Can't Select Video FX Icons on clips on the timeline
 

I'm using Vegas Pro 10 and I have managed to do something that keeps me from opening the Video FX icon on individual clips in the time line. This only happens on one track. The other tracks work fine. It is associated with the project. I can close and reopen Vegas and reopen the project and the problem still exists. I'm sure it's something I did but for the life of me I can't figure out what.

I experimented with individual clips and found that it is somehow a track property that is causing this. I can drag a clip to another track and I can then select the Video FX icon just fine. Or I can drag a clip from another track to the problem track and then I can't select the Video FX icon.

Any suggestions?

Maybe it is a bug with you project. Try opening another instance of Vegas and copy/paste your whole project in that new instance.

Hope it helps

Phil

Here's a thought, perhaps you are, it's just that the FX menu has been collapsed to a few pixels. I've had this before with Control menus. I hadn't been aware that I had previously collapsed the menu/s. Nonetheless, there it was, tucked up in the top left corner. Now, my theory falls on its face as to why this does NOT happen to Newly placed events. But again that is clue too.

Anyway, try and have a real good, careful look around your Workspace maybe it's lurking and you haven't seen it?

Grazie

Thanks Graham but that doesn't appear to be the problem. I misspoke earlier. It happens all the time now. I tried removing and reinstalling Vegas Pro 10 but that didn't do anything. It isn't something in the project file. I installed Vegas on my laptop and my projects behave normally there. The only clue I have is that I was working away normally earlier in the day and suddenly it stopped working correctly. Perhaps I hit a key that caused it?

ctl+shift+c

Thanks Leslie but all that seems to do is make the icon appear or go away. When it appears, it still doesn't cause the FX dialog box to appear when I click on it.

sorry.

have you tried selecting default screen layout? maybe the dialogue box is opening somewhere 'off' screen?

Thanks sounds like you may be onto something. Where do I set default screen layout?

Cleaned out the keyboard lately?

I once had a Ctrl key sticking, and THAT was a real PITA! It was only when, in a fit of peek, I smashed my keys and a cloud of detritus blew up in my face that I thought: Allo' Allo', wots all this then??? I then turned the kb upside down, holding the connect wire, and thwacked its backside, new born baby kinda way, and BINGO! - Could've made soup out of what fell to Earth

Grazie

view > windows layouts

Thanks everyone for your suggestions but none of these things were the problem. I even tried a different keyboard. Since I have confirmed on another computer that the project file is fine and have uninstalled and reinstalled Vegas on my problem system with no effect on the problem, it may be that whatever mode it is apparently stuck in is 'planted' in the registry. I may need to uninstall Vegas again and run a registry cleaner before reinstalling Vegas.

Please let me know if you have any other ideas. Thanks!

Here's another piece of info. I still have Vegas Pro 9 on my system. Although it can't open Pro 10 .veg files, I loaded a Ver 9 .veg file and everything works normally. I can then load that same .veg file into Pro 10 and I have the problem. Whatever it is appears to be Ver. 10 specific. It's strange because I have been using Pro 10 for over 2 months without a problem.

May be a bug. Check out this thread. http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/what-hap...ficulties.html

I also posted a tech support question yesterday with Sony. How long does it usually take these guys to respond. Are they truthful or do they play the "Aw shucks, by golly we never heard of that one before" even though they already received a fistful of questions on the same problem?

Jim, while certainly not a permanent solution, are you aware you can right click on the clip and bring up the fx box? Or does that not work either?

Thanks Jeff, I already tried that but it brings up a new empty instance of Video FX, not the already existing one.

There is something weird going on in Vegas effects. My issue is a little different, but two threads on this in a short time has me wondering.

Jim, generally it takes them a day or two to respond, but I had a question last month that took a week or so. With V10 Pro being so different and so new, I'd expect they're a tad busy, so it might take a few days yet.

As for their response, I've had all, from an aww shucks to a wonderful response that was clearly handled specially and delivered to the developers in question to provide an answer for me.

Good luck,

I still have had no response to my question from Sony. Can anyone think of a good reason for this? I can't. I desperately need to do some work. I was really, really stupid to start a major project in Pro 10. I should have known better. For the life of me, I can't understand why Sony has no sense of urgency. Do you think it would help if I sent an email to Sony HQ in Japan explaining my problem?

Out of desperation, I decided to use the nuclear option. I mentioned earlier that uninstalling and reinstalling Vegas didn't fix the problem. I suspected that whatever was causing the problem was being left in the registry and therefore a re-installation didn't help. I decided to bite the bullet and after uninstalling Vegas (both the 32 and 64-bit versions), I deleted the Vegas Pro 10 entries in the registry. I don't like to fiddle around with the registry but I had no choice. That did it; I'm back in business no thanks to Sony.

