Slide Show won't work

[Penny47 Profile Private message]

I made a slide show in March last year and transferred it from my old PC to my new PC and it worked fine. Today I wanted to burn this show onto a DVD and went to open it NOTHING!!! The photos have all gone missing so I went and found them again, this was fine but the minute I try to put them onto the show the whole program just closes down. Anyhow after trying several times with no success, I decided to try and make a brand new show. This I managed well and saved it. Went to have a meal and came back to look at the show again and guess what there was not a single photo there every slide was blank. The music was there but now I am really concerned as I simply have no idea what is going on. Can anyone help or give me some advice please and thanks again in advance.

Cheers Penny

[cherub Profile Private messageWebsite]

Hi Penny,

Where are the pictures that you used in your show? Are they located on your hard drive, or on some external drive?

[Penny47 Profile Private message]

The photos are on the Hard Drive and in the same folder they have always been in. I have since posting tried again but the same thing has happened. No photos. I even watched the show before I closed it down and it worked but when I re opened it they were all blank again.

[cherub Profile Private messageWebsite]

Have you tried the usual troubleshooting methods?
By usual I mean:

Close Producer and then, with Windows Explorer, delete the show cache. That is a file that has the name of your show, and the extension pxc.
For example: myshow.pxc

If this doesn't change anything, then also delete the following files, that are found in the program directory.
proshow.cfg
and
proshow.phd

This will cause Producer to revert to default, and to refresh its memory of your computer.

[debngar Profile Private message]

This might be way off base, but be sure the program is installed with all anti-virus turned off until AFTER Proshow is first opened after installation. Check that anti-virus settings accept all program applications associated with ProShow.

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

Can you view the photos/folder from windows explorer BEFORE you try and open the show ? While I have not run into this before, it sort of has the flavor of being on a second hard drive that goes to sleep. Windows often, after some period of time (20 minutes?) will spin a secondary disk down to save power/wear etc. It *should* spin it back up again when you try to access it, but it sort of has that flavor to it. What if you create a short test show with the same images, close the show and exit producer then open producer again and your show (leaving out the time delay of dinner etc ). Does it work that way correctly ?

mikey

[tdew Profile Private message]

I'm not sure if Gold gives you the option to "Collect all files" - if it does, that's what I would try. Collect them and then use the new location and see what happens.

[Penny47 Profile Private message]

OK I am now up and about (8.35 am) and have just tried your idea Mikey and it does the same thing. So now am gong to try a few more ideas that have been posted and will keep you all updated if it should work. Thanks for all the avice.

Cheers Penny

[Penny47 Profile Private message]

I have given up on this show. I have tried all the things you guys have suggested and and nothing is working. I have even deleted all the photos and got them off my other PC and tried them that way. I have tried several other photos making small shows and they all work. I have the show on the other PC, so I can't think why it won't work on this one. It used to. So I will put it away and use the one on the other PC. it is just going to make burning a little more complicated for me. Anyhow thank you all so much for your help in trying to sort this out.

Cheers Penny

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

OK, if the build show, exit then restart producer/gold without giving the system time to spin down the disks then we can rule that out. Are the two machines the same version of windows or are they different versions (Windows 7 has a couple of things that can get you if you are not watching for them as it "protects" you from yourself I don't remember anyone else reporting a problem like yours before which makes it hard to guess on. You might try sending an email to Photodex support - they are usually pretty good about responding and may have run into this before.
You did verify that you could see all the image files from windows explorer right ?
Which version of windows are you runnning ?

mikey

[Penny47 Profile Private message]

Hi Mikey,
Here is what I have on this PC. Window 7 I have 1 terra bite of space (used quite a bit) but still plenty. I have PSG Version 5.0.322. The only thing I have not tried is re installing it. I did something just before I went out this afternoon I opened PSG and put the photos on without using the wizard, it played fine, then I tried adding the transitions and all the photos went away again and I just got the black sides. Yes I could see all the images from Windows Explorer, what I find really strange is that it is only one set of photos that is affected all my other shows are working great. I will take your advice and e-mail Photodex, they have always been good when I have come unstuck.
Thanks again for all your advice.
Cheers Penny

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

Hmmm - very odd - I am somewhat clueless on this one (although folks have been saying that about me for some time ). There is a feature in windows 7 that can cause some interesting things to happen - if you try to add files (like images etc. ) to the programFiles directory for example, Windows 7 will tell you it did it, but it actually will put them under your personal directory and "redirect" to there. I assume that the images in this case are either under your user account ( C:\Users\Penny or something like that) or under another path that you have created - is that correct ? The fact that when you add the transitions is probably a key clue here, but I have not heard of that before - what if you use different transitions ? Is there one in particular that may be causing this ? I need to go make coffee - brain still fuzzy.

mikey

[Penny47 Profile Private message]

Hey Mikey, I took your advice and contacted Photodex, they basically gave me the same info you guys did, but then they also suggested I re install the Program which I did and it is still the same. So I think that it must be something to do with the photo's because it is the only batch of photo's that don't seem to work. So I will just have to do it on the other machine and then try and burn it to a DVD then try and burn the rest of the DVD on this PC. I am sure I can work something out. I am just glad I have the older PC that still has PSG on it and it works there. So again many thanks for all your help and advice. I really must also think about trying to upgrade my PSG I am still using Version 5.0.3222. I am just waiting for our dollar and your dollar to become better Thanks again.

Cheers Penny

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

More like our dollar to become worse

If it works with other images, but those cause a problem, then either there is something funny about the images or something about the path. What happens if you put say 5 of the images in the same path as the images that work and try to build a quick 5 slide show ? What happens if you build say a 10 slide show with the 5 problem ones and 5 non-problem ones ? The trick in something like this is to get it down to the minimum set of objects that still cause the problem then troubleshoot from there.

The upgrade to the latest version if you are outside your year should not be that much and would give you another year of upgrades, so it is definitely worth considering. While that may not be the problem, there were quite a few fixes between 3222 and 3297

mikey

[Penny47 Profile Private message]

Well tried your last suggestion and the photo's that work OK still worked OK but the ones I am having problems with still do not work. So I will wait now till I upgrade and see if that makes any difference. At least everything else seems to work. It really is weird though that those photo's do not work as I brought them over the same way as all the others, in fact I transferred everything over at the same time in the same way.

Again Mikey thanks for all your help in trying to get this sorted

Cheers Penny