Pro Show Producer resetting itself.

Having problems? Have a solution? Let us know what your dilemma is with ProShow Producer. Please limit the topics to software problems, not "How To's"
Member
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2013 10:28 pm

Pro Show Producer resetting itself.

Postby AlphaZeroOne » Thu Oct 24, 2013 2:58 am

Half way through an important audio/visual project, PSP appears to have completely reset itself and deleted the .PSH files that I was working on. Have searched system but no sign of files and all work has been lost. PSP now seems to be unstable. Are these problems common and has anyone any tips on how I might recover the lost work (autosave was switched on by default) but, more importantly, how can I ensure that PSP doesn't become unstable again as I really don't want a repeat of the problems. Any advice would be most welcome.

.
User avatar
Posts: 3745
Joined: Thu Aug 17, 2006 11:21 am
Location: Parker, CO

Re: Pro Show Producer resetting itself.

Postby im42n8 » Thu Oct 24, 2013 5:24 am

This happens from time to time ... and is VERY frustrating when it happens. For some reason, the crash is bad enough that the program loses all information about files that have been worked on and all settings you may have made to the program. The PSH file most probably IS STILL somewhere on your computer. I don't know of any case where the PSH was ever deleted because of a crash. However, if you have never saved it yourself, the only copy would have been in a backup file (yourShow.bak, yourShow.b01 .... yourShow.b09). Typically too, there's an autosave file that will exist if the program crashed on you while you were working on a show. When you re-open ProShow, if that file exists, the autosave file will trigger a request to open it (after informing you that the program closed unexpected, it will ask if you want to open the automatically saved file).

If the autosave file related to the crash no longer exists, your only option then is to open the bak or one of the bxx files. To do that, copy one of them and change the extension to "psh" ... ProShow won't necessarily see the backup files until the extension is changed. These files are found in the folder where your show ("yourshow.psh") was being edited.

This kind of crash doesn't happen all that often ... thank God . . . but they are far from unknown. Normally, you won't have a crash like this again for awhile. Also, the program should be fairly stable in the interim. WHY this happens is anyone's guess. Hopefully Photodex can track down these glitches ... but, the obscureness of the cause of most of these crashes means that we are not going to see a fix as fast as we'd like. If it happens again, try to remember exactly what you were doing in the moments immediately before the crash occurred. It "may" help pinpoint a problem ... especially when coupled with other people's experience (e.g., where you working on gradients? did you just do a large number of file searches/navigation from within ProShow? Were you adding / deleting layers regularly or editing gradient/solid layers multiple times.... etc).

Good Luck!

Dale
What's New: Tools for ProShow: v11.42a Access ProShow capabilities Photodex doesn't provide (For PSG & PSP).
FPVP Blog "Making the Difficult Easier," FPVP News

Member
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Pro Show Producer resetting itself.

Postby AlphaZeroOne » Thu Oct 24, 2013 1:07 pm

Thanks for such a detailed response Dale. I've been scratching my head most of the day over this and have still been unable to recover anything of use. I have been using PSP for some time now and have found that it occasionally becomes unstable for no apparent reason and on such occasions the only solution has been to uninstall and then install a fresh copy.

On this occasion, I had been developing a presentation over several weeks and had saved several Mk copies. On booting up my system today, PSP seemed to go almost through a self-install and all the file history had disappeared without a trace. I have 4 hhd attached and have carried out numerous .psh searches, even going into the cmd window and using the legacy dos dir and wildcard search commands (ahh - those were the days) with no joy, even using the .bak suffix. I am so reluctant to start all over until I understand what has caused this wipeout.

Thanks again for taking the time to respond!

Steve

.
User avatar
Posts: 7501
Joined: Wed Nov 29, 2006 6:35 pm
Location: Kirkland,Wash, USA, Earth

Re: Pro Show Producer resetting itself.

Postby gpsmikey » Thu Oct 24, 2013 1:52 pm

While I have not experienced your situation, I have had Proshow get confused and have images/timing/stuff get all scrambled. In those cases, exiting Producer and deleting the cache file for the show (the .pxc NOT the .psh file) then re-opening Producer and letting it rebuild the cache seemed to fix the problem in many cases - my "theory" is that some pointers into that file get corrupted resulting in all sorts of odd things happening. I have not had it trash the show file ( .psh) itself ... well, at least not since about version 2.3 or so when I started with it.

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 !!

.
User avatar
Posts: 3745
Joined: Thu Aug 17, 2006 11:21 am
Location: Parker, CO

Re: Pro Show Producer resetting itself.

