"ProShow has stopped working" - Pro Show Enthusiasts

Recently I was in the process of burning a show to DVD and I got this message a few times before it got to the burning stage.
“A problem caused the program to stop working correctly.”
I’ve browsed the topics here and could not find any similar error messages. What would cause this?
It happened at different stages of the rendering process, not at the exact spot each time.
Something running in the background of my computer? The error occurred 4 times in one day. I restarted my computer and it still occurred.
However, the following day when I tried again, it worked, and I was able to burn 2 discs successfully. Frustrating.
My show consisted of a menu with 4 separate slideshows along with (3) 30 second video clips, a total of about 21 minutes.
It seems random, because a few weeks ago I successfully created and burned a similar show (17 minutes) with no issues.

Any thoughts?Often when that happens, it is a corrupted audio file, however, since it happens in different spots in your case, that is probably not the cause (a corrupted audio of GIF file would cause it to crash in the same spot). My first guess would be a heat issue – rendering works the cpu fairly hard. We see the same issue pop up in the video editing world when you are rendering. I would start by taking the cover off and making sure the cooling fins were clean on the cpu etc. It is amazing how much dog hair, cat hair and dust can load those things up (I speak from experience!! ).

The other thing you can do that is what most of us do is to “burn” to an ISO instead of burning the disk direct. Once you have the ISO file, then use something like the free Imgburn utility to burn the disk from the ISO. Several advantages to that route – you don’t waste disks, you can create as many disks as you want from the ISO and you can easily burn another disk much later if someone wants another copy as long as you have the ISO on your computer (an ISO is simply an image of the DVD file system including all the files). To create an ISO, on the burner menu where you have your burner selected, you can select to create an iso file instead. Give that a try and see how that works.

Thanks for the detailed response with limited info……interesting you mention the audio, because I am sure it stopped at least one of the times as ProShow was in the process of loading the audio for the main menu. In the future I will try different audio to see if it makes a difference. I always disable the screen saver and sleep modes when I get ready to compile a show and burn to DVD. My desktop computer is only 2 years old and seems to run fairly well, but I will pay attention to the possibility of heat. Will experiment with the ISO file, also.

I am about ready to give up……..I’ve failed to render a show 6 times in the last 2 days.
Either Windows stopped working or ProShow terminates (shuts down). ProShow gets caught up in the rendering stage, cannot get to the burning DVD stage.

Last week I was having the same issues with a different vacation show, then the next day it was able to burn 2 DVD’s, and I did not do anything different from the previous days attempts.
It seems somewhat random, do not know if the problem is my computer or ProShow software. My computer is just 2 years old, Windows 7, 8 GB Ram, quad-core processor, liquid cooled.
Does anybody else experience these types of issues while rendering? Show consists of 4 slideshows & 4 short video clips…..a menu with music and 8 buttons, total time =20 minutes.
Any ideas?

STOP WRITING TO THE DVD directly … an awful lot of people end up with coasters (been there, done that). Write to an ISO file … then, write the image file to the DVD. Windows will do it … but you should probably use a program like IMGBURN to do the job for you. Your chances of success are greatly increased this way.

Mike’s recommendation to write to an ISO file is very very good advice.

If your rendering process keeps stopping at the same spot, check the show out at that point. It may be that something is corrupted: a transition, a layer on a slide, a video, or even an audio file. Revise or replace and try again.

Mmmmmmm………does ProShow need to render video regardless of whether it is creating an ISO file or a DVD?
The program stops responding while rendering video, does not seem to matter if the output is ISO file or DVD.
Also seems to be random chapters in the show, not the same place.

Hmmm. When was the last time you deleted the proshow.phd file?

Rename it at the very least (and force Proshow to recreate it) and then try. If the program is failing in multiple various places (that is, not consistently in any location in particular), it “might” be something associated with the program.

You might want to reinstall the Program too … you never know, especially when you’re grasping for straws as the cause … and there’s no particular location in the program to point to as a potential cause of the crash. That may mean a corrupted database or other corruptions (unspecified). So, start with the simple stuff and then reinstall (first over the original installation and then, if you have to, in a clean install folder).

Well, good luck!

Dale

Thanks, Dale……..let me start with your suggestions. I like easy. The problem is not obvious to me at this time.

Unfortunately, random crashes are tough to track down – that was why I suggested heat as a possible cause. Usually, Proshow is pretty stable (although back when I started with it with version 2.2 or something like that, that was not the case). There are some types of files (mp3 most notably) that sometimes get corrupted and will crash it, but in that case, it usually crashes at the same spot each time so that makes it easier to find. You might also look in the window event logs and see if there is anything interesting there (relatively speaking – reading though an event log rates up there with reading the phone book

)

Took a break for a couple days……I did delete any old files ProShow had created on previous attempts, and the .phd file.
Tried again this morning. “ProShow has stopped working” appeared as I was in the process of putting together my menu, adding shows to one of the 8 templates.
The program has never stopped this early, well before I completed my menu.
I will now delete the program and re-install. Not looking good…….

Holy Toledo! If it isn’t one thing it’s another. Maybe the installation was corrupt … any number of things could make this happen … or maybe the hard drive has some bad sections on it.

You might try the CHKDSK /B/R route from within a command window. Actually, if you just want to see there’s any problems first, you might just run chkdsk x: first (where “x” is the drive letter).

Also, if you’re running Win7 you might have to run CMD as an administrator (go to the Windows folder, locate and select the System32 folder. Find CMD. Right click and select “Run as Administrator”).

You never know….

Running CHKDSK /? gives you the help associated with the command.

We’re missing something here. For most people, the program is quite stable, so obviously, there is something about your system it doesn’t like. The obvious suspects are video drivers, audio drivers and the gpu acceleration. Probably the easiest thing to try is Edit -> Preferences and turn off the GPU acceleration. See if that changes anything. I would also check that the drivers are up to date for your video and sound – also try a Google search on your video card and “drivers” to see if any obvious threads pop up. I remember some years back, I had the game Myst. On my old system, if you went to the island, down the stairs and turned, there was a button you were supposed to click. If I clicked that button, it made the appropriate click sound. The next thing you had to do was push the reset button because it locked the system up completely. Turned out to be an issue with the sound card. If none of that seems to help, give Photodex support a call – unlike many companies these days, they not only answer the phone, but have helpful people there that seem to know how to work the problem.

Thanks for the response, guys. We just got back from a long vacation. I see there is a version 6, and I think I am eligible for an upgrade…..so I plan to start fresh in a couple days.
I just lost a few hours work creating the 4 slideshows, but I do not mind. It is pretty simple to use.
I really do like the user interface of this software, and will let you know how the new version works for me.

Success!!!!!!!!
After installing version 6, I created 4 slideshows & was adding 3 30-second video clips to a menu template (preparing to create a DVD).
Before I could hit “create”, ProShow stopped working.
I remembered reading a tip from Dale about deleting the proshow.phd file…….and this appears to have been the problem.
I was able to burn 2 DVD’s with no issues. Thanks for the help!

Glad to hear you got things back working again. Strange crashes are very irritating (especially when they are happening to you!! )