Producer 5.0.3297 Exe/ISO/DVD creation problem

[Coen Profile Private message]

Hello All,

Hope the collective wisdom of the forum might be able to provide insight into the following situation which has consumed a number of hours and increased frustration. Warning this post is long.

I have Producer 5.0.3297 running on a base machine (no dedicated graphics card, Windows 7, 4GB RAM, 64bit) - long story but it is the way it is and will stay that way for a while yet. Apart from taking a while it has never had a problem before producing shows of various formats and duration even on a previous old Win XP machine. I have created a number of shows using all sorts of effects etc and have never encountered the following problem before. I will outline the problem and what I have attempted to date to overcome using some of the tips already previously posted on the forum. Note when I mention ProShow (the .exe) it is with the understanding that it is refering to Producer 5.0.3297.

The problem is that I have a 14 show compilation from a recent holiday that I built for people who came as a momento - it is not for $, just for fun. The total time is 1h 0m 44s, longest single show is about 13m. When I attempt to render the combined show as either an exe or as a DVD ISO then Windows 7 complains about ProShow not responding (that it has stopped working correctly) and shuts it down. At the stage it occurs is when ProShow is doing the final merge build of the various shows. The error, according to Windows 7, is in the all.dnt bit of ProShow.

Each show successfully renders as individual video files of different formats (.mp4 etc) and even as individual DVD mpg2 components on the way to being merged into a single DVD ISO. However not all shows successful render as independent exe files.

I have deleted the associated .pxc/.pxp files and rebuilt - no change to outcome.

I have gone into the Windows 7 database AppPatch to try and tell Windows 7 to leave ProShow alone (No Ghost option) - no change to outcome. (have not attempted any settings to run as backwards compatible e.g. WinXP)

I have attempted the patch to ensure as much of the 4GB of RAM can be accessed as possible in case memory issue - no change to outcome.

I have run ProShow as administrator - no change to outcome.

I have done a fresh install of Producer 5 - no change to outcome.

I have made sure the music files have no () present (there are "-" present in some but not all offending shows) - no change to outcome.

I have deleted the .phd/.cfg files - no change to outcome.

I have made sure nothing else is running (except anti-virus) - no change to outcome. The anti-virus has never caused a problem before and hesitant to turn it off on a computer connected to the net.

I have isolated to the individual shows that each generate the same .exe rendering issue (4 out of the 14). I have looked at each and they have no fancy transitions or complex motions and there are no page-curl type transitions that I have had problems with in the past and refuse to use nor are there any other of the more fancy inbuilt transitions common to the four shows. Indeed some of the shows that successfully render and have very large .pxc files are much more complex and contain the same sorts of transitions including the 3D perspective type ones. I then went to one of the 4 shows to experiment in a test area as follows (rendering refers to creating a stand-alone .exe file):

By repeatedly dividing the show in two and rendering each half separately I distilled the original 61 slides down to the offending 2 only to find that once I was down to 2 slides for each half they both rendered fine. When combining the 2 slides that span the split they also rendered fine on their own but as soon as add together as a group of 4 they do not. The transition is not fancy (cross-fade) and they are pictures not video, pictures have no fancy key-frame so puzzled why not working. I used default menu, no fancy adjustments or background music, still a problem.

Whilst I like Producer 5 and Gold 4 before it, this problem is ridiculous, seemingly impossible to diagnose and makes for (a) frustration and (b) thinking spent too many $ on what is a hobby - glad I am not trying to run a business given how many hours of lost productivity I would have had so far on this issue.

Is there a way to get Windows 7 to leave ProShow alone and ignore it while it is running to allow it to do its thing as it were? (Assuming that this would fix the situation)

Whilst I could render each show separately as a .mp4, I do not have 3rd party software, nor the budget for yet more software, to build a DVD menu system when ProShow has previously been good enough. Also does not help with the stand alone exe problem.

Any help would be appreciated, thanks in advance,
Coen

[irwin Profile Private message]

Make a system restore point and try to change temporarily this, this or this.

[Coen Profile Private message]

Thanks irwin, tried the registry changes, alas error(?) remains as I think they apply to killing processes during the logout phase.

In my predicament, Windows still declares:
"ProShow has stopped working"
A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available.
(Then there is a button "Close program")

Clicking the button closes the program and nothing else happens, no notification or anything else. Leaving the dialog open does not allow ProShow to continue as it appears to be suspended by Windows 7 and not allowed to continue.

