I thought this problem was gone in v.10 until...

Doug_Marshall wrote on 1/21/2011, 11:51 AM
...it happened again: video clips mysteriously going wrong - completely wrong material appearing, apparently randomly. Vegas has a serious problem here, I think. Scenario:

Recording session: 2 continuously running (Sony) cameras; Vegas continuously capturing 4-channel audio.

Editing session: Import the videos and line them up with the audio; group everything and start to splice, keeping all the audio and video elements lined up. I thought everything was good this time but the video files (which the cameras parse into 2gb chunks) have developed apparently random problems (in the past, the audio has also not been immune): several clips are not even playing the right file, instead playing files that were part of another session. This presents, at the very least, a reconstruction problem.

How am I going to relocate the specific part of the "lost" clip? Is the timing data within the clip accessible? Perhaps that data is intact and could be re-paired with the correct file to reconstruct?

Is this problem unique to me or are others experiencing it as well?

Comments

MUTTLEY wrote on 1/21/2011, 12:04 PM

I've had this happen several times as well, timeline and project media referencing completely different files from other projects, at times by files that aren't even remotely similar such as a long mxf clip on the timeline showing up as a jpg or psd from a different project. Trying to select in project media and replace the file with the correct file doesnt work either. The few times I've had this happen the only recourse was to fall back to an early version of the project or attempt to rebuild it.

Along similar lines often I'm working with graphics and I'll switch over to Photoshop to make some adjustments. Usually since Vegas releases the project from memory when not the active program, when I came back to it Vegas would simply start using the new file, now more often than not though it says that that media is gone and brings up the dialog to find/replace it though won't accept the new version in that space. More often than not I have to cancel out of that, go back to Photoshop, save it as a different name, go back to Vegas, remove the old instance from the timeline and re-do whatever it is that I would have that graphic do.

Some quirky things for sure and glad you mentioned that it's happening to you, thought I was the only one.

- Ray
Underground Planet
farss wrote on 1/21/2011, 12:07 PM
"Is this problem unique to me or are others experiencing it as well"

I've had it happen only twice in ten years and zillions of projects. Others have reported it as well.
This is an impossible to reproduce at will problem which makes getting it fixed extremely difficult.

Please report this because it is a major problem. I have no idea how the developers can track this down without commiting a lot of resources to it, the only way that's going to happen is if every instance of it is reported.

Bob.
Doug_Marshall wrote on 1/21/2011, 12:24 PM
Oh yes, I've reported it! I also reported it in when I first experienced it using version 9.

I wonder if it is a file-naming/management problem. Cameras aren't very creative naming their files and neither is Vegas when recording directly to it - which leads me to assume that its file management ought to be more sophisticated than file names alone - and I assume it is.

Doug
TeetimeNC wrote on 1/21/2011, 12:31 PM
I had a similar, but thankfully minor thing happen yesterday with 10c 64 bit. I had my title for my current project in a nested veg. I opened the nested veg from the parent's timeline, made a change, and when I returned to the parent it couldn't find the nested title veg. I did a lot of fiddling and unfortunately I'm not exactly sure what I finally did to get it to reappear, but it is ok now.

/jerry
Dreamline wrote on 1/21/2011, 12:52 PM
"the only way that's going to happen is if every instance of it is reported."

Please... if they did their job and used the software with REAL QA this wouldn't be happening. Obviously, someone is asleep at the wheel here. The only real recourse in not to update again and change software. Sony dropped the ball seriously here. We can't depend on them so why should they depend on our money for updates.

The only way for this not to happen is to have the Devs actually USE their own software for more than 2 minutes. It's not on my shoulders to report the hundreds of bugs to Sony unless they are paying me, but it is my job to look for more reliable software.
farss wrote on 1/21/2011, 1:31 PM
Sorry but I disagree here although I can understand where you're coming from. Sure the QA needs to be way, way better but if you want to push that barrow this is the wrong issue to take to market.

I do have a positive suggestion regarding this issue.

