Is Magix still in business?

[Gary Bohlk]

I reached out to MAGIX support with a Vegas 22 problem 4 weeks ago. I got one response within 2 or 3 days and haven't heard from them since. They asked for my sys info which I sent and nothing. I have contacted them weekly ever since. No response.

My problem is I have lost my Vegas link. I am using Windows 11 and Vegas is not listed anywhere. If I call up the app list it is not listed. I can go to the C drive and open it but as soon as I try to do anything it just closes. Any video file. It lists my files and I drag it to the timeline and it just closes. Any help would be greatly appreciated. This computer is totally dedicated to video editing and scoring. I am just about at the point of doing a complete system recovery. Everything I have tried has failed. I'm afraid if I do a sys recovery I won't be able to go to MAGIX and download the program again.

[Christopher Young]

Try a Vegas Pro 'RESET'.

Note!! If you do this, 'reset' any specific profiles, render presets and plugin chains that you have personally created and saved will be lost. But this should hopefully get you back up and running.

Hold the CTRL + SHIFT keys down. Now double-click on your Vegas icon. If all is going correctly, a dialogue box will pop up. In this dialogue box is a checkbox asking if you want to delete the cache. DO NOT SELECT THIS CHECK BOX. Leave it unchecked. Now select YES.

This RESET method of restarting Vegas Pro can take a short period of time. Let Vegas do its thing. It takes a little time as Vegas is going back to its original Installation state.

All things being equal, Vegas should start. Now go through and open and RESAVE each project with a new or updated name.

If you have lost your desktop icon you will have to go to Program Files and find the Magix folder and then inside that you should find the Vegas.Exe file. CTRL+SHIFT and then double click on it.

Fingers crossed, all things should be working again. Let us know how you go.

Chris Young

[Gary Bohlk]

Hi Chris, thought we were on to a fix. I followed your instructions and was able to get Vegas open and dropped a video file onto the timeline. It crashed as soon as I dragged the file to the timeline. So, I tried a different file. This time I got the boxes outlined in white on the timeline for the file but it just sat there and did nothing. You know the way you get the progress bar below the timeline? It's not there at all. After a minute or two I got the box telling me the program was not responding. Now for the really bad part. Yeah, it's that bad. I was able to get a video on the timeline but started hearing a low hum almost like a bad ground would do. Short burst maybe 1 or 2 seconds. At that point I played the video and the audio was nothing but white noise. The video played. It was just the audio that had a problem. Closed Vegas and restarted it. At this point I couldn't get any video file to load onto the timeline. Just to troubleshoot I closed Vegas and tried to play a saved video file. I double clicked it, and it opened but the audio was white noise. Opened a WAV file with the same result. I had a sound problem with another computer and audio, so I went to device manager and uninstalled the Realtek sound driver. When it restarted and reloaded the sound driver it played the video/audio file and the WAV file. As soon as I started Vegas again, I got that hum again. Same result with the video not loading on the timeline and Vegas closing. Same result with the video file and WAV file with white noise again. I repeated this whole process 3 times with deleting the sound driver and restarting and every time I opened Vegas I got the same result. I don't know what to do at this point. Going through all of these steps over and over again I have pretty much ruined the project I was working on. I keep all files on external hard drives just to keep the processor free. Other than trying a system recovery, I don't know what else to do. Not even sure that would work at this point.
This computer is only a year old so it's not like it is old software causing a problem. I' m still open to any suggestions you might have. Sorry for how long this is but I wanted to try to explain it step by step.

Thanks, Gary

[Christopher Young]

Right. At least we got Vegas open. Next step to try. Restart your PC. Do not attempt to open Vegas. Do a fresh reinstallation of Vegas over your existing Vegas Installation. If the problem is related to corrupted audio or even video codecs, a reinstallation of the Vegas codec base may fix the issue. No promises but worth a try. Keep us informed. Just a thought. Can you upload a short clip, ten seconds would be fine, of one of the ones you first put into Vegas that has caused or contributed to this problem. That will give me a chance to look at the clip's attributes and properties in one of my Vegas installs.

Chris Young

[Gary Bohlk]

Hi Chris, sorry it took me a few days to get back to you. With the holiday here it has been busy.
Okay, for the latest. When I said I had gotten Vegas to open that is all it would do. I could not load a video onto the timeline. As soon as I tried to get a video on the timeline the audio problem returned. I reset the audio driver again to get sound to work at all. I can double click a video, and it will open in media player (or whatever program it's using, I think it is legacy media player) and it will play the audio okay. It only happens when I try to load it on the Vegas timeline and once it does it corrupts everything and I have to do a driver reset to get audio to work again. You mentioned uploading a video file. The fact I can't cut a video with Vegas makes the video files huge as I am recording in 4K and the clips usually average 4 or 5 minutes. I have used this same camera successfully with Vegas for several years.
So, I pretty much gave up hope that anything I tried was going to fix the problem. As I type this, I am doing a system restore but even that is a problem. Until I opened the restore option, I didn't know that "protection" was turned on and there are no restore points. I guess it is restoring and fixing drivers and files from 2 years ago when I got the computer. I'll let you know if the restore works. If not, I guess my next step would be to do a full-blown recovery. If I do I have everything backed up on external drives, so I won't lose anything.
Just FYI but Magix has NEVER replied to my inquiry. They wanted Sys info and I sent it. Been total silence since. I have used Vegas since about release 8 and this has really soured me from Magix.

[Christopher Young]

Not good to hear. I'll ask. Did you just try re-installing Vegas Pro over your existing Vegas installation? Don't uninstall anything. Just re-install over your current Vegas installation. Sometimes this will work. No guarantees! But I would be trying that before a System Restore.

