Vegas has stopped! - Ah? not so??

ritsmer wrote on 6/7/2017, 6:28 AM

Lately I have had a really annoying number of the "Vegas has stopped" message.

I have written about it before (Vegas dies all by itself) because I think that it is a kind of fake/wrong message:

1) If I start Vegas with an old project and leave it 100% alone - then - after some time the "Vegas has stopped" message pops up.

2) Other times i.e. I do a preview and Vegas plays the timeline - then the "Vegas has stopped" message pops up - but the preview happily just continues playing the timeline - indicating that Vegas has not stopped for good...

After having done not much else than programming computers since 1969 (and still doing) I get the feeling that Vegas actually has NOT stopped when the message pops up - what has happened is that there is an error in the routines trying to detect when Vegas really has stopped. Probably these things are programmed by sending messages from one thread to another - which often gives troubles (even if it looks so nice and easy in the theory) - but it really should be checked by Magix.

Right now I get this error every 5-10 minutes of editing (or just by doing nothing at all :- )) - and even if I save -and save -and save all the time it is not so much fun as it used to be...

Comments

james-ollick wrote on 6/7/2017, 2:53 PM

It might help others to help you if you post the Version and Build Number. I have an occasional Vegas 14 Pro Build 252 crash but thankfully they are few and far between.

ritsmer wrote on 6/8/2017, 1:38 AM

Ah, sorry - thinking no need to report issues with earlier versions I did not add that info - but: V14 Pro B252.

ritsmer wrote on 3/20/2018, 6:48 AM

Now installed V15 Pro latest build 321.

Got the Vegas stopped working some 5 times within 30 minutes.

* One time I just opened a new Vegas instance and dropped 1 (one) single clip on the TL - then previewed the clip and then: Vegas stopped working.

Incredible that Vegas stops working even without any editing done.

* Another time I opened a new Vegas instance and dropped 3 clips on the TL, previewed them and then did absolutely no nothing for 5 minutes - and - all by itself - Vegas stopped working.

Incredible that Vegas stops working all by itself when no editing has been done at all to the TL and Vegas is not touched at all for 5 minutes.

I did submit the 5 Vegas stopped working data.

All the clips used are mp4 50Fps, 1920x1080p, 60 Mbps (var), High @L4.2 clips from a healthy SONY AX33 camera.

Having done nothing but computer programming for 40 years I think that such an extreme and severe error should get TOP A 1 priority - but I have reported this error so many times for more than a year now so hope is not high anymore.

PS: While writing this I just now got yet another Vegas stopped working - again from an untouched Vegas program.

Edit 1: 1 hour later: still getting the "Vegas stopped working" - the last time I opened a new Vegas instance, dropped a single .png (a snapshot from another Vegas instance) onto the TL - and after a short while: yet another Vegas stopped working.

Only 1 (one) unedited .png on the TL. It seems that the first Vegas instance I start mostly runs without problems - but as soon as I start further instances the Vegas stopped working thing begins....

Edit 2: Just for fun I started an instance of Vegas and then did nothing - did not even add a TL. Vegas was totally 100% empty - after some minutes I got the usual "Vegas stopped working".

A new Vegas instance with not even a TL, no clips, absolutely nothing - crashes all by itself. Astonishing.

Edit 3: Got another "Vegas stopped working". It seems that Vegas can run max. about 10 minutes - then it crashes. Again and again and ...

If anyone from programming would care to look at all the "Vegas stopped working" data I have sent in today it should be easy to improve this extremely severe error - but again - I said that long time ago too - but after several updates Vegas still crashes all by itself.

How can I do my editing work? Oh, easy - after each and every change I save and save and save. But this intense crashing slowly spoils my concentration...

Edit 4: yet another "Vegas stopped working" - This time again after a few minutes. Only 2 .png's on the TL.

Musicvid wrote on 3/20/2018, 11:46 AM

A long shot, but have you checked your virtual memory (disk cache) settings?

Wolfgang S. wrote on 3/20/2018, 11:58 AM

What about your PC specifications?

Have you enabled GPU acceleration? What GPU is used? Driverversion?

wwjd wrote on 3/20/2018, 1:13 PM

try this: https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/avc-xavc-s-issues-in-vp15-try-disabling-so4compoundplug-dll--108345/

I didnt think I needed it either, but it fixed everything for me.

Side note: seems like when I let vegas just sit there doing absolutely nothing - go away to dinner, come back later - or half a day later - it just crashes. Even did that one day when I left it up in the background and did some surfing for a while. I swapped back over to vegas, and while just staring at it, it tanked right in front of me. And I hadn't even touched it yet. I haven't had time to recreate THIS issue yet, just posting in case it is similar.

ritsmer wrote on 3/21/2018, 4:10 AM

@Musicvid My RAM is 16 GB and the Paging file in 12 GB on a fast SSD disk (not the C: drive)

@Wolfgang S. PC is Intel i7 4930 6 core not O/C'ed on a MSI military grade GD45 MoBo. Win 10 Pro 64bit last update - but have had the "Vegas stopped" issue many times with earlier versions. GPU RX480 not enabled. Driver version right now 13.3.2 but the error has appeared with several earlier driver versions too.