It's very annoying when it happens. It's cost me quite a few hours work, it can cost a user way, way more than that so it is a very serious problem.
The even worse problem is the difficulty of recovering from the problem. You know it's the wrong file, you know which file it should be and you should be able to fix it with a few mouse clicks and you cannot. Vegas and/or the project file is somehow subtly muddled in a way that prevents a simple Replace in the Project Media from working.

I cannot see why the codesmiths could not at least address this aspect of the problem. Somehow recode the Replace function so it can work correctly even with the corruption in place. If we send them our corrupted project files they have something to work with.
This isn't going to fix the problem but at least it will dramatically reduce the pain when it does happen.

Bob.

Doug_Marshall wrote on 1/21/2011, 3:00 PM
I have confirmed in the file properties that the right file is still referenced: 00020.mts. However, the file actually playing is: 00015.mts (or thereabouts), based on the music being played.
farss wrote on 1/21/2011, 3:28 PM
Yeah mate, that's what happens, confusing isn't it.
Now try to Replace it with the right file and you cannot hence my suggestion as to how this may, to some extent be dealt with.

Bob.
Marc S wrote on 1/21/2011, 4:29 PM
I'm having this problem right now in a multi cam edit of a concert. using 9.0e 64bit. This is a major issue that can really screw up hours of work.
Doug_Marshall wrote on 1/21/2011, 9:34 PM
OK, here's my solution so far: Check the properties of the screwed up clip. Vegas shows you its file name on the Properties/Media or General tabs. Luckily, I knew which file Vegas should have been pointing to and, sure enough, it was wrong. For kicks, I removed all unused media from the project (the lightning bolt icon, upper left of screen). I noted that the rogue file remained, as expected. I closed the project, temporarily renamed the offending file, then re-opened the project. Vegas reported a missing file and I pointed it to the correct one and, for now at least, it's restored, edits and all.

My apologies if this is the same as what other people are doing as a workaround!
farss wrote on 1/21/2011, 10:00 PM
If I recall correctly I and others have tried your workaround in the past and even that didn't work. Mind you that was at least one release ago so something may have changed.

Thanks for reporting your findings, certainly when (hopefully never) this happens again I shall certainly try this before banging my head against a wall.

Bob.
Doug_Marshall wrote on 1/21/2011, 10:12 PM
Ew, maybe there are genetic variations to this bug!
Doug_Marshall wrote on 1/23/2011, 10:43 PM
Oh boy, here's a new variant and this one didn't respond to the fix I described above:

I opened another project and several video events are apparently blank and, in the properties box they show a *.wav* file as the file being called rather than a video file. This, mind you, is on a *video* track. Impossible, you say? Apparently not!

I renamed the .wav file temporarily and forced Vegas to ask me what to do. I pointed it to the right video file and now those events all carry the message 'media offline.' So that didn't help a lot. About to add this to my trouble ticket...

No, wait, the video files finally appeared on the timeline. Why did it take 15 minutes for them to appear? Not a clue. But my procedure seems to have worked after all.
farss wrote on 1/24/2011, 1:08 AM
Glad to hear it did work for you...eventually.

Sorry I have no idea what could have taken Vegas 15 minutes to ponder although some of my very long MXF files do take that long to be "add"ed to the project media so I think this is not any sign of another problem.

It is a worry that you've had this happen more than once now. I've had a couple of conversation offline with Grazie and from what he's had to say this may have something to do with the Undo buffer becoming corrupted. That sure sounds very possible to me but I don't see how it gets us any closer to stopping it from happening.

Thinking back to my last incident I'm now fairly certain I didn't try your fix. Reasons might of been I just plain didn't think of it, I did try doing a replace through the project media and when that didn't work I figured best to just get on with doing the repair the hard way.

I also recall another user had this problem recently and he too was able to fix it using the same method as you.

I just hope this doesn't keep happening to you. It's not a pleasant feeling when it does.

Bob.
Doug_Marshall wrote on 1/24/2011, 8:18 AM
Thanks for your thoughts. These were AVCHD files, which usually show up on the timeline fairly quickly.

Corruption in the undo buffer sounds possible because I've been splitting events, copying the split, undoing the split and pasting the snip elsewhere in a number of cases. Makes for a lot of "undue" and perhaps I set myself up for disaster.