In fact, before a System Restore, I would uninstall Vegas if an over the top re-install of Vegas doesn't work. Then reboot the system and then re-install your current version Vegas Pro

Like you. I was with Vegas for years, since Vegas 2.0 and the Douglas Spotted Eagle days. He was the Vegas 'Guru' back in the early 2000's.

I ended up on the Vegas Pro Beta development team for a number of years, so am fairly conversant with the good old 'Sony' Vegas software developments.

I moved to DaVince Resolve back at v11.00 and have never looked back. Though still have Vegas on both systems as I still have Vegas projects and clients from way back.

Good luck!

Chris Young

[Gary Bohlk]

Hi Chris, I know I am making a pest out of myself.
I took your advice and downloaded Vegas again. The folder shows today's date. So now for the bad news. I double clicked on the shortcut and get nothing. I went into the program folder and double clicked on the icon and got nothing. I am somewhat computer illiterate and just don't know what to do at this point. I really don't know how to do a recovery. I stumbled through a system restore and I could open Vegas, but I couldn't load a video on the timeline. When I downloaded it again, I created a new shortcut when I downloaded it, so I guess that is not the problem. I'm so frustrated at this point I don't know what to do. I just want to edit some video. My wife mentioned something that I just don't think Magix would do. They have been offering Vegas 23 for a couple of months now. She suggested Magix sabotaged it to force me to buy Vegas 23.

[Christopher Young]

Right. I haven't installed Vegas for a while, but MS have changed and blocked certain aspects of running. EXE files. On both Win 10 & 11. I've found a few programs where the EXE would not run. No feedback nothing? Not saying this is the issue but check the following.

After you have downloaded the file, right click on it and check its properties. You may see a checkbox called "Unblock". If you see this box, and it's unchecked, place a check in that box and then click ok. Then the .EXE file should run after that. Keep us posted! 😃👍

Chris Young

[Steve Renouf]

Just a thought to throw into the ring - have you performed a system memory check? Sometimes a faulty RAM module can cause this type of problem...

[Christopher Young]

Well worth checking out! Sometimes just removing and putting a pencil eraser across the ram contacts a couple of times and reseating the sticks can indeed make a difference.

Chris Young

[Gary Bohlk]

I checked the memory, and it looks okay. Nothing is running and the CPU is reading maybe 7%. Should I be looking for something else on that page? The performance page shows the graph running at the bottom and the usage is almost a flatline. There are numbers in categories, but nothing looks out of the ordinary. There is definitely no red flashing text showing a problem.
As far as memory sticks, I think this computer uses SSD and not sticks. This Omen has a glass side panel and looking in at the motherboard I don't see sticks. Am I missing something?
I appreciate you guys trying to help but technically it is starting to go over my head. At 74 years old some computer terminology just doesn't compute (pardon the pun) with me.

[Christopher Young]

Geez! You are a young 'un. I'm five years your senior.

When I said RAM sticks, I'm referring to just the memory, commonly referred to as 'sticks'. Also called RAM modules. Not the drives. Which as you correctly identified these days are generally SSDs.

Question? Have you tried reinstalling Vegas? One of two things could happen. 1) A reinstall may fix all your problems. 2) It may do nothing. If you have a corrupted installation the reinstall may just fix it. If it doesn't, then we know the issue may lie somewhere else. Give it a go.

Chris Young

[Gary Bohlk]

I forgot to answer your question about the unblock option. I didn't see that as a choice. I tried the incompatibility option to see if it would do anything. It didn't. I've looked at all of the tabs.
I'm not sure at this point Chris that my problem isn't too many re-installs. I've re-installed it at least 3 times and I think it might be 4 (or more). If I go into Programs and open the Vegas folder most (but not all) folders show the most current date for the folder install. I just wish there was a way I could wipe the hard drive completely clean of Vegas and run a clean install. Uninstall from apps doesn't do it, I've literally gone in and deleted the folder from Programs and Program Data but there has been no change. One time a few installations ago I was able to get Vegas to actually open but I couldn't load a video onto the timeline. When I tried it would just shutdown the whole program. Another time I opened it and got a video file loaded and it corrupted the audio to white noise. What started this whole thing was I played the video from the timeline and got nothing but white noise. Ever since then I have had all of these problems.
On another note. What looks like memory sticks for this computer actually glow on the edge. I think it is part of the "show" of this Omen computer. I've never seen anything like it. To even get into the case of this CPU would be a major job. This CPU is huge and heavy. Believe me, I wish I could just snap my fingers and it would be fixed. At this point this computer is just a big dust collector. I had HP custom build this computer specifically for video editing. There are 3 programs loaded on the computer. Vegas, Smartsound and New Blue Titler. I just don't know where to go from here. I don't want to do a system recovery but I'm just running out of options. I have the system recovery USB that I created 6 months ago. It is really getting me down at this point. I don't even take my camera out anymore because I'm just down about the whole thing. I'm not giving up!

[Christopher Young]

For years now, I have been using 'Revo Unistaller Pro' to clean up messy program leftovers. It's worth every Penny in my mind. Do a complete clean out of every vestige of Vegas Pro and then for a nice clean install and try again.

Chris Young

https://www.revouninstaller.com/

Revo Uninstaller – Uninstall Things That Won’t - YouTube

[Gary Bohlk]

Sorry Chris, didn't realize it had been a week. I pretty much had everything backed up on external hard drives all along. An old hard lesson I learned. Anyway, probably about the same time you were sending the reply to use a program to uninstall I had already done a system reset/recovery. I have since re-installed the editing programs I use, and everything seems to be working, so far. I guess I'll always have that in the back of my mind as I edit. I have to admit the reset really cleaned up the hard drive. For now, the computer is working much faster.
On another note. I hope you weren't personally affected by the terrorist attack. It is a shame that people choose violence to settle differences.