TWO + WASTED DAYS!

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Guest

I spent the last 2 + days editing a movie using Movie Maker. Only
experienced about 9 system lock-ups, strange happenings, etc. which I
consider successful for this piece of $#&* code. Well the last error "LOST
ALL MY WORK", prior to that I would either restart the system or MM, the
system would start and ask about a file that was saved, nice touch. It
appears what has happened was at the previous restart and file message, after
restoring the saved file, MM erased the backup file, ergo no backup until
another automatic save. I have had it with this product. Approximately 19
hours down the drain. Does anyone know of fixes for MM, or any other product
that can at least stay up and run.
 
Thanks PapaJohn, As you ststed, MM does not save data, but when it abends,
hangs, etops working, etc. and is restarted via either a system restart or
program restart, there always was a saved fiile for restore. I think this
would equate to a "STAE" function in IBM Mvs operating systems. Just where
can I find the Managing section in your website. I will have a "superzap"
program that should be able to recover erased data.
Thanks again.
 
That feature is an auto-recover one to help you after an inadvertent shut
down... I'm thinking of saving a copy of a known good project file and
collection database... as a backup redundant copy. The managing section is
in my www.papajohn.org website menu, about 1/2 way down. They each have a
section about 'Backing Up'.

I did a system restore the other night, and then came back to today... and
found my collection database had been re-zeroed... another case of needing a
backup copy.
--
PapaJohn

Movie Maker 2 and Photo Story 3 website - http://www.papajohn.org
MM2 Tips and Tricks: http://www.simplydv.co.uk/simplyBB/viewtopic.php?t=4693
Online Newsletters: http://www.windowsmoviemakers.net/PapaJohn/Index.aspx
 
Hence the reason I save my work every couple minutes to be safe.
Wow, what a concept. :)
-Wojo
 
PapaJohn,
Thanks have superzap program and will attempt to rebuild/recover files.
What really pisses me off is that I need this movie for a handicapped
little girl on Sat. for her birthday, and I have go out of town tomorrow.

..
WOJO what and where do you save??? Be specific. Yea, it is a nice concept,
always has been and always will be.. But any saves I've done using MM takes
about 20-40 min to save and just as long to restore.
"wojo Wrote"
 
zy1o9m5 said:
PapaJohn,
Thanks have superzap program and will attempt to rebuild/recover files.
What really pisses me off is that I need this movie for a handicapped
little girl on Sat. for her birthday, and I have go out of town tomorrow.

.
WOJO what and where do you save??? Be specific. Yea, it is a nice
concept,
always has been and always will be.. But any saves I've done using MM
takes
about 20-40 min to save and just as long to restore.
Click to expand...

Hi, I always follow Papa/wojo/JI/Graham threads, as I always learn
something.....
Reading of your problems - crashes, freezes ("lock-ups"?) the save issues,
the time delays etc, I would profer that it is either a hardware issue?
(drivers?
Configuration?) Or maybe a resource conflict, or a software patch/hotfix?
Update?
May I ask, apart from WMM and video issues, do you have any other problems
with your PC? Also, is your PC on a LAN? Are there profiles on your PC?
If so, are you owner? Admin' rights?
 
zy1o9m5 said:
PapaJohn,
Thanks have superzap program and will attempt to rebuild/recover files.
What really pisses me off is that I need this movie for a handicapped
little girl on Sat. for her birthday, and I have go out of town tomorrow.

.
WOJO what and where do you save??? Be specific. Yea, it is a nice
concept,
always has been and always will be.. But any saves I've done using MM
takes
about 20-40 min to save and just as long to restore.
Click to expand...

I reread my post and it sounded more sarcastic then it was really meant to
sound.
20 to 40 minutes to save? Are you saving by click "Save to my Computer"?
You don't need to do that for what we are talking about. Just click the Save
icon on the top and Movie Maker will save the project parameters to a MSWMM
file in a matter of seconds not minutes unless there is something wrong.
 
reply to wojo and whoever that was that snuck in and reads papajohn and wojo.

i just returned from out of town and as i stated before must have movie for
girl tomorrow. had great help, brother and my granddaughter came over and
completed project. they experienced 3 hangs and lost 1 file, but it had been
saved(to computer) about 30 minutes before crash.

Wojo you were correct on save to computer. not sure what the quick save
does, just started to use package abbout 2 weeks ago and this is first big
project. final product has about 500 clips..

now here comes the answer to all of my problems! (I THINK).

all problems, hangs. crashes , etc. are caused by the computer i an using.
Graddaughter is real gear-head and she has the solution, because she had
similiar problem when she was testing some of her code on my system
yesterday.,

system is a dual processor INTEL D830. with 2m memory, 2 LARGE disc drives,
and normal number of i/o cards and adapters.

We, granddaughter, brother and myself sat down and came up with this scenario.