I don't know why software makers (and Microsoft) don't do a COMPLETE removal of a program when it's uninstalled. Leaving Registry entries seems sloppy to me and it can leave latent problems in the system. There's no good reason to leave crap in the registry when a program is uninstalled.

Because install is done by Windows which receives a database (the .msi file) of what needs to be installed (including some rudimentary registry entries). The uninstall is done again by Windows which simply undoes the install process. It only knows about the things it installed in the first place. It does not know about any registry entries that Vegas (or any other software) created after it was installed.

That is one reason. The other is that software authors tend to believe that if you uninstall their software and later reinstall it, you will be pleased all the personalizations you created while you used the software before will be magically reinstated. Especially since in the Vegas Options/Preferences dialog you have the "Default All" button which deletes all those changes you made.

Perhaps it would be helpful when uninstalling to give the user the option of 'complete' uninstall or 'standard' uninstall. Then I would be "pleased" because I could uninstall a little "nugget" like they served me with this ordeal. I do a much better job of deciding what "pleases" me on some occasions than a software author does because their 'helpful' generalizations don't always apply especially the ones where they served up a bug.

Might be nice, though I do not see how that would be done considering the unistalling is done by Windows, not by Vegas, and Windows does not know anything about the inner workings of Vegas (the software, not the city).

Well this is an example of how to do it. HTTP://WWW.revouninstaller.com/

This utility first calls Microsoft's uninstaller and then after prompting for permission, it removes the program's registry entries. There is a free downloadable version. Take a look at and imagine it being the Microsoft uninstaller.

Another option may have been to start Vegas while holding down CTRL-SHIFT. This will reset Vegas back to the default settings which may very well have eliminated the need to uninstall, remove the registry entries, and reinstall.

But it is not the Microsoft uninstaller. :)

At any rate, you do not need to uninstall and reinstall Vegas when your configuration gets wrong. Just go to Options / Preferences and click on Default All. Or do what Edward has suggested.

I did try "Options / Preferences and click on Default All". It didn't fix it. Unless you have any idea on how to use time warps, Edward's suggestion is a bit late. As I said, I have already fixed it. I hope I never have the 'opportunity' to find out if that would have taken care of it.

Revo may not be Microsoft's uninstaller but it's mine now. I don't think well about the "It is what it is" attitude from a software maker. That's usually a precursor to the fall of a giant. The other big reason is the "You're stupid, I'm smart" smug attitude.

I'm just curious Adam; are you an engineer or a programmer?

Well, first of all, I work neither for Sony nor for Microsoft, and never have. I am just pointing how things are, not saying how they should be. I have no control over those things. I would do a lot of things differently, but that is rather irrelevant.

Secondly, I am retired. And I have been a lot of things in my life, which includes working as a programmer, both professionally and non-professionally (but I have been computing since 1965).

And no one here has suggested you were stupid, not even close to it. All we are trying to do is help you find a solution to your problem. We are Vegas users, not Vegas support staff. We are just helping each other and trying to learn from each other.

Adam, you have misunderstood my comments. I have to correct you because your spin makes it seem that I am criticizing the members of this forum. Nothing could be further from the truth. I appreciate and admire them very much. Please don't twist my comments and make it appear differently. I was ONLY referring to the attitude that sometimes emerges in software companies. It tends to be cyclic because if it isn't dealt with, it often results in the failure of the company. Ashton Tate, Lotus Development Corp,. Digital Research - RIP. On the positive side, it looks like Adobe has made huge improvements over the past couple of years. They are light years from where they were a couple of years ago. My hat is off to them.

I recognize the unbridled engineer attitude because I was around it for many years before I started my own company 12 years ago. I started my career as an engineer in the computer data storage products industry and moved into sales and marketing management some years later. I learned to realize that when a company has this problem, it's an engineering management problem. If there are no firm rules established and enforced, there WILL be a problem. The problem I'm referring to is a palpable attitude where everything must be argued and debated. I called it "recreational equivocation." A subset of this is no regard or respect for customers. The most effective engineering manager that I have ever known was Vice President of Engineering in a very successful company that we worked together in. A cooperative, civil and team working attitude within his staff wasn't optional. He had a statement he made to every new hire. It was, "If you are going to work here, put your ego in your hip pocket before you walk in the door."

I asked the question because I recognized the style.

Peace, it's good to share the forum with you. ;-)

Yes, that is quite common among software companies. Shows especially in the belief the custommer does not know what he is doing.

The worst case I have personally experienced was with a networked TV tuner (it receives HDTV and sends it to any computer on the LAN) with a very frustrating "feature" of not having the ability to assign a static IP address. I kept requesting that ability on their support forum. They kept giving me all kinds of reasons why it was technologically impossible. Well, I know my networking (I wrote the sockets programming chapter for the FreeBSD handbook), and refuted all of the difficulties, explaining exactly how to do what I was asking for.