Postby im42n8 » Thu Oct 24, 2013 2:37 pm

It's hard to believe that that's NO legacy of the file you were working on unless the problem was that the region of the hard drive on which the file used to exist no longer does. It the surface of the drive became unusable you have other problems. In this case, the clusters associated with that drive no longer exist as far as the hard drive is concerned. You might perform a chkdsk on the drive. On the start button, there's a command line where you can type something. Type "cmd" and hit the enter key. On the resulting window that opens, you can drag it taller. Typically, you'll be pointing toward a folder on your boot drive. Don't worry about that right now. The path on which this program exists will typically be included in search structure you're going to give it (you just won't see what folders it will search).

Now, I'll assume that the drive on which your PSH was contained was NOT the boot drive, but one of the other 4 hds. Type "chkdsk d:" and hit enter ... this this command, Drive "D" is the suspect drive. Just substitute whatever drive the PSH file is contained on. This form of the command will do a non-destructive "review" of your hard drive.

If you have a problem with being able to run the program, as in it telling you that you must run in an elevated mode, click on the hard drive icon in explorer. Then search the entire hard drive for "cmd.exe." When it appears, right click over the file and "run as administrator." Then do as given before.

If the file reports clusters missing or detached, you know that there's a problem! This stuff can occur when the system crashes for some reason. Files that were open at the time might have their associated clusters orphaned. The OS should normally take care of this but, sometimes it's simply not up to the task. If you still cannot file "myShow.b01" through "myShow.b09" (these are backup sequences of the show ... just change the extension to PSH to open) or any PSH, PXC, or bak associated with "myShow" ... I'd go the chkdsk route

To FIX the problem, I'd run this command: chkdsk /X/B/R/F (/F is FIX... /R is recover and implies /F; /X dismounts the drive (so the OS won't interfere with it during fixes), and /B re-evaluates the bad clusters on the volume ... more error checking ... and implies /R. So, instead of "implying" you're actually forcing it ... but, you can simply type "chkdsk /B" and get the same result (well, you're supposed to anyway).

Let's hope that's not the case ...

Dale
What's New: Tools for ProShow: v11.42a Access ProShow capabilities Photodex doesn't provide (For PSG & PSP).
FPVP Blog "Making the Difficult Easier," FPVP News

Member
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Pro Show Producer resetting itself.

Postby AlphaZeroOne » Sun Oct 27, 2013 3:56 am

Once again, thanks for such a detailed and technical response Dale. Really appreciated. I will work through your suggested route and I agree with you, I can't understand why I can't find any legacy files as I always have the default auto-save @ 300 seconds selected. My C: drive hasn't been behaving in any weird way recently to lead me to suspect a sector or header fault at play but I will work through the checks that you have explained so clearly. Having cut my teeth on MSDOS years ago, part of me will enjoy getting back under the bonnet so to speak but the feeling of frustration and uncertainty is still very strong. Thanks again for your help.

Steve

Member
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Pro Show Producer resetting itself.

Postby AlphaZeroOne » Wed Oct 30, 2013 12:19 pm

Postscript - PSP did it again! On opening the program it had reset itself, deleted the history. Thankfully this time I had the foresight to use the 'save as' function on a regular basis and saved to one of my drives. But again, no sign of a .psh or .b01 etc. Most disconcerting.

.
User avatar
Posts: 7501
Joined: Wed Nov 29, 2006 6:35 pm
Location: Kirkland,Wash, USA, Earth

Re: Pro Show Producer resetting itself.

Postby gpsmikey » Wed Oct 30, 2013 12:34 pm

I would suggest contacting Photodex - they may have some idea on this. I can understand possibly trashing the .psh file for a show since it was open/being written at the time or even possibly the latest back (.bak), but to go back and delete previous backup files (.b02, b03 etc) would require something to actually select them with showname.* or something along those lines. I have managed to crash Proshow in a number of strange ways in the past and have had the current .psh file get scrambled, but I've never seen it get the backup copies as well. Definitely contact their support and see if they have any ideas on this one.

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 !!

.
User avatar
Posts: 3745
Joined: Thu Aug 17, 2006 11:21 am
Location: Parker, CO

Re: Pro Show Producer resetting itself.

Postby im42n8 » Wed Oct 30, 2013 12:41 pm

It's one of the reasons I have a suspicion that there's a hardware problem related to the hard drive itself. I say this because I suffered a similar problem ... stuff would just disappear. In my case it was images ... but the same problem. Running SpinRite on the drive that's a TB in size takes a very long time ... but, that was the problem. That's not to say that is the problem in this case but it's highly suspect as the problem.

I know of no other way for the PSH and the other backup files to disappear ... that seems to point to something more nefarious (not a s/w problem but a h/w one...).

Dale
What's New: Tools for ProShow: v11.42a Access ProShow capabilities Photodex doesn't provide (For PSG & PSP).
FPVP Blog "Making the Difficult Easier," FPVP News

Return to PSP - Troubleshooting

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 14 guests