Subject:RE: Post if your renders are hanging

Posted by: mrBun

Date:9/25/2008 4:45:20 PM

all the time with 8...doesn't matter which build or OS...I own 2 seats, 1 on Vista, 1on XP.... both fairly new quad core machines ( also hung on the older machines they lived on before we upgraded....which was a contributing factor in the upgrade) .

We make games here... I use Vegas for many things...comping game trailers to putting sound on sprites.
All of the work is delivered to me as still sequences (png + alpha).
In the past I have literally had dozens of sequences on the timeline (e.g; we did a fight game a few years ago....with different animations for each character...ummm, hitting the canvas...stun fx etc. etc.... just required some slight shifting of sounds to match, prior to rendering).

Have used Vegas since vers 5 (?)...and love it...very fast/no-nonsense app to get my work out the door.

Can't help but feel that they broke something with 8.... btw: also had to uninstall DVD arch v5 and roll back to 4 (not 4.5), to get my sales DVDs to render.

For all of you experiencing no difficulties...congratulations!
I sincerely wish I could come up and sit amongst y'all.

The fact that this version is constantly freezing makes me incredibly sad, as it is my go-to app for many tasks....and has been for over 4 years now.
I am at a loss as to what to use to replace it.... I really hope Sony fixes it.
I haven't posted here about this before, but have just lost a morning rebooting to try to get a 1 minute trailer to render....3 events (2x png seqs, 1x Sony gradient with 50% transparency to "watermark" the BG ani, 2 tracks of audio....1 track "theme".... 1 track with odd fx.... no plugins.)
I finally got it to render..... but am feeling like a rant with my cup of tea.
Thanks for the opportunity!

Subject:RE: Post if your renders are hanging

Reply by: Widetrack

Date:9/26/2008 12:03:58 PM

I feel your pain, brother. But as long as most people are not experiencing these problems, those of us who are are out of luck. Luckily, the people on this forum are extremely helpful and knowledgable, and usually come up with something to help.

I already got through one iteration of my current almost-render by using one forum-member's suggestion. Got a Beta render out of it, but now trying to get another one, even the suggested settings don't help.

I just put 2 new GB of RAM in, replacing my old ones. If the render goes through, I'll get another pair--(they're only 17 bucks apice!), and send the old 2 to my ex-wife.

Subject:RE: Post if your renders are hanging

Reply by: ReneH

Date:9/26/2008 12:31:50 PM

I would look at system software and hardware integrity before I start blaming Vegas. Did you install a new prog? How about new drivers? New systems changes thinking it would make your system faster? Perhaps video card or cpu overclocking? I'm guilty of the last one.

Subject:RE: Post if your renders are hanging

Reply by: Widetrack

Date:9/26/2008 12:46:03 PM

rene:

In my case, I've made no changes of the nature you mention. I use this machine only for media production and keep good track of what's in it and how it's set up.

And this is the first lengthy render I've tried on this cmptr. i rendered my previous major project on a PA and was hoping this new Core 2 Duo would prove a great uptick in performance.

BTW, I did disable multiprocessor AVI rendering, even though i'm rendering to MPEG-2, and it looks like Vegas is using both processors. At least, I'm seeing 2 windows in the Task Manager's "CPU Usage History" display, each going at about 50%.

Render's at 17% and still going.

Subject:RE: Post if your renders are hanging

Reply by: ReneH

Date:9/26/2008 1:11:40 PM

Widetrack,

How about your antiviral prog, is it off during renders? Do you surf the web on that machine?

I would try to get a hardware upgrade on the cpu fan, one that can be manipulated with a program like Speedfan. Every time I render, as in overnight, I have the ceiling fan on high, and rev up the cpu fan just in case things get hot. Also, your cpu could be overheating because:

1. Its not seated correctly and /or you should use a good grease/paste to increase seating and improve heat transfer.
2. You should blast the cpu and memory with compressed air, dirt will cause overheating.

3. Do not ever keep your tower in an enclosed area, like those desks that have that tiny little cubicle like cubby hole, your asking for over heating problems.

4. check you IRQ conflicts, those are bigtime offenders of system instability.

See if any of these will help yo.

Good luck,

Rene

Subject:RE: Post if your renders are hanging

Reply by: zcus

Date:9/26/2008 8:32:59 PM

Im the orignal poster and deleted it because I managed to solve my problem in a round about way.... Through a crash when I was tweaking some audio in vegas - had to end task out of vegas and open it up again... When this happens my sound cards ASIO drivers tend to disappear from the Vegas preferences and only a reboot will bring them back... sooo.. when I reopened vegas I really didn't need the ASIO drivers as it was only a stereo project and rendered out using window classic wave drivers.. . EVERYTHING RENDERED!!! (JOY).. Still not perfect cause I cannot render out a 5.1 project with my native soundcard drivers..

