ProShow File FAQ & Troubleshooting How To

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ProShow File FAQ & Troubleshooting How To

Postby DickK » Mon Jan 14, 2008 7:31 pm

A few notes about the various files ProShow will create and common questions asked here.
If anyone has additions or corrections, don't hesitate to chime in!
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What are these ProShow files and which of them can I delete?
I have a show that won’t open, what do I do?
I have problems running ProShow, what can I do?


These three questions actually have closely related answers, so they’re all addressed here.

What are these ProShow files and which of them can I delete?
There are two groups of files that are important—files associated with your show (here called “showname”) and files that are associated with the various outputs from your show (these will appear where you told ProShow to put them):

showname.PSH
That’s your show. Don’t delete it unless you’re really sure of what you’re doing.

showname.BAK
showname.Bnn
(nn = 2 digit number)
These are backup files for your show. You can delete them, but it’s a much better idea to keep them around just in case.

showname.PXC
That’s a cache of show resources. Safe to delete, will be recreated as needed.

file folder: showname_psdata
Can be large. This is a file folder with temporary files created while rendering a video output. Safe to delete; will be created again if you render the video again.

showname.ISO
Big file. This is a file containing the DVD “image” of your show. Keep it if you want to make more DVDs without rendering again but otherwise it’s safe to delete.

showname.EXE
showname.AVI
(etc)
Like the ISO, these are outputs from ProShow—each type has a corresponding file type. Safe to delete if you don’t need it--but be sure you won't want it.

Note: the key files are the PSH file and the backups. If you open one of these in Notepad, you’ll see that they’re just text files—they’re instructions to ProShow on where to find the show content and what to do with the content. This is where all of those hours of work went: with one of these, you’ve got a slide show ProShow can load, edit, produce output, without one of these, you don’t.

I have problems running ProShow, what can I do?
Occasionally you may have an issue where ProShow won’t run at all or crashes when attempting to load a show (if the issue is only with one show, skip down to the next question). Many issues that have shown up when running ProShow can be easily fixed with this process provided by PhotoDex:

With the program closed, delete the following files that manage your saved settings and stored thumbnails. It's possible that something inside these files may be causing an issue. Click on Start->Search- >For Files and Folders... then click on 'All files and folders' and in the top box that says 'All or part of the file-name' type in: "CPIC.OPT" and click 'Search.' The search results should display a file that is located in the C:\Program Files folders. Click on this file and delete it. Now search for a file called 'DEF.PHD' and delete this file as well. The next time you open ProShow it will recreate these two files automatically.

Experience has shown that it often better to just delete DEF.PHD first and running the program to see if that takes care of the issue. That will leave any interface customizations and option picks intact. But if removing DEF.PHD doesn't fix the issue then delete CPIC.OPT also. Deleting one or both those files will fix many issues, but if ProShow still won’t run after doing that, then the best approach is to deinstall the software and reinstall it.

---------------
UPDATE for Version 4:
---------------
In both PSP and PSG version 4 the files have been renamed but the answer is still that you delete them to fix many issues. The new names are: proshow.cfg and proshow.phd.

I have a show that won’t open, what do I do?
Sometimes ProShow software works fine but there’s suddenly a show that won’t open. When that happens, it’s normally fixed easily with one of the following steps.

    First, delete the show cache file (the PXC file) and see if it will open.
    Second, try opening one of the show’s backup files (BAK, Bnn). (File menu, Revert to Backup).
    Third, try deleting the program cache files (question above).
    Lastly, if the show is opens partially but crashes while loading there’s a possibility that one of the audio files (.WAV or .MP3) files is corrupt or ProShow thinks so. That’s addressed in the section below.

Corrupt audio file.
Occasionally, ProShow will crash when you attempt to use a particular MP3 audio file or may crash while later attempting to load or play the show. If you suspect this and you know which audio file is the culprit, the fix is to either use a different MP3 or to use an audio editor to recreate the MP3 (load it and just resave it with another name). If you don’t know what file is the culprit, move all the audio files somewhere so ProShow will do the “locate files” dialog—but have ProShow continue without the missing audio files. If the show loads and previews, that confirms the show is okay and the audio is the problem—save the show under a new name so you at least have the video portion. Now you can either manually add back each of the audio files to find the bad one or go back through the “locate files” process and locate each audio file in turn. Either way you can identify the file that is the problem and either replace it, or perhaps if you recreate it, the problem will be fixed.
Last edited by DickK on Fri Feb 27, 2009 3:13 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Postby jeanc » Tue Jan 15, 2008 12:02 pm

Thanks Dick for all the valuable info. I have pick up bits and pieces along the way, but appreciate having this all together. I have printed the info and saved a copy to refer to.

Smiles,
Jean

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Postby LEE7 » Tue Jan 15, 2008 3:06 pm

Well done That Man!!!!!!!!!!

Printed out & pinned up at the side of My monitor!!

Thank You.


Peter.

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Postby Pauline Collins » Mon Apr 07, 2008 12:07 am

Thank you also for that. Someone just directed me to it. Great to have it so well explained.

tracey

Re: ProShow File FAQ & Troubleshooting How To

Postby tracey » Wed Jun 11, 2008 10:04 pm

How about the .px file? Is that the one that goes on the web & contains the entire show?