Coen

[irwin Profile Private message]

Not a solution, but a temporary workaround that worth a try:
Right click on the Producer shortcut, press Properties - Compatibility page, then set compatibility mode to Windows XP (service pack 2).

[cherub Profile Private messageWebsite]

Just a question, not related to Windows, but rather to Producer.

How did you make your DVD menu for all those shows? What option did you choose for thumbnails?
Did you choose "Image from file", or did you choose "Slide from Show" ?
I think that you are surpassing the capacity of your DVD, and that's the reason you get that error message.

[Coen Profile Private message]

Thanks for the responses. Tried the compatibility option - no change to the outcome.

I also fiddled with the codecs in case that was an issue but it appears not to be that either.

I ported the show over to a vanilla machine that is faster, has independent graphics card etc. that I could loan for a brief period. Ended up with the same lack of progress at the same point/set of shows.

With regards to the thumbnails - all 14 shows use the same type of thumbnail approach: a still (no motion) of the first slide of the show in question. Note that the slide itself has motion in the form of basic movement, a caption that appears to accompany the title caption which is fixed, the backdrop picture changes from about 50% opacity to around 90% by end of the slide. Just to re-iterate though, the thumbnail is a still of the first slide and is the same approach for all 14 shows of which 10 work without crashing ProShow.

I think it is a problem with one of the video clips embedded part way into one of the offending shows (not anywhere near the thumbnail) but puzzled why ProShow can:
(a) encode the clip fine under the the various video outputs (e.g. mp4) and even build the ISO component
(b) plays fine within ProShow giving no indication of any issues
(c) only crashes when attempting to build the stand-alone executable or stand-alone ISO file.

<shrug> 'tis a pain as the clips are from the same camera whose clips appear in other working shows.

Thanks again,
Coen

[marjolijn1957 Profile Private message]

Hi Coen,
I read your show is about 1 hour long. Correct?

I've had the same problem with shows longer than an hour. Perhaps its because the normal lenght of recording to a DVD is 120 min.

I tried the same things as you did. Split up in individual show, no problem at all. But together.... no way.

At least I made 2 ISO files and divided the shows for 2 dvd's. That's the way I solved the problem.

[Coen Profile Private message]

I have created a number of dozens of shows and built compilations as it were for friends, family, victims. Never had this type of problem before even with some compilations exceeding 90min running time in total.

Whilst I have made some progress since last posting, namely I can now create a DVD ISO reasonably consistently without ProShow throwing a wobbly, I still cannot create a PC executable without Windows 7 indicating ProShow has had a dummy spit. It is not always consistent with where it throws the dummy spit either but it is usually during encoding one of the many embedded video clips.

I contacted Photodex help support and after some exchange of emails the summary is it is likely to be an interference issue between ProShow and the Trend Anti-virus software. Apparently there is a record of problems with Trend and ProShow. It was recommended I take the machine off the net, de-install Trend, test the executable creation and then re-install Trend. I have not undertaken this step yet - yes I have added ProShow to the Trend ignore list.

It is interesting because I have happily created other executables before with Trend in the background and there has been no problem until now. In this case it seems to get very close to creating the final executable and then falls over.

So for any out there running ProShow and have Trend Maximum Internet Security: there might be a compatibility issue.

Coen

[Crofton Profile Private message]

Hi Coen
I am having the same problem as you but with Windows 8 64bit. After the show is rendered and the "processing video" section starts ProShow Producer shuts down and disappears completely from the screen at about the 80% to 90% time. I note that you say that you have generally overcome this problem and are now able to produce Blue Ray iso files reasonably consistently. Would you mind explaining to me how you did this?
I am not using Trend antivirus and it does not make any difference to my problem if antivirus is on or off.
Thank you.

[Coen Profile Private message]

Hello,

Regarding the DVD iso, it became consistent when I re-created the menu structure. Make sure & make sure again that there are no links in your DVD menus to non-existent pages e.g. a "Next" or "Previous" pointing to a menu screen that does not exist. I thought I had no hanging links but re-created just to be sure. If there is an active "Next" button pointing to the next menu screen and there is no next menu screen then ProShow will die in the final ISO encoding sequence and give you no clue as to why. In other words there appears to be limited error checking on the menu compilation process. I guess ProShow has focussed its efforts on the excellent slideshow effects but put limited effort into the DVD menu type of thing.

