Presenter crashes on some shows for some of us ...

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

Still don't know what the issue is, but with the latest version of
presenter, there are a number of us out here that seem to have
particular shows that crash presenter (the recent Alaska one gets
me every time at exactly the same place - just after "lets take a
walk in the woods"). Decided to do some experimenting today -
imaged my system drive, swapped in a new one, reloaded the
system again, downloaded and installed latest video drivers from
ati for my Radeon 9600 card (which required .NET Framework 2.0
to be installed), downloaded and installed all windows updates
(which I had been putting off). I guess we (those that have these
crashes) need to start comparing notes:

Asus P4P800-E motherboard, 2 gig RAM, Windows XP Pro, SP 2,
Radeon 9600 video card (clone actually), .NET Framework 2.0 and
patches installed. Installed version of Photodex Presenter is
Version 3,00,0,1924 build 1924.

[edit] couple of more items that come to mind ...
- still running Proshow Producer build 1923
- IE 6 including patches (have not installed IE 7)
( I would not expect either of those to make a difference, but
who knows what the real incantation is). Neither of my video
editors or Digital Juice "Juicer 3.0" stuff crashes or has any
problems with my system. Generally very stable EXCEPT for
those shows and Presenter !!!

The good news is I updated windows, swapped out a 120 gig drive
for a 250 gig drive and several other things I had been meaning to
do

The bad news is, it didn't fix (or even change) the problem with
presenter

Any of the others that have these predictable crashes (same show,
same place each time and others don't have a problem) see any
of this that is common to their systems ???

mikey

[nannybear Profile Private messageWebsite]

Oh my god that is so white noise to me!!! I need to PM you when I am ready to change or buy new things. You so have a handle on all the techy stuff! luv ya!!! hugs J

[Mike S.]

Asus P4P800-E motherboard, 2 gig RAM, Windows XP Pro, SP 2,
Radeon 9600 video card (clone actually), .NET Framework 2.0 and
patches installed. Installed version of Photodex Presenter is
Version 3,00,0,1924 build 1924.

Mikey,

Wouldn't you know it. I'm running the "exact" same system for my internet PC except that I have 1 gig of ram and am still on Net framework 1.1 + Netframework 1.1 hotfix. I don't recall what the hotfix does but I assume it would be in your Net framework 2.0 version.

I have not had any problems viewing presenter shows at all. What's the link to the Alaska show you have problems with and I'll try viewing it and let you know.

EDIT: I'm running a 9600 Pro video card, if that makes a difference.

Mike S.

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

The Alaska show (I had forgotten I found it in the Yahoo Producer group) is

http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewsho ... alb=129310

Although there have been a number of shows here also that exibit the same
traits (over in the Yahoo group, there were a couple of other posts where
they crashed at the same place). There are a bunch of slides of the river,
then there is a green screen with text about taking a "walk through the woods",
followed by a picture of a lady -- in the middle of the slide of the lady, it
locks up.

Here are 2 others that do the same thing
1) - the carosel one at
http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewsho ... 1520&alb=0

2) - the funny birthday one
http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewsho ... 8442&alb=0

Downloading and saving locally before playing does not make any difference.
Same crash, same place, every time.

mikey

[Mike S.]

Mikey,

I remembered wrong when I said my internet PC had the P4P800E mobo with the ATI 9600 pro graphics card. It actually has a Matrox G450 graphics card. It is my editing PC that has a P4C800E-Deluxe mobo with the 9600 pro graphics card. So my P4P800E-Deluxe PC is not identical to yours after all.

But guess what? My P4P800E system hangs with repeating sound on all three of the sample presenter shows that you provided links for. The best one to test with is the second link to the carosel show. That one always hangs up right away within 5-10 seconds of playing. I tried playing some other presenter shows in this boards example shows and they all played fine with no hangs.

Then I tested my P4C800E mobo with the 9600 pro card and it played the first two links you provided fine with no problems. I did not try the third link since the first two played all the way through OK.

So I think you can eliminate your 9600 graphics card as a possible cause of your problem. I'm using the motherbd's integrated sound on both PCs.

It seems that the Photodex presenter software has a bug and is not compatible with the P4P800E motherbd. I say that Presenter has the bug and it is not the fault of the mobo since I never have any hangs playing internet video on any other web site.

Hope this helps you out,
Mike S.

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

Hmm -- very interesting !! I had to read it 4 times before I realized
P4P... and P4C -- best go get my coffee now
I have been considering switching to a Turtle Beach sound card I have
for the audio. I may give that a shot.

What version of the BIOS are you running ???

There were several others that had the same issue - it will be interesting
to see if any of them respond and have the same motherboard.

Thanks for your time !! We may solve this yet !!
I think I will google around for P4P800E and audio problems.

mikey

[hardsoftware Profile Private message]

just after "lets take a walk in the woods

I just tried to view the show and it hung up at the exact same point as you described however I have a Dell XPS rig from 2003 with a recently purchased video card to replace my broken 9800pro ATI card that came with the computer. The new card is ATI 1650pro.
Running XP-Pro, 2Gig of Ram, Plenty of hard drive space..NET Framwork 2.0,

Could it be that the show is corrupted at the source?