So, like I suggested in another post a while back is that SONY should create list of verfied Motherboards, video and sound cards - This would save so much fussing on this fourm!!!!

Oh yah - guys, try switching to windows classic wave drivers, and render - most likely it is VP8 doesn't like my sound card drivers (they were fine in V7) but maybe it might work for you????

Subject:RE: Post if your renders are hanging

Reply by: Widetrack

Date:9/26/2008 9:21:45 PM

Rene:

You're suggestions are good, and so make it doubly frustrating for me. The machine does not go on the Web and has no antivirus.software; machine is well ventilated and fanned.

I have not, however air-blasted it, greased or checked the seating of the the processor or checked IRQ conflicts (not since about 1998!) . guess it's time I got down to that.

thanks for the suggestions.

Subject:RE: Post if your renders are hanging

Reply by: Widetrack

Date:9/26/2008 9:32:48 PM

Hmmm. I'm using a RME fireface with ASIO drivers. Will try again set to Classic Wave drivers, click my heels and say 3 times....

People on the forum used to try Sony--Sonic foundry, actually--to publish a list of reliable firewire cards and machines, but they stonewalled for understandable reasons. Don't count on Sony to publish a liability-laden Mobo/sound card list anytime soon.

Subject:RE: Post if your renders are hanging

Reply by: Dan Sherman

Date:9/27/2008 1:12:46 PM

I had terrible problems with hanging in version 6.0. but have never had a render failure before and since since, except when fan failure cook the motherboard recenlty.

Subject:RE: Post if your renders are hanging

Reply by: Widetrack

Date:9/27/2008 2:09:08 PM

Rene:

after replying to you last night that I had no antivirus because I never used my production machine to go online, it hit me in the middle of the might that I actually may not have removed this one program I installed before I started this policy. So I looked and sure enough, there was this one program still doing a scan and search for updates about every 8 hours, so it was bound to hit most of my renders.

I disabled it, switched to Windows Classic Wave drivers like zcus suggested and got a clean render overnight. I think this was the culprit.

So thanks again to all who've helped. I'm going to try to get some work done.

Subject:RE: Post if your renders are hanging

Reply by: ReneH

Date:9/28/2008 8:35:59 PM

Widetrack,

Just followed up on your post and am so glad for you. I knew it would be some glitch similar to what I told you. The better you are at being a techie, the more rock solid your system will be.

I honestly think that many of the complaints related to Vegas have their roots in the culprits mentioned above. People refuse to take responsibility for their tech shortcomings and pas the blame unnecessarily.

My advice, is learn as much as you can about the OS you are using, particularly the registry, irq's, drivers, services, etc. You will be much better off in the long run.

Subject:RE: Post if your renders are hanging

Reply by: mrBun

Date:9/29/2008 3:30:20 PM

Ok... after running this app on 4 separate machines now without success (2 dual core machines around 2-3 years old) into 2 quad core machines installed in the last month.
I have read all the advice on this forum on throwing more money (geeking out, or taking a screwdriver/blower to it)…. Dunno folks, crawling under a machine after spending shiploads of money seems a mite silly to me…. We have an IT dept and a few dozen engineers in this building….

My interest begins and ends with the creative process.
These workstations have been tweaked for creating music, which is the main purpose of this department……and they run every app we have thrown at them with dignity and aplomb….. Except Vegas 8

We run these machines as lean as possible….no internet, no antivirus…I transfer to the servers using portable HDs…. And as far as I’m aware all TSR events are removed…. one of these boxes has several fans that look like they were taken from a helicopter designer’s notebook by mistake….. Runs quiet though….but has been the subject of a few amused comments from colleagues…. (The blue lights in the case are “Disco-riffic”)

I figure that most people here are working with film/vids…and that Sony has shifted focus to meet the needs of people working with this media.

We run animation here…. I use Vegas because it has the codecs…has been able to preview events at close to speed…has multiple track capability…. was bulletproof.

Since posting here last week, I have started to composite in Combustion…. Which happily runs my png sequences….but not at speed.
The average trailer = 1500- 3000 frames, Sales support MPEGS can go to 6000 frames …
Combustion also can’t read or write mpegs yet….. And audio is pretty basic….also the ability to loop a sequence by dragging it in Vegas was cool (titles/lower thirds with particles/wipes…average 200 frames)…. Combustion requires one to duplicate (and nest to keep it manageable)….

Vegas was a better choice for simple layout work.

Now … I find that if I output from Combustion as a png pass on one track, that I can then take it into Vegas and it will allow me to render my mpeg2 from there.
The problem seems to be when there is more than one track of png still sequences with alpha, and or envelopes.
Also it is a minor PITA to have to take it through this extra step.