@wwjd So4compoundplug was disabled. Thank you so much for telling that you also have experienced the "Vegas stops working all by itself" - error. So it appears not only on my machine but could be a general error.

PS: Yesterday after the last post edit I rebooted the machine several times - but still got the "Vegas stopped working".

Then I have reset Vegas and have entered all my usual settings incl GPU disable and So4compoundplug disable - and since then I have had 2 instances of Vegas running a few hours without a "Vegas stopped working". Now hoping to be able to go on with the editing work.

PPS: There are some issues in the Vegas programming code where data belonging to one part can be changed/overwritten by other parts of Vegas. This is clearly seen i.e. when you use the Vegas legacy text generator. If you make a text with this generator and then changes other parts of the TL then it sometimes happens that the frame size of this text is changed to 8 x 8 and the duration to 0. I have seen it and reported it a few times - but it still happened again with V15 here a few days ago - and it is a clear proof that some data are wrongly overwritten by some erroneous programming code in Vegas.

ritsmer wrote on 4/4/2018, 10:17 AM

Have been happily away from editing a few days.

Started Vegas an hour ago - and since had "Vegas stopped working" about every 7+ minutes or so.

About 15 minutes ago I started Vegas again - but did not load a project, or did anything at all - just waited.

About 7 minutes later I got the "Vegas stopped working" quite as expected - you can see it here below - the empty instance of Vegas - left totally alone - giving the "Vegas stopped working" message:

I do not know if anybody at Magix cares - I never got any reply even after hundreds of Vegas stopped messages - but at least here is a picture as evidence.

EDIT: Just started Vegas one more time. Left it totally untouched - after a few minutes the usual "Vegas stopped working" popped up again:

NickHope wrote on 4/4/2018, 11:59 AM

Something very strange going on there if that happens with an empty project, and if you've updated to build 321 which was supposed to fix the main cause of that type of behaviour.

I do not know if anybody at Magix cares - I never got any reply even after hundreds of Vegas stopped messages - but at least here is a picture as evidence.

If that means you've been "Sending" error reports with the expectation that they actually go anywhere, you can save your effort.

ritsmer wrote on 4/4/2018, 3:45 PM

Something very strange going on there if that happens with an empty project, and if you've updated to build 321 which was supposed to fix the main cause of that type of behaviour.

build 321 it is:

S04 is disabled - even if that should not have influence om an empty Vegas.

As to the "sending" error reports you are right - but when a software company gets such big amount of similar error reports "somebody" ought to get alerted.

I have also earlier reported the "Vegas stopped working" error with an empty Vegas.

As I have to get my editing work done - and being left 100% alone with the problem - I have ordered a new graphics card just to try to change from AMD to NVIDIA.

Maybe it helps - maybe the money is lost - but I do not have other ideas.

Of course I will uninstall all AMD drivers by a special program before powering down the machine and change the cards. Let's see.

john_dennis wrote on 4/4/2018, 3:59 PM

1) Has it failed the same way on different hardware machines?

2) Different Operating Systems?

3) Have you looked at Windows Power Settings? The default High Performance settings still allow disks to spin down and other obnoxious things.

OldSmoke wrote on 4/4/2018, 4:50 PM

1) Has it failed the same way on different hardware machines?

2) Different Operating Systems?

3) Have you looked at Windows Power Settings? The default High Performance settings still allow disks to spin down and other obnoxious things.

I would also include AV software in my check list.

ritsmer wrote on 4/5/2018, 2:56 AM

1) Has it failed the same way on different hardware machines?

2) Different Operating Systems?

3) Have you looked at Windows Power Settings? The default High Performance settings still allow disks to spin down and other obnoxious things.

Thank you @john-dennis for good ideas - but:

1) With 10-20 "Vegas stopped working every day" I do not have any time left to try to Beta-test that program - I mean besides trying to get my editing work done.

2) I do own a Windows 8 machine - but see 1).

3) Yes have checked - but they are OK. I have been doing not much than computers since 1970 (no joke) - and Vegas just stops working while I am working with i.e. Word, email etc. - so there is no power down anyway.

I would also include AV software in my check list.

Good idea too, but Vegas stops working when no other programs than Vegas itself plus maybe Word or Outlook are running. AND note that Vegas stops running when it is started and no projects are loaded and there is even NO timeline NO tracks NO nothing NOT even the Help button touched :) - so the issue should not be problems with access to my SSD disks (for media and Windows) etc.

BTW: My hardware is kept as "clean" as possible - disks are only attached via the Mobo controller and there are no other cards or controllers installed. And even if the CPU is NOT OC'ed it has a solid Corsair liquid cooling.

The only thing a little special on this machine is the 40" 3840x2160 monitor together with the 32" 2650x1600.

But they work without any problems - and have done it for years now.

