psh files not portable for me

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psh files not portable for me

Postby silversmith » Tue Jul 26, 2016 5:23 pm

I created different Proshow slide shows on each of two different desktop PC Win 10 computers, which ran fine on the respective desktops. Saving the psh files to a thumb drive, I copied the files (including images and audio files) to my laptop hard drive. In both cases, the laptop could not open the files, with the error: "The file XXX.psh is not a valid ProShow file." But it IS a valid .psh file! Same version of PSP on all machines. I rebooted and repeated the process and all the usual things; even reinstalled PSP on the laptop. No go.
Any suggestions of how to allow the .psh files that work fine on the desktops to open in PSP on my laptop very much appreciated. (I can not test one desktop to the other, as they are in vastly different places). Thank you!
Peter

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Re: psh files not portable for me

Postby gpsmikey » Tue Jul 26, 2016 5:29 pm

I have not run into that (and I refuse to install windows 10), however, this sort of has the feel of a protection issue. Are they under the same user on both machines? Have you tried working with other files between the machines like that? (can you open the image files you copied?) One thing you can try is to copy the file that it claims is not valid to a new file (xxx_10.psh) for example in the same directory. I have run into situations before where odd things happen with files brought in from the outside. Just to verify, I think you indicated that you can open a .psh file on that computer that you created on that computer?

mikey
You can't have too many gadgets or too much disk space !!
mikey (PSP6, Photoshop CS6, Vegas Pro 14, Acid 7, BluffTitler, Nikon D300s, D810)
Lots of PIC and Arduino microprocessor stuff too !!

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Re: psh files not portable for me

Postby silversmith » Tue Jul 26, 2016 5:42 pm

Thanks for your thoughts. All three computers are registered to the same person (me). All three computers can exchange image files directly in this thumb drive transfer way. All three machines have the PSP file structure (image files, .psh files, etc.) identical on their hard drives. On both desktops, PSP can open the .psh files fine and can edit them normally before being saved. The files transferred from each desktop will give the same "not valid .psh file" error on the laptop. And the laptop itself can run PSP and create .psh files, by the way. (I haven't tested laptop created psh on the desktop yet, but that is not the point anyway.) Thanks.

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Re: psh files not portable for me

Postby gpsmikey » Tue Jul 26, 2016 8:16 pm

I realize "that is not the point", however, the trick in troubleshooting something like this is to find what works, what doesn't and what changes what is happening. If one created on the laptop doesn't work on the desktop then that is another clue. I would suggest calling Photodex support - this may be something they are familiar with - I have not run into that issue and can transfer .psh files between my machines without a problem (win 7/64). It is interesting that it says "not a valid file" instead of some sort of permission statement if that was the issue, but I have seen other strange things in windows that go on behind the scenes (check out "virtual store" in windows if you want to see misdirection in action - and they don't give you a clue they have done it either :evil: )

You didn't answer my question of what happens if, on the laptop, you copy the problem file to a new file with a similar name. Does that make any difference?

mikey
You can't have too many gadgets or too much disk space !!
mikey (PSP6, Photoshop CS6, Vegas Pro 14, Acid 7, BluffTitler, Nikon D300s, D810)
Lots of PIC and Arduino microprocessor stuff too !!

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Re: psh files not portable for me

Postby cherub » Tue Jul 26, 2016 11:33 pm

Forgive me for getting into this thread, but .... just a thought.

The most bizarre things happen to me in a new installation (say Producer 8 ), until I change the program to "Run as administrator".
Things like not seeing the files in a folder, not being able to open images, etc. etc.
I have no idea how everything works on Windows 10, but such a change is worth a try, I think, on your laptops.

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Re: psh files not portable for me

Postby silversmith » Wed Jul 27, 2016 3:22 am

Mikey, I made a test show on the laptop, and it DOES transfer normally to my desktop via thumb drive (just NOT the other way around.) I did try the renaming of files on both ends, no joy. Chrub: This transfer problem existed when all machines had PSP 7; I upgraded them all to PSP 8 but the issue remains. Thank you for trying to think this through with me.

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Re: psh files not portable for me

Postby gpsmikey » Wed Jul 27, 2016 5:15 am

OK, that is another piece of the puzzle. It still has the feel of a "protection" issue. It is not clear to me how you are opening (or trying to open) the .psh file - are you double clicking the file to open it or are you opening Proshow then trying to open the .psh file from within Proshow? If you are double clicking the file to open it, try opening Proshow then opening the file from within Proshow - do you get the same results?

mikey
You can't have too many gadgets or too much disk space !!
mikey (PSP6, Photoshop CS6, Vegas Pro 14, Acid 7, BluffTitler, Nikon D300s, D810)
Lots of PIC and Arduino microprocessor stuff too !!

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Re: psh files not portable for me

Postby silversmith » Sun Jul 31, 2016 10:22 am

I continue to have this issue. I made a new show in PSP 8 on my desktop - saved it to my thumb drive. Copied the *psh file from the thumbdrive to the hard drive of my laptop. Opened PSP 8 on the laptop and navigated to the file ; got error message "File *.psh is not a valid Proshow file." But it is! The file just worked fine on my desktop!
Any suggestions most appreciated. Thank you. (All versions PSP same; PSP works fine with files made on same machine.)

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Re: psh files not portable for me

Postby silversmith » Sun Jul 31, 2016 2:30 pm

It took me all day - literally - but I think may have solved this. Perhapse some help to others. One should not assume that by saving all the images, audio, etc. in the backup of a show that PSP will read the files in the same way as the original. When one backs up everything, including file structure, to a thumb drive (say E:\), I believe the internal PSP file pointers still looks to C:\ so that the whole thing fails. PSP even thinks it is not a .psh file.

The answer is under the tools menu: "Collect Files". This will put all show files and the .psh file in the user's designated place (including thumb drive) with all internal pointers adjusted accordingly. Thus when the thumb drive is put in another computer, the user can load the .psh and it finds all the files locally.

Thanks to all of you that thought this through with me.
Peter

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Re: psh files not portable for me

Postby gpsmikey » Sun Jul 31, 2016 8:44 pm

Interesting information. I can understand the links being wrong and pointing to the wrong locations, but I don't understand why you were getting "is not a valid .psh file". Very odd - I would have expected it to open, but give error messages about resources not being found.

mikey
You can't have too many gadgets or too much disk space !!
mikey (PSP6, Photoshop CS6, Vegas Pro 14, Acid 7, BluffTitler, Nikon D300s, D810)
Lots of PIC and Arduino microprocessor stuff too !!

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