At this point in time I am considering rolling back to an earlier build.
I’m pretty sure we didn’t have this problem with 6….. 7 crashed from time to time…but we thought it was because the machines were starting to show their age.
Something got broken with 8…. I have been blaming the aging computers for this…. (I also run animatics in 3DS Max which was chugging)

For those of us working with png sequences anyway.

Vegas has had my recommendations and confidence now for four + years…. I would love it if they could fix it.

Denial is still the longest river in the world…. I believe it is broken…. Every other app on both these workstations is just running as it should.

Subject:RE: Post if your renders are hanging

Reply by: Widetrack

Date:9/29/2008 11:05:21 PM

I posted this on another thread, but I think it may be worth the potential of violating webiquette for the folks suffering from these problems.

I’ve just been going through this problem. Solved it for one render. living in hope for the next one.

Here’s a partial compilation of all the suggestions I got from some of the great Vegasians on this forum. I’m going to post a complete one soon.

Ultimately, though, I think my problem was either a antivirus program I’d forgotten was on there kept starting a scan or update or something every 8 hours or so.


High probability of helping (IMHO)

• Turn off all antivirus programs
• Turn off Windows update
• Turn off all firewall programs
• Set your Dynamic RAM allocation to 64
• Set audio device drivers to Windows Classic Wave drivers
• Make really big still images smaller, esp if your render hangs while rendering one.
• Render al .MOVs to AVIs and swap them in your project
• Render all .TIFs to PNG or jpg and swap them in your project
• In the View menu, uncheck the "waveforms and frames" item.
• Make your preview window really small
• Turn off any other background processes you can figure out how to turn off that won’t kill your computer.
• Keep your machine cool. If in doubt, put a fan on it.
• Unplug all unnecessary USB devices
• Click your hee…no, wait. That’s something else.

Lower probabiltly of helping (IMHO)

• select "disable multicore render for AVIs". This may not help, and won’t affect mpeg renders in any case
• Use a computer with an Intel chips and Intel board
• In Preferences, select "Disable multi-processor AVI rendering,"
• Set the number of rendering threads to “1” (although “2” worked for me too)

Best of luck.

Subject:RE: Post if your renders are hanging

Reply by: Widetrack

Date:9/29/2008 11:08:54 PM

Mr Bun: (where do I recognize that name from?)

What did you do to get it to render?

Subject:RE: Post if your renders are hanging

Reply by: FrigidNDEditing

Date:9/30/2008 12:49:31 AM

mr.Bun,

there were some bugs with PNG's and alpha back in 7 I think (or maybe 6) if you were running on multi core and had multiple layers with alpha ( didn't always show up, but was there, and I reported it and it was fixed, can't remember when ), but I learned there that sometimes it helps to turn all the procs for Vegas off but one in the windows task manager, once vegas is open, right click on it in the "processes" tab, and then click on "set affinity". Un-check all but one core, and try rendering it that way ( just a thought ).

Alternatively, if you go back to 6 or 7 and see a strange issue with your PNG's alpha channel's using this trick will get rid of the issue *(it will slow your render down however).

Dave

Subject:RE: Post if your renders are hanging

Reply by: sutor

Date:9/30/2008 12:00:15 PM

I would get an error message while rendering but oddly the render would keep going and finish if I didn't click ok on the error message. Then when I clicked it Vegas would crash. Tried everything to fix it. Following the above advise I set to Classic Wave rather than the m-audio ASIO driver and it worked. No more crashes. Thanks for the suggestion, it's made my life a lot easier.

Subject:RE: Post if your renders are hanging

Reply by: LReavis

Date:9/30/2008 12:25:21 PM

I recently spent a week troubleshooting the rendering of a long (1 hour, 40 min) project (described in another thread). I did all the above, even trying classic wave driver, etc., but no luck (I was able to get it to render on an old Intel 3gHz P4 on an Intel 875 motherboard, but hooking up the USB drives and waiting for a couple a days for it to finish was no fun).

But the suggestion from some to remove all unnecessary USB devices kept tickling my head, so I unplugged my Logitech wireless keyboard & mouse and used an ordinary Kensington mouse and my beloved Avant Stellar keyboard through a usb adapter. It worked! - yielding a flawless render in little more than half the time of my old P4 even though I had had to disable multi-CPU rendering and set threads to 1 (I haven't tried setting threads to 2). Remarkably, I noticed that the Page File usage soared to over 3GB toward the end of the render; I held my breath, for normally it would crash when it was around 2GB, give or take a little.

Incidentally, when it was crashing, I noticed that it often would crash on one of my moderately large .JPGs (2400x3200 pixels) that were in the first 10 min. or so of the timeline. My next experiment would have been to reduce their size a little, which in the past sometimes has allowed rendering to continue. But this time it rendered through all of them, some of which were even larger.