1st premise MM uses intenal multi tasking functions. thereby providing some
controled overlap, ie. disk files are being written but you can still view
clips, edit titles, etc.
2nd premise Msoft NEVER tested MM in multi-processor environment.

one idea that led us to this conclusion is that the computer increases the
fan speeds when a lot of stuff is going on, disc activity and heavy cpu
memory access.. We all noticed that when the noise level was increased, it
almost always was followed by a ^^%^%%&*&*( and the system went south. if
anyone out there has ibm mvs experience equate this to timing problem caused
by the location of disk files, starting position of disk arm and the length
of the cahnnel/unit i.o queue. good chance system will always yield
different answer.


Don't know if correct, but at this time we feel very confident this is my
problem.


grand daughter loaded 50 feet of S/8 movie film, inserted many,many titles,
etc, split many clips to insert the titles, etc. NO PROBLEMS, WHY??? She
jokingly says she tied one hand behind her back and use only 1 finger to
type or use the mouse, therefore to our way of thinging, she turned dual
processor into single processor.

PaPaJohn, please take a run at the above and let me know what you think.

Thanks
donkin
 
A few may random thoughts... I tend to do what your grand-daughter does,
when my commands are going in faster than Movie Maker can keep up with them,
sit on one hand... or two.

With the large size of your project, you may not be running out of memory (I
assume you mean 2 GB of memory), but you may be into using the swap file,
and things go to a crawl when you hit that point....

One thing to do is to turn off that auto-recover feature... it might be good
to help recover from a power failure, but when you hit the 10 minute mark
(or other point if you've changed the setting) Movie Maker does it's thing
to check the collections and project changes, and uses all the computer
energy to do it.. without giving any messages about what it's doing.

I have 2 GB of RAM on my laptop also, with a generous swap file size on top
of that, but I get the feeling that Movie Maker isn't effectively using the
memory beyond the 2 GB.... I've had to break projects down into segments
when they don't seem to be close to using my total RAM and swap file.... but
I haven't been able to quantify it.

I've found that limiting Movie Maker to one of the two CPU's by changing the
affinity doesn't seem to slow things down, and might actually help by
letting other things on the computer run in parallel.

I'm impressed with your family participative effort and hope it works out
for you.... tomorrow is already here in Michigan... hope you have enough
time.

--
PapaJohn

Movie Maker 2 and Photo Story 3 website - http://www.papajohn.org
MM2 Tips and Tricks: http://www.simplydv.co.uk/simplyBB/viewtopic.php?t=4693
Online Newsletters: http://www.windowsmoviemakers.net/PapaJohn/Index.aspx
 
I have to agree with Papajohn here.
I as of yet have no experience with dual processor's (It's on my list
though) but I do know that Movie Maker tends to not be as fast as I am most
of the time. I purposely slow down my efforts so the program can keep up
with me. Further I most definitely agree about the size of your project. 500
clips is huge, add transitions and effects and you have a very complex
project. Not only will this cause problems with most computers when
rendering it but it also slows down the editing process with that many
things to keep track of. A project this big on my computer is ALWAYS split
into segments. Think of it like a large program whether it is done in C# C++
VB it doesn't matter. The large ones are always done in pieces then put
together in the end.
-Wojo
 
Hi,

Indeed, it is really possible to restore erased data. When I was in a
simmilar situation I was nearly sure everything was lost, yet a data
recovery tool helped restore erased file. It might also help you. The
one I've used and that worked flawless is Undelete.

http://www.active-undelete.com/
 
Wojo said:
I have to agree with Papajohn here.
I as of yet have no experience with dual processor's (It's on my list
though) but I do know that Movie Maker tends to not be as fast as I am most
of the time. I purposely slow down my efforts so the program can keep up
with me. Further I most definitely agree about the size of your project. 500
clips is huge, add transitions and effects and you have a very complex
project. Not only will this cause problems with most computers when
rendering it but it also slows down the editing process with that many
things to keep track of. A project this big on my computer is ALWAYS split
into segments. Think of it like a large program whether it is done in C# C++
VB it doesn't matter. The large ones are always done in pieces then put
together in the end.
-Wojo
Click to expand...
 
TO PAPAJOHN AND WOJO.

THANKS GUYS, You were a great help. We still have save setting set at
10imins, Granddaughter is fooling around with infinity for MM . The project
went well, couldn't have finished without your help and suggestions, Yes,
save is a great concept, when you know what button to push, thanks again.
Saturday was a great afternoon, little girl cried and cried when she saw
herself, for the first time, participating in the athletic events. We cried
a little also.
Once again, thanks for your support and help.



PS: Will let you know what granddaughter finds out .
 
I "normally" except when in trance-like media state "SAVE" my project. Well,
I didn't. do I understand correctly, that there is absolutely no where these
files (clips with transitions) are on the computer. It happened to me,
computer froze in moviemaker, it was left unsaved. At reboot, it prompted as
an unsaved project, but it froze again, thus left unsaved. I'm searching for
where this might be. Help if can is requested, a response whether there is
or IS NOT a location like this will be appreciated.
 
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