When I open my saved projects pics are missing or other pictures are dumped into my project

tonioconn wrote on 5/26/2011, 8:00 AM

When I save my project and come back to it later there are random pictures missing and I get a message stating that a certain picture can't be retrieved and that I have to insert the portable memory device and retrieve the particular picture. It is usually one or two pictures that it asks for (and not the same pics everytime I restart - but it happens pretty much each time I restart the program). I pull them in from the portable device and they seem to be in the show. All of my pictures are stored on this portable device so I don't know why it loses 1 or 2 photos and not all of them that are on the portable device.

The other issue is it will randomly insert pictures into my project that weren't even in the project to begin with but are on my portable device. Also at times it will change a pictures position in the project.

So each time I go back into my project I have had to watch it in its entiretly to make sure nothing has changed - very frustrating.

I have tried saving the project to both my hard drive as well as my portable device and it does it no matter how I save it.

PLEASE HELP!!

This is very frustrating and happens every time I go out and back into the program.

Comments

john-auvil wrote on 5/26/2011, 10:24 AM

When you create a project in the program and you load pictures from different locations and/or drives (internal or external) then you need to understand that those drives must be available each and every time you use that project. The project is NOT the pictures and audio that you add, but yet the location of those files. What this means is that the program creates a list of locations. As an example, let’s say you import 5 photos and 2 audio files into a new project, the project itself creates a list something like this...

Image 1: C:\Users\Owner\Pictures “IMGP0910” – S 00:00:00 E 00:07:00
Image 2: E:\ “IMG_0217” – S 00:07:00 E 00:14:00
Image 3: C:\Users\Owner\Downloads “Colorwheel” – S 00:14:00 E 00:21:00
Image 4: C:\Users\Owner\Pictures “IMGP0456” – S 00:21:00 E 00:28:00
Image 5: E:\ “IMG_0223” – S 00:28:00 E 00:35:00
Audio 1: C:\Users\Owner\Music “Boogiebang” – S 00:00:00 – 00:21:05
Audio 2: C:\Users\Owner\Music\iTunes\Music\Artist\Album “song” – S 00:21:00 E 03:43:21

From that list above, there are locations of where the file originated, this tells the project where to find this file for playback, it stores that information in memory until the project is saved, and then it writes the list to a project file.

Let’s assume that Image 2 and 5 are from a thumb drive, camera, or SD card. If the next time you open the project, the program will not have access to those images if the original device is not connected. In addition, if the device is connected but now has a different drive letter it still will not have access.

I think this is the cause of the first issue you raised. I have not seen random inserts before. So I am at a loss of what to tell you there... I also am not sure which PhotoStory from Magix you own, but I think they all have this feature that I am going to explain.

My suggestion is that you once again reset up that project to where it is again what you want, then when you go to save, you save is a bit differently.

For me in PhotoStory on CD & DVD 10 Deluxe, I set my project then when I save I go to “File” > “Backup copy” > “Copy project and media into folder...” I them point the save dialog to a folder that I have easy access to... for me I made a My Projects folder, in that folder I have a folder for each project (I do this ahead of time and actually put all the photos that I know I want for that project there and usually load from that folder)

Working this way allows me two things, knowing where all the media for that project is found and allowing me to burn that folder to DVD or backed up on an external drive with the project is complete.

I hope this helps

tonioconn wrote on 5/26/2011, 10:18 PM

Thanks John for your help and I understand what you are saying about the pictures coming from on outside source, but that still doesn't make sense to me because all of my pictures were on that portable device not just the two that I had to retrieve. Would it ask for all of them again if they aren't on my computer hard drive - that is the strange part to me. And each time it happened it was a different photo that was missing - doesn't add up to me. Sometimes I had the portable device plugged in when I was loading the project and sometimes I didn't - so there was no consistency. I will try backing it up the way you suggested and see what happens.

Thanks,

tonioconn

When you create a project in the program and you load pictures from different locations and/or drives (internal or external) then you need to understand that those drives must be available each and every time you use that project. The project is NOT the pictures and audio that you add, but yet the location of those files. What this means is that the program creates a list of locations. As an example, let’s say you import 5 photos and 2 audio files into a new project, the project itself creates a list something like this...

Image 1: C:\Users\Owner\Pictures “IMGP0910” – S 00:00:00 E 00:07:00
Image 2: E:\ “IMG_0217” – S 00:07:00 E 00:14:00
Image 3: C:\Users\Owner\Downloads “Colorwheel” – S 00:14:00 E 00:21:00
Image 4: C:\Users\Owner\Pictures “IMGP0456” – S 00:21:00 E 00:28:00
Image 5: E:\ “IMG_0223” – S 00:28:00 E 00:35:00
Audio 1: C:\Users\Owner\Music “Boogiebang” – S 00:00:00 – 00:21:05
Audio 2: C:\Users\Owner\Music\iTunes\Music\Artist\Album “song” – S 00:21:00 E 03:43:21

From that list above, there are locations of where the file originated, this tells the project where to find this file for playback, it stores that information in memory until the project is saved, and then it writes the list to a project file.

Let’s assume that Image 2 and 5 are from a thumb drive, camera, or SD card. If the next time you open the project, the program will not have access to those images if the original device is not connected. In addition, if the device is connected but now has a different drive letter it still will not have access.

I think this is the cause of the first issue you raised. I have not seen random inserts before. So I am at a loss of what to tell you there... I also am not sure which PhotoStory from Magix you own, but I think they all have this feature that I am going to explain.

My suggestion is that you once again reset up that project to where it is again what you want, then when you go to save, you save is a bit differently.

For me in PhotoStory on CD & DVD 10 Deluxe, I set my project then when I save I go to “File” > “Backup copy” > “Copy project and media into folder...” I them point the save dialog to a folder that I have easy access to... for me I made a My Projects folder, in that folder I have a folder for each project (I do this ahead of time and actually put all the photos that I know I want for that project there and usually load from that folder)

Working this way allows me two things, knowing where all the media for that project is found and allowing me to burn that folder to DVD or backed up on an external drive with the project is complete.

I hope this helps

john-auvil wrote on 5/27/2011, 9:12 AM

It is my understanding that the program would ask for each image that is not in the same location it was in when the project was created. Perhaps there is a temp file with this information in it, but the temp file is incomplete. I am unfortunately not versed enough to know the exact detail.

I do know early on in my project creation with Magix software I had a similar problem where my computer was constantly shuffling driver letters, making it problematic for me to use anything other than C drive. That is when a Magix support rep told me about the way the information is listed and saved.

Using the backup (in some programs it was called “Save complete project to...”) I never had the problem again.

I normally use this function to save a completed project to a external harddrive.