Ben

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

Hi Ben -- I don't think the show is corrupted at the source for
a couple of reasons:
1) others were able to play it no problem
2) downloading and saving it locally still showed the exact same
problem and yet others were able to play it with no issues (1)
3) there were 1 or 2 that had problems at exactly the same point,
HOWEVER, that is consistent with the problems with the other
shows that have a "problem" - most can play them fine, but
some of us hang at the same point.

I have been doing some snooping for problems with the
Asus P4P800E boards and found a whole bunch of stuff sound
related. Most of it points at the AC97 codec - others had problems
with other systems that used the same chip. The solution seemed
to be to either install a new sound card or download the latest
drivers from Realtek for the AC97. If anyone is interested, here
is one thread with a bunch of info on what sounds like the same
issue (quite a few interesting comments) .. (the link may wrap)
http://www.techsupportforum.com/hardwar ... stops.html

One of the posts in the above thread also has a link direct to the
Realtek download site for the AC97 codec latest drivers. The thread
is a couple of years old, but it is interesting to note the drivers have
been updated a number of times from when the thread was written.

Maybe I'll scrounge up my Turtle Beach card I bought a while back
but never installed since the sound seemed to be good enough that
other things were more important

mikey

[Mike S.]

I have been considering switching to a Turtle Beach sound card I have
for the audio. I may give that a shot.

What version of the BIOS are you running ???

I'm running version 2.51, copyright 1985-2002. What version are you running?

Though installing your TB sound card might fix your problem, I'm convinced that the "real" problem is in Presenter and not in our PCs since Ben says that he has the same problem and he's running a Dell PC which uses a completely different motherbd.

Mike S.

[hardsoftware Profile Private message]

Not sure if this matters but the sound card is Creative's Audigy ZS2 Platinum version which at the time was their top of the line...I do try and keep the drivers up to date.

Ben

[mrkitzel Profile Private message]

Hi to all,

I tried the Alaska show mentioned in the first thread and it ran without a hiccup.

Running win xp, p4dual core, 2gig and 300 mb hd with realtek audio card.

Hope this helps narrow it down!

Steve.

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

I have been considering switching to a Turtle Beach sound card I have
for the audio. I may give that a shot.

What version of the BIOS are you running ???

I'm running version 2.51, copyright 1985-2002. What version are you running?

Though installing your TB sound card might fix your problem, I'm convinced that the "real" problem is in Presenter and not in our PCs since Ben says that he has the same problem and he's running a Dell PC which uses a completely different motherbd.

Mike S.

2.51 for BIOS on a P4p800E ?? Near as I can tell, the latest on the Asus
site that is not a Beta (If I want Beta stuff, I go to Photodex ... )
is 1009 (I was running 1007, but just flashed the bios to 1009 -- didn't
fix the problem, but I wanted to make sure I had the latest anyway).
While I agree that it is probably something funny that Presenter is
doing, I suspect the only way to "fix" it is to change our configuration
so it works. Sigh.

mikey

[Mike S.]

2.51 for BIOS on a P4p800E ?? Near as I can tell, the latest on the Asus
site that is not a Beta (If I want Beta stuff, I go to Photodex ... )
is 1009 (I was running 1007, but just flashed the bios to 1009 -- didn't
fix the problem, but I wanted to make sure I had the latest anyway).
While I agree that it is probably something funny that Presenter is
doing, I suspect the only way to "fix" it is to change our configuration
so it works. Sigh.
mikey

When I boot, I press the delete key and the BIOS screen appears. At the bottom is where it says Version 2.51. I guess that's different from the fimware update version number of 100x.

I won't spend any time trying to get my PC to work 100% with Presenter. If it can't play some shows, so be it. I've spent too much time working around PSG/PSP problems just getting my slideshows to work properly as it is. I stopped using PSG and PSP to edit slideshows that contain client video clips (which is most of them) due to the jerky video problem and will now only use PSG/PSP to edit shows that contain client photos only.

Mike S.

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

Well, bah humbug
-- I've updated the BIOS to 1009, uninstalled
the drivers and disabled the onboard audio, rebooted, installed
the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz card with the latest drivers from
them (sc_4193), Device Mangler shows no problems, but the
shows still blow up in the same place. I was sort of hoping to
find a simple solution for this. I guess as you say, there are
just some shows that don't run for us until Photodex fixes
whatever is going on in Presenter (or releases a new Beta
version, whichever comes first ... ).

mikey
(the good news is, the Turtle beach card does sound much better !! )

[Mike S.]

Well, bah humbug
-- I've updated the BIOS to 1009, uninstalled
the drivers and disabled the onboard audio, rebooted, installed
the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz card with the latest drivers from
them (sc_4193), Device Mangler shows no problems, but the
shows still blow up in the same place. I was sort of hoping to
find a simple solution for this. I guess as you say, there are
just some shows that don't run for us until Photodex fixes
whatever is going on in Presenter (or releases a new Beta
version, whichever comes first ... ).

mikey
(the good news is, the Turtle beach card does sound much better !! )

Thanks for sharing that info. At least you did get one plus from the time you spent trying to troubleshoot the problem. Photodex has been having ongoing problems with Presenter not working on all computers. Just when I thought it was working fine on my internet PC your post burst my bubble. Sniff..... Hopefully some day it will work 100% on all PCs.

Mike S.