64bit bandwidth, as the hardware hasn't been changed.

I'll update when I determine if the 32 bit version of Ozone 4.0 or the 32 bit vesion works with Vegas 9.0 64bit. I'm obviously hoping that the 64bit version of Ozone is the problem, as it really is an invaluable audio mastering tool that I have used extensively at the station.

Now, to convince the accounting department to buy Vegas 64bit!