With regards to the exe creation, I stumbled across a work-around today that did not involve de-installing any software or a touching the anti-virus. I have never had this problem before so never thought to tinker with the default setting but when I changed the following default setting I seem to be able to create an executable file without crashing ProShow:

In the executable creation tab, the setting for video-clip quality is by default set to High. As soon as I drop to medium-high or lower (e.g. medium) then the PC executable is created just fine and ProShow reports success. Everything happy. Mind you the video clip quality is notice-able as being of poorer quality but is still reasonable.

I am puzzled ( ) why changing this setting made such a difference given I have had the default "High" on all my previous shows with no issue. In addition when I did a try-run creation on a higher end machine I could temporarily borrow, it demonstrated the same error at the same sort of point leading me to conclude that it was not a processing power issue - but perhaps it is in a round about way. So what I now suspect is that if you have too many video clip pieces in your show(s) then when ProShow builds the various streams and begins to merge into the executable it gets itself confused and dies. However it does not do so consistently nor always at the same point/clip.

Hope that helps,
Coen

[Jean-Paul Profile Private message]

Hi Coen,

I have a fresh install of PSP on one of my PCs, the default setting for video quality in the Create Executable dialog is “medium”. You probably changed the setting in the past.
You did a great job problem shooting this issue (not easy). I am certain that Photodex Support would appreciate a full report of your findings. These reports help them to resolve those very difficult to shoot issues (bugs).

Again, congratulations on a good problem shooting job.

Amicalement, Jean-Paul

[Crofton Profile Private message]

Hi Coen
Thank you very much for your help.
Following your advice I deleted my menu and produced the iso file without a menu. Now to find the problem with the menu. I have looked at the areas you have mentioned and not found anything obviously wrong but there must be something.
Once again thank you

Crofton

[guillerfer Profile Private message]

Perhaps this will help you.
One time i founded that continualy psp it closed with errosr and that was because psp founded a video that dosen´t like in the file reposotory of the left.
With windows explorer i clean the carpet and the psp runs ok.
Neve i discovered which was the file, but imagine that when psp build the Thumbnails that was the problem.
Sorry for my english.

Varias veces me pasaba que al abrir el psp directamente se me apagaba dandome errores.
Al final la unica manera de solventarlo, fue eliminando el contenido de la carpeta que esta leyendo por defecto el psp con ficheros de fotos y videos (creo que al crear la Thumbnails de alguno de ellos, daba un problema de memoria)

Saludos.

[Roelof Profile Private message]

Hi Coen
I had the same problem. Started with Windows XP and Antivirus "Bitdefender 2012". Continued through Windows 7, Windows 8 and Bitdefender 2013. Tried many options to no avail. Eventually completely uninstalled Bitdefender and presto....all was back to normal. Then bought Kaspersky antivirus and all work 100%. Hope this helps!
Roelof

[Bevie Profile Private message]

I know your frustration. And I am amazed at everyone's knowledge here. Today I am struggling with a problem of my own. For months I have created slideshows with no problem and then bam for whatever reason Adobe Acrobat Distiller is creating a file and messing with my slideshows making it so I can't reopen the show I just created in ProShow Producer 5. (AT least that's what I think is happening) It's a problem that happened before. Months ago I called Customer Support and spoke with Rachael and she 'fixed' my problem. During our conversation I tried to take notes but only managed to jot down that she said something about that the next time I called that I should let Customer Service know that my 'problem' was being referred to their internal department. I tried talking to a customer rep last night but was so frustrated I told him I would have to call back - which I'm going to so as soon as they open today.

I run Producer 5 on my MAc with Parallels and have thought about buying a PC just so I could run Producer on it - hopefully eliminating future problems but even if I had the money to do that - I'm not sure if that would do the trick, especially after reading this thread.

I have never 'lost' a file or was unable to open a file on my Mac. Things don't change or disappear or change in the way they are operating - they just work...consistently.... which allows me to concentrate on doing what I need to do. I am not that computer literate. And honestly don't understand why a program can't just work without having to 'tinker' with it. Guess I'm spoiled. And frustrated big time I hope your problem is solved Cohen so you can once again 'create' rather than 'debate' what the heck is wrong.