I have had the same issue. My project would not complete and how I found the clip out of 150 or so clips was amazing but that one clip caused a lot of problems. What the heck is wrong that this would happen? One clips causing the whole project to malfunction???

Very strange indeed considering it is captured from the same source/exactly the same animal and plays fine in WMP.
How you found yours in that giant hay stack I can't imagine...did you introduce one clip at a time like me or what?
Do you shoot HDV per chance...I dunno...grasping for straws here.
Thanks very much,
Randy

It has been mentioned in this forum - and has happened to me too - that you can get a kinda bad piece of media from an else faithful camera.
In my own last experience a year ago such a piece of media (about 10 seconds) was placed some 15 minutes into a 20 minutes project.

I could preview only a few minutes and/or make only 1 or 2 changes to other media in the project - then: crash.

That particular media was recorded while skiing and at several degrees below freezing and maybe a too cold and exhausted battery has not been able to supply the camera properly. Maybe - Dunno.

As you I could locate the bad piece of media too, however.
Then I rendered it to my delivery format (for later smartrendering) in another instance of Vegas and replaced the bad media in the original projects timeline - and voila: the whole project Ok again.

I have seen such "bad" media in the form of AVCHD, HDV and even mp3.
Btw: the bad piece of media was playable in WMP - and Vegas could handle it if it was the only piece of media in a project.

I could preview only a few minutes and/or make only 1 or 2 changes to other media in the project - then: crash.

for me it is within 1 second after adding it to the timeline that Vegas (10 or 12) crashes

That particular media was recorded while skiing and at several degrees below freezing and maybe a too cold and exhausted battery has not been able to supply the camera properly. Maybe - Dunno.

this particular project was shot yesterday in El Paso, TX where it was 74 degrees all on the same tape and has happened with footage on a different camera we use

As you I could locate the bad piece of media too, however.

I have tried to place this particular clip on the timeline of a new project in both 10 and 12 resulting in an immediate crash...it's like Vegas is biting into a bad piece of fruit or something

Thanks so much for your input but I don't know if it's related.
Randy

Maybe you could convert that media to something usable using Handbrake or similiar? or maybe try to re-read it from the tape?