I'm curious if it can be deconstructed into its image & audio elements. I know that all-in-one swf files can be deconstruted - I've had a friend show me how to extract those elements from a swf file before.

Thank you in advance.
T

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Re: ProShow File FAQ & Troubleshooting How To

Postby DickK » Thu Jun 12, 2008 2:56 pm

As far as a I know, the PX file is just a format useful to and unique to Presenter.
Dick
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Re: ProShow File FAQ & Troubleshooting How To

Postby Deb » Fri Sep 05, 2008 3:56 pm

Hi Dick - you ar a lifesaver!! I have referred to so many of your posts I feel I owe you dinner or something!!! I do have one more question about all these files - I have heaps of files called 'showname.b01' , 'showname.b02' and 'showname.b03' - can I delete these??? I just did a defrag on my cvomputer and there is ALOT of red ... I'm thinking that perhaps it is all the unnecessary proshow files ...... Thanks again!! Deborah

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Re: ProShow File FAQ & Troubleshooting How To

Postby MG - Admin » Fri Sep 05, 2008 4:25 pm

Deb:

Those are all of your backup files. If you've completed the show and are satisfied that the PSH file you have saved contains what you want, go ahead and delete all those other files.

Mike

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Re: ProShow File FAQ & Troubleshooting How To

Postby Deb » Sat Sep 06, 2008 2:39 am

Thanks guys!!! :)

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Re: ProShow File FAQ & Troubleshooting How To

Postby Pauline Collins » Fri Oct 03, 2008 1:00 am

Just want to clarify before I do damage. I want to clean up a bit, as my files are starting to look like a dogs dinner.

I have made the Shows, and rendered them. Can I now delete all the .pxc files and the bak and b01 - b09 files and what about the pxp ones?
Just want to make sure that it is OK to delete the above ones once the Show is in the bag.

I have been starting a New Project everytime I do a New Show and have just realized that I can have an ongoing Project with my favourite Shows to draw templates from and just start a New Show within and then Remove the Show when I have finished and use the same Project next time.


Cheers Pauline

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Re: ProShow File FAQ & Troubleshooting How To

Postby DickK » Fri Oct 03, 2008 3:22 pm

Yeah, you can delete those. The PXC can be fair size but the backup files aren't and I'd keep at least a couple of those.

The big stuff you can delete are the files and directories associated with the rendering process, file folder:
showname_psdata

and the output files, the ISO if you made one in particular.

Dick
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Re: ProShow File FAQ & Troubleshooting How To

Postby Pauline Collins » Fri Oct 03, 2008 6:06 pm

Thank you Dick for that reply. In the meantime I have been deleting willy nilly and felt like I had a good spring clean.

You said I can delete .psdata and ISO files - aren't I suppose to keep them if I want to burn a rendered Show?
I am burning ISO.
Thanks Pauline

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Re: ProShow File FAQ & Troubleshooting How To

Postby DickK » Fri Oct 03, 2008 9:21 pm

From your question I assumed you meant you were done with that show and didn't plan on making more DVDs. If you're making more DVDs then keeping the ISO will obviously make sense. Otherwise, there's no reason to keep the psdata folder or the ISO--of course, if you've got lots of storage then you can just keep everything and not worry the issue at all--but then your question about deleting stuff makes less sense.

Anyway the point is just that the psdata folder and the output files like an ISO will be recreated by just rendering it again, which you can always do as long as the PSH file and the content (images, audio, etc) are all intact.

If you're deleting stuff to free up storage, the biggest files are the outputs (ISO, EXE, video formats) and the psdata folder. The PXC can be fairly big too depending on what's in the show. Those are about the only things worth bothering with from a storage perspective. If you're just organizing stuff, then you can delete everything except the PSH, show content files and I keep the .BAK files--the others will all get created again when needed.

That said, I can't emphasize too much the importance of making backup copies of the PSH and show content. At least one backup copy, preferably two and one backup should be on external media. There are only two kinds of computer users--those who have had a hard drive fail and ones who will have one fail.

Dick
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Re: ProShow File FAQ & Troubleshooting How To

Postby Pauline Collins » Sat Oct 04, 2008 4:41 am

Thank you Dick. I have deleted everything except the Show and the psdata and ISO.
At least they are still in my Trash if I find something doesn't work.
I do DVD's for weddings so need to keep the Show and the rendered file in case I have to burn another copy down the track but I hate all the other files that clutter up things.
I copy to an external as well. Thanks again for your reply.
Cheers Pauline

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Re: ProShow File FAQ & Troubleshooting How To

Postby DickK » Sat Oct 04, 2008 4:48 pm

If you keep the ISO there's no need to keep the PSDATA folder--that's intermediate stuff created during the rendering. The ISO is the next step and there's no advantage to keep that.

With what you're doing, I'd suggest that you archive a show to data DVD, use 'collect files' to gather it up and put all that on a data DVD with the client name and date. Others may have more suggestions based on their experience but if you're doing this as a business I think you should archive everything to some other media other than the external drive.

Dick
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