Finally, when they realized I was not going to swallow their excuses, they gave me the real reason why they had no intention of letting the customer assign a static IP: They do not want to deal with supporting customers who set up their own IP and forget what they set it to. How ridiculous! Your router will tell you (heck even Windows will) the IP address of every device on the LAN. And of course I told them they can have both a static IP and a dynamically assigned IP at the same time, so the device could still work the way it does. After that I gave up on them altogether.

Sony is no different. As a plugin author I have been quite frustrated by the lack of documentation on how to create plugins. No wonder there are many more Premiere plugins than Vegas plugins! It's not that people do not want to support them, it's that many simply do not know how.

Similarly, if you want to know the format of the MXF files used by Sony, you have to buy a very expensive disc with the information. Almost as if they did not want software authors to support them!

I still have received no response from my support request. This leads me to believe that Sony Stalks this thread but doesn't respond on it. I suspect they saw my post and have decided that I don't need their help or perhaps they are engaging in a little payback. That's a far cry from what I see from Adobe. They are very active on a number of threads on the Adobe Creative Suite forum. Keep it up guys and you are going to have to come up with a slick story for your stockholders. People don't have to use your product you know. I like Vegas and I don't want to switch to a different NLE but stuff like this gives me pause - not the problem; all products have problems; it's the lack of support that I find unacceptable.

Jim, if your suspicions were true, why would you post more negative comments about the sneaky Sony people? Now they may actually come to your house and get you.

It's a bug and they don't have a solution yet. It will be fixed in the next update.

Jeff, here is what I know:

1. I submitted a tech support request a week ago and I have had no response.

2. I look at the Adobe Creative Suite forum and I see Adobe actively participating - for example this thread http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/adobe-cr...cs5-crash.html

3. I spoke to a friend who uses PP CS5. He told me he has had three tech support requests for Adobe. In each case they answered him in one or two days.

4. Other companies are active on the forum as well. I particularly admire Cineform's helpful participation.

Why is Sony so out of touch? I can only speculate but whatever it is, it's not OK with me. Should it be!? No I'm not Paranoid as your post implies. I am what is called in the trade - an upset customer. I'm not upset because of the problem, all products have problems. I'm upset because Sony's support has let me down. I have been an ad hoc promoter of Vegas because I like it. At least three associates have bought it because of my enthusiastic recommendation. So yes, I'm disappointed. Oh, if "it's going to be fixed in the next update", why can't they tell me!? Am I just supposed to figure that out as a by product of no response from them?

I know Jim, you're angry...but Sony is not Adobe. Sony from time to time does ignore trouble tickets. This is not new, unfortunately. The support staff is likely overwhelmed with these issues right now, and probably understaffed as well. This is a problem-plagued release.

Unless someone comes up with a work around, this issue will be with us until the next release. This is the normal flow of things with a new Vegas release. There's really nothing you or I can do about it at this point, except notify them and let it go.

Personally, I'm resigned to it. Before 10 came out I predicted this situation. But it's not because I'm a psychic. This is what happens each and every Vegas upgrade. This happened to me with 8. I ranted and raved and screamed and hollered. It did no good. Two revisions later it was fine.

And by the way, even if you are paranoid, it doesn't mean they aren't out to get you. (just kidding)

Thanks Jeff, I appreciate your insight. I hope Sony learns that proactive support is in their interests most of all. It increases customer retention as well as word of mouth referrals.

If I had your issue, I couldn't live with it...as Mike suggested in another thread, you can copy and paste (possibly) your clips, etc from 10 to 9...

I finally got a response from Sony.

"One solution would be to reset the software.

1. Close the software.
2. Hold down the Ctrl & Shift keys when double clicking the mouse to launch the program.
3. When the program asks "Do you want to reset all <Program Name> preferences to default values?", choose Yes.

If this fails to resolve the issue, the window may be stuck under the task bar. Try these steps:

1. In Windows XP and Windows Vista, right click anywhere on the blank area of your task bar located at the bottom of your screen and choose "Properties".
2. Check the option "Auto hide the task bar."
3. Open the software and try accessing the missing window in your project. Once you are able to locate the window and move it back into your project, you can right click on the task bar, go back to "Properties" and uncheck "Auto hide the task bar"."

The Ctrl & Shift reset preferences procedure didn't work; I had already tried it. I suspect the suggestion about stuck in the task bar might have done the trick although I will never know (I hope) because I had already fixed it by uninstalling and clearing the registry before reinstalling. A previous uninstall and reinstall without clearing the registry didn't fix it because whatever the problem was remained in the registry.

If Sony gave you the option of uninstalling preferences when you uninstall Vegas as Adobe does, I suspect my problem resolution would have been much simpler. It's helpful to have a choice with this.