When Vegas stops working the CPU can be running below 5% - and there is more that 9 GB RAM free.

And no: I do not have lots of pesky background programs running as I normally disable what can be disabled in the Startup-list to keep the machine as "clean" as possible.

Next Monday I will change to a NVIDIA 1060 card to see if that is more edible for Vegas - and, of course - search this forum for the best driver versions.

Plan B would be to change back to Good ole Vegas 13.

Peter_P wrote on 4/5/2018, 3:16 AM

Of course I will uninstall all AMD drivers by a special program before powering down the machine and change the cards. Let's see.

In your situation I would make an image of the system and try a new, clean Windows and Vegas pro B321 only install. As far as I can see, there is no other Vp15 user with this "Vegas stopped working" error with an empty Vegas. So it is also very hard to reproduce it for the service team to help you.

ritsmer wrote on 4/5/2018, 4:29 AM

In your situation I would make an image of the system and try a new, clean Windows and Vegas pro B321 only install. As far as I can see, there is no other Vp15 user with this "Vegas stopped working" error with an empty Vegas. So it is also very hard to reproduce it for the service team to help you.

I have had - and reported the Vegas stopped working issue for a long time... Very long time... At least 1 incident is reported here where Vegas just stopped working when left alone.

In order to help Magix solving the issue I have made numerous and time consuming tests with all the different media that I have - and in many combinations - to find out if some media might be the culprit - and then - after months of tests - I have finally found out that the media was not the issue - Vegas just stops all by itself when no media loaded.

I guess that Magix can see in their error log database that my issue is not a single one. It should be very, very simple for them to single out the crashes where no media is loaded at all - and then find out what Vegas module is erroneous - and where in the module the crash happened - but as Nick says it seems that Magix does not waste much time on the database of crashes.

As my machine runs all programs but Vegas perfectly I am not prepared to use more time to try to find this error in Vegas.

As said my current plan A is: use money to change to a NVIDIA card - and if that does not work - plan B: change back to Vegas 13 and finally get some editing done. These past too many months with crazy Vegas crashing randomly - but often every 5-10 minutes - have been terrible. Just imagine.....

NickHope wrote on 4/5/2018, 9:50 AM

...but as Nick says it seems that Magix does not waste much time on the database of crashes.

I didn't say that. I was just trying to point out that these days there is a technical issue that means simply pressing "Send" is not enough for error reports to reach the people at Magix that they need to reach, and that the procedure in this post needs to be followed: https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/how-to-send-error-reports-using-the-problem-reporting-service-prs--103727/ Your comment made me fear that you were just pressing "Send" and (understandably) assuming that your submissions were being received.

There seems to be something specific to your machine causing these crashes. Some plugin perhaps? If build 321 routinely crashed after a few minutes without doing anything, there would be other reports about it on the forum by now.

I have just opened build 321 and will leave it open to see what happens. Memory usage in the Task Manager is flat so far.

NickHope wrote on 4/5/2018, 1:23 PM

Well, for what it's worth, it was open for 3.5 hours with no problem and no sign of increased memory usage.

ritsmer wrote on 4/6/2018, 4:31 AM

Thank you to Nick for always being so kind.

As I have tried to point out so many times I have done nothing but computer programming since 1970 - and of course it would never occur to my mind just to press the send button without a check mark in the attach problem details box.

But now I try to comprehend that these most valuable crash data do not even reach the programming department ? and have to be resent to another place ? My fault. Sorry.

Also I have never said that Vegas always crashes after having been started for some time - but it does crash - much too often to my taste - and with all my programming skills I have used months trying to find out what combination of media, plugins, how many instances of Vegas were running etc. in order to maybe find a hint as to what and why Vegas crashes so often here.

And in these months I have checked memory use, temperature, cpu usage etc etc and etc - but not found any clue there. It is not so simple.

It is actually very strange: I can have a Vegas instance running for days - edit a lot every day (save in between, of course) and use several Newblue/Boris plugins - no problems. Then start a new Vegas instance totally empty without a project or anything - and then this second instance crashes within a few minutes - as do each and every started instance after that one - while the original instance, which ran for days, still runs without problems.

Being an old programming-and-hardware fox this tells me that the problem is in the software - most probably not a HW problem. And when Vegas stops working all by itself - as I have described so many times - without a TL or anything loaded - then that issue ought to get a real high priority in the SW-department.

Just my 2 cents: I think that we Vegas users should start to see Vegas just as any other computer program. NOT as something supernaturally complicated, fragile and very, very special - and where everything around Vegas is to blame if Vegas does not run properly.

If programs are programmed after the normal guidelines they will run - just run - and help their users get their jobs done. If programs are filled with all the old tricks we used in the good old days to make them faster - and which are not needed with the much faster hardware available today - they will behave like naughty children - and all these direct calls, codemodifs etc. should have been reprogrammed long time ago.

So: I rest my case here and close this thread which I see will not lead to a more stable Vegas - which was my original humble intent being a devoted Vegas fan since version 3.

Roger, over and out.