PPro 151 with Aspect HD 3.1 does NOT load project
 

I have a PPro 1.5.1 project with Aspect HD 3.1.

I saved copies of the project progressively as I worked on it, naming them
project1, project2... project42.

Now when I'm trying to open project42, PPro displays the usual "Loading
Project" bar - but never finishes the loading, no matter how long I wait.

Older versions - say, project24 - load up just fine, always.

Note that I have upraded from Aspect HD 3.0 to 3.1 in the middle of the project. I have not seen any immediate difference at the time.

Any pointers why the newer projects don't load?

The is a Premiere issue -- Aspect HD does not impact project loading and saving (I wish we could.) However I have seen Premiere do things like this; here is what I have done to work around it: Create a new project with the same characteristics as the one that doesn't load. Then import the older project into this new one. For some reason this seems to solve many loading issues.

I hope this solves the problem.

Steven Gotz syndrome
 

Thanks David, I appreciate your advice!

Yeah, this PPro behavior is unnerving.

Here's my workaround: I open the *older* project first, say project24 that always loads up fine. I keep PPro open. Then *after that* the newer project - project42 - also does load up OK! But not if I start with project42.

Moreover: after 42 opens up, if I save it as new version - like project43 - then I will still have problems opening that one individually.

Maybe PPro-authority Steven Gotz - are you reading this, Steve? - could also chime in on this.

Have you tried opening up one of the recent autosaved project files in the autosave folder? Depending on how you've set this up in you preferences, you could open "project42.prpro" identical or near identical to your manually saved version.

Also, unless you were looking to fix a known issue, I'd advise against installing/upgrading anything on your machine while in the middle of a project.

Pete

Peter, yes - using Auto-Saved version was my original workaround.

However it does not work 100% of the time. Some tries are successful and some are not.

However if I open a old version first, then new one - this works all the time (so far...)

It seems like some global settings may have been screwed up in the newer project's save file, so when it loads by itself, it's a no-go. But if it inherits the settings from the already opened older project, it's fine.

Or may be something gets loaded into memory from the old project, and then opening new one only adds a bit to it - opposite to having the whole thing loaded into memory at once when I try to just open a new project first.

Real weird.

1. Did you try after a cold reboot? (flushes memory, files, etc.)
2. Have you tried dumping the preview and conformed audio files? Could be a mismatch there.

Both attempts have worked for me in the past. Then again, it's why I also save often.

I also delete and dump/unlink uneeded files (i.e. test renders, etc.) to keep disk space and to prevent the project file size from eating ram, etc.

Pete

#2 is likely a solution, but I have not tried it yet, because the workaround did work for me.

#1: you mean disconnect the PC's power for a minute or so, or do you mean something else?

#1) Yes, a cold boot requires shutting down, then disconnecting the power for about 30 seconds. Hardware resets, hard disks spin down so things don't get hung in memory, etc. Also because it just feels good pulling the plug : )

#2) Because I've had files get corrupted that would cause PPro to hang. Shutting down PPro services, deleting the preview and conform folders, and restarting would do the trick. Course it requires reconforming and rendering, better than having to go back a few interations though.

You can add these fixes to your bag of tricks the next time PPro gets into a hissy-fit.

Pete

After transferring the HDDs to another PC, I have erased all preview and conformed audio folders, forcing PPro to re-create them.

Took 1 hour for Dual Xeon machine to do so.

Result: no more problems opening latest versions of the project.

So it seems like ditching the conformed audio folder is probably the way to go in the situations like this.

Thank You to all.

Sorry, was on vacation
 

Your solution makes sense (after the fact, I know), as did David's idea. The problem seems to be that a text file can be too easily corrupted. And the project files are just XML text files.

So if the problem was a bad link to a conformed audio or preview file, then deleting them eliminates the problem.

My guess is that some people's disk drive management systems are causing problems when trying to save a file while writing something to a different disk. It does not happen to me, but it certainly does to a lot of people. If we could determine a similarity between the systems with the problem, I am sure Adobe would love to hear about it.