I remember that when I bought the Logitech devices, there was concern expressed on the web tech-sites regarding the stability of Logitech drivers - perhaps for good reason.

Subject:RE: Post if your renders are hanging

Reply by: Widetrack

Date:9/30/2008 12:51:02 PM

Larry:

Astounding, sometimes the lengths we have to go to.

I'm going to add that to my list, above, with your permission.

WT

Subject:RE: Post if your renders are hanging

Reply by: blink3times

Date:9/30/2008 2:34:20 PM

USB devices are notorious for causing crashes on memory intensive processes. You don't even have to have the cable connected to anything.

I remember trying to setup my overclocking through BIOS. I had the system wound up before to 3.2Ghz with no problems but this time I couldn't get it up over 2.99Ghz without a system crash. I soon found out that I had a small nick in the shielding of one of my usb cables. I disconnected that cable and all of a sudden it all worked.

Subject:RE: Post if your renders are hanging

Reply by: mrBun

Date:9/30/2008 4:50:06 PM

[quote=” Widetrack” ]

Mr Bun: (where do I recognize that name from?)

What did you do to get it to render?


Not sure as to where you know the name…there are a few of us on the net…it isn’t always available to me…. Personally, it was given to me by a slightly deaf Polish client mistaking my surname (Barnes) repeatedly in front of my work buddies…. It started a joke that spread through my network of friends and associates and stuck…..( needs to be said with a strong Polish accent).

I have started compositing in, and rendering out of “Autodesk Combustion 2008” as a “flattened” png sequence….bringing the result into Vegas to add audio, and render out as MPEG2 (both PAL and NTSC depending on territory).

[quote=”FrigidNDEditing” ]

mr.Bun,

there were some bugs with PNG's and alpha back in 7 I think (or maybe 6) if you were running on multi core and had multiple layers with alpha ( didn't always show up, but was there, and I reported it and it was fixed, can't remember when ), but I learned there that sometimes it helps to turn all the procs for Vegas off but one in the windows task manager, once vegas is open, right click on it in the "processes" tab, and then click on "set affinity". Un-check all but one core, and try rendering it that way ( just a thought ).

Alternatively, if you go back to 6 or 7 and see a strange issue with your PNG's alpha channel's using this trick will get rid of the issue *(it will slow your render down however).



I’m pretty sure it is multiple layers and transparency that is bringing Vegas to its knees… I can see it “hit the wall” in the preview window….. size of stills could also be an issue, though if I try to add a humungous still to the timeline, the preview screen goes red, and Vegas hangs… so I have learned to be aware of that over the years, and have some custom Photoshop batch commands to shrink the larger stills they send me.
Presently we are a bit pushed to get stuff out the door… tradeshows etc.. but I will hunt down a copy of 6 and 7 and install it on a machine to see if it runs any better…. I’ll let you know if it runs any smoother.

Subject:RE: Post if your renders are hanging

Reply by: LReavis

Date:10/1/2008 2:04:22 PM

Last night I tried turning on 2 threads instead of the 1 thread I'd been using. About 8 hours later, it was still cranking out the frames, but Page File was at 3.26 GB - more than I'd ever seen. The render window was expecting to finish in another hour and a half; I checked it again after waiting that long, and it had crashed at 97%. So close, but yet so far.

If it would have succeeded, I'd have been very happy, for it was proceeding at least twice as fast as when I set it to 1 thread. Strangely, it didn't show much change in CPU usage, still ranging from about 17% up to about 70% or more.

Tonight I may try again after turning off another few processes - while I chant "OM, OM, OMMMMM"

Subject:RE: Post if your renders are hanging

Reply by: cliff_622

Date:10/1/2008 2:41:20 PM

When I used to use a Core 2 Duo w/3 gigs of RAM, (T7700) I would never hang on renders at any setting.

I recently upgraded to a Q6600 Quad (still 3 gigs of RAM) and today I ALWAYS hang on renders unless I do this:

Drop rendering threads to 1
Set rendering to max RAM (over a gig)
Disable "AVI multithreading"

So far,...this combo has worked fine on all my projects. Very slow but renders on through the night.

Sony,...guys take a hard look at this. Looks like this is a more common issue than you guys might know. Sony support is aware of my issue and they are the ones that gave me the "fix". (if you can call it that)

CT

Subject:RE: Post if your renders are hanging

Reply by: cliff_622

Date:10/1/2008 7:37:23 PM

I dont get it.

If we can bounce all over our projects at various preview settings with tons of plugins,...isn't that a more memory intensive and rescource taxing process?

Vegas previews all my stuff smooth and fine.

I mean, rendering isnt even a realtime function. There should be plenty of time to cache chunks of data without maxing out any OS or hardware resources. no?

I would expect Vegas to crash while building a big project and during realtime playback,...not on a super slow render.

CT