In any case, Vegas clearly has a sneaky database issue and it may well occur only when someone uses a certain workflow sequence. If that's the case, it's nice to know that I'm not the only one with the situation. Also, in my experience so far, while the problem may manifest over several events in an edited project, all those events have shared the same original file name - then the same wrong file name after the error occurs.

Long live the forum!
Doug_Marshall wrote on 1/24/2011, 7:20 PM
Yet another occurrence...same problem, different project, different day.

It amazes me how something can be fine one day, you save it and come back a couple days later and it's trashed.

No response yet from Sony. I reported the problem Friday 1/21 and have added four updates in the interim.

Update: This time I'm caught. Don't know what to do...the corruption in this case has occurred between files that are both legitimately part of the project. Vegas only allows a blanket replacement - so either one set of the events is wrong or the other set. I'm currently working to see if I can paste these clips into separate projects temporarily to fix them. What a kludge! If these edits hadn't been so intricate in the first place I'd just do them over.
lschaudies wrote on 1/25/2011, 5:40 AM
I think this is related. Often a clip on the timeline will show up all black. Audio is present but video is black. The clip will show up black in the trimmer window also but audio is there. I have found that if in Vegas's explorer I rename the offending clip, just append a letter or something to the name, as soon as I hit enter, the video returns to the timeline and the clip works. I spent weeks with support back and forth on this issue. At the time I had lots of sub clips with stabilization applied and thought that was part of the problem. I now know that subclips and stabilization have nothing to do with it and just any plain clip can have this happen. Support wanted me to upload my project and clips but that was impossible since it was HD and would take weeks to upload with my internet connection. I'm posting here to add to the weight of this problem hoping we can get this fixed. Something is screwy with the way Vegas keeps track of things on the timeline.
farss wrote on 1/25/2011, 5:52 AM
Doug,
despite what's happened the method you used previously should still work so long as you can remember which files were the correct ones that the events should reference. You're probably best off doing this in two passes to reduce the risk of you getting yourself confused.

Bob.
Doug_Marshall wrote on 1/25/2011, 9:21 AM
Hi Bob,
What I ultimately did this time was paste the screwed up events into a new project, do the fix there, then delete the corrupt ones from the real project and paste the fixed ones back in. I couldn't figure any other way to isolate the uncorrupted clips that called 0004.mts from the corrupted ones that were also calling it.

I keep adding information to my trouble ticket with Sony. No response so far.
Doug
farss wrote on 1/25/2011, 11:31 AM
"I keep adding information to my trouble ticket with Sony. No response so far."

Support seem to be overloaded at the moment. It took a long while for them to get back to me over the event markers problem. Hang in there.

Bob.
Doug_Marshall wrote on 1/25/2011, 12:30 PM
Agreed. Hangin' on! At least there appear to be admittedly kludgy ways around the problem.
RP wrote on 2/6/2011, 6:15 PM
Doug:

Any response from Sony yet about this issue? I actually worked on my first project this past week after upgrading in November...WHAT A PAIN. I dealt with exactly the same issues you described.

With Vegas 9, I started having the dreaded "red" video clips and my frustrations are at a whole new level with 10. I'll be moving back to Vegas 8c until this issue gets resolved. If not...well...as much as it pains me to say (considering my investment in a couple of other Vegas-specific programs), I'll be looking at some other products.
Doug_Marshall wrote on 2/6/2011, 7:09 PM
No response beyond the initial automated one as of 2/6 on a trouble ticket from 1/21 and updated by me with additional information several times through 1/25. I had the problem occur several times during those few days (and, of course, I was working intensively on projects at the time). I'm still concerned about the problem and will call Sony tomorrow and pay the fee to talk to a human.
Doug
RP wrote on 2/6/2011, 9:32 PM
Totally ridiculous. I can imagine your frustration waiting so long without a response.

I figure that I'll give Sony until March (when I'll start my next project) to fix this mess, or I'll take a serious look at Premiere. Granted, it's an added expense, but my time is more valuable.

Good luck with support. Keep us posted.