unstable program; freezes frequently

Sherry-Johnson wrote on 6/25/2021, 8:59 PM

I have created several Photostory slideshows. With the last two I have started having issues with the application freezing while working with the slideshow (adding or moving pictures or making modifications to the slide such as runtime or titles) and I have to use Windows Task Manager to end the program. I am concerned it is corrupting the program or the slideshow(s) as this freezing is happening more frequently. When I abruptly shut it down it doesn't create a backup as it did initially. When I go back into the slideshow I can usually move around a little before it freezes again.

I can't find any updates or fixes to apply. How can I resolve the unstable condition as it is useless the way it is....and hours invested in creating. Frustrating!

I am using Magix Photostory Deluxe ver 20.0.1.62 (UDP3)

Hardware: Surface Laptop 3 (System SKU Surface_Laptop_3_1867:1868)

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-1065G7 CPU @ 1.30GHz, 1498 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)

OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Home (10.0.19042 Build 19042)

Comments

johnebaker wrote on 6/26/2021, 3:55 AM

@Sherry-Johnson

You are on the latest version/update of Photostory.

. . . . When I abruptly shut it down it doesn't create a backup as it did initially. . . .

The program will create an auto backup every 10 mins by default - you should be able to see these in the same folder as the project file - they will have a sequence of _BAK0 to _BAK9 in the file name, however the numbering is cyclic so the latest save may have an earlier number - use the date/time saved to determine the latest version.

If you shut down using Task Manager then it cannot save the project on closing

What is the SSD size and how much is free?

Which Antivirus are you using?

Are the project files and source images on an external USB drive?

John EB
Forum Moderator

Sherry-Johnson wrote on 6/30/2021, 1:51 PM

Thank you for your response!

I am aware of the backups. Initially it would show a backup as an option when re-entering the application which it no longer does. But my primary issue is more around the freezing when moving pictures around or inserting, or when sliding quickly through the pictures to get to a particular picture, or when modifying the details of a picture such as time to display or changing a title. This is happening more frequently and this last time I had just reopened the project and moved to the picture I was last working on and it froze. And then there is the challenge of figuring out what I may have lost in the up to 10 minutes of changes I did.

The pictures are on my hard drive. The project saves by default to the One Drive. Only when I am complete do I save the final off to a USB drive.

My AV is BitDefender

This current project is one where I had recorded my mother talking about pictures and her life. I am putting the pictures to that conversation so the picture display time is sometimes a couple minutes. I was concerned this might be taxing the capabilities of the application..??

emmrecs wrote on 6/30/2021, 1:57 PM

@Sherry-Johnson

@johnebaker asked you to say What is the SSD size and how much is free? This problem could very well be being caused by limited free space being available, hence the question.

Jeff

johnebaker wrote on 6/30/2021, 2:09 PM

@Sherry-Johnson

. . . . The project saves by default to the One Drive. . . . .

This is most likely a cause of freezing of the program as the data is being sent/received from One Drive.

All the project files and images etc used should be on a local drive in the computer.

John EB

Sherry-Johnson wrote on 7/6/2021, 7:27 PM

I moved all Magix folders/files from OneDrive to the parallel local locations. 1) Opened Photostory, 2) opened project last working on from local drive, 3) repointed to the new local location for audio file. SAME thing happens within 3 minutes of opening the project. HD has over 95 GB available.

Next thoughts?????

johnebaker wrote on 7/7/2021, 4:44 AM

@Sherry-Johnson

. . . . repointed to the new local location for audio file. . . . . .

Is this an audio file you are trying to add or is already on the timeline?

If so, download and install MediaInfo, analyse the audio file and post the results from the Text view.

. . . . I was concerned this might be taxing the capabilities of the application..?? . . . .

With respect to the capabilities of the program what you are doing is light work for it.

Check that BitDefender is not blocking access to or quarantining one or more of the files used in the project, or the program accessing the Internet.

Please mind your language - this is a public forum and we do have junior members here.

John EB

Sherry-Johnson wrote on 7/7/2021, 1:22 PM

Respectfully John:

You have to appreciate how utterly frustrating this is!!!!!!

With that....I thoroughly reviewed all protections within BidDefender and there is no indication that any files let alone Photostory files have ever been quarantined or restricted in anyway.

Next Suggestion???

johnebaker wrote on 7/7/2021, 4:30 PM

. . . . Next Suggestion??? . . .

Supply the MediaInfo data requested?

Are the Intel Iris drivers up to date? The latest version is 27.20.100.9466 - 5/14/2021

. . . . You have to appreciate how utterly frustrating this is!!!!!! . . . .

I certainly do - I have been fighting an issue with another program for several months trying to get a very large project finished and onto Blu-Ray.

Fault finding when there are no error messages etc is a slow process when having to go back and forth especially when time zones may be different.

John EB

Sherry-Johnson wrote on 7/8/2021, 3:08 PM

Suggestions on next step(s)?

FYI: I also uninstalled and reinstalled the application at one point as a troubleshooting step.

Let me know where I am with this....even if it's waiting several months as troubleshooting continues...

Appreciated!

Sherry

johnebaker wrote on 7/8/2021, 4:16 PM

@Sherry-Johnson

Hi Sherry

. . . . I also uninstalled and reinstalled the application at one point as a troubleshooting step. . . . .

Unless you cleaned up the files and registry entries left behind, a re-install usually fails to fix the issue and can in some instances make the situation worse - the uninstaller knows nothing about these files and registry entries as they are created on first run of the program.

To get a clean uninstall use Revo Uninstaller(Free) to uninstall the program - it will launch the uninstaller and on completion will offer 2 dialogs to scan for files left behind and to scan for registry entries - if you have other Magix programs installed check carefully that you only delete the Photostory related items.

Can you also post screenshots of the Program settings, Playback and Display tabs.

John EB

Ray-DeLaCruz wrote on 7/16/2021, 3:34 PM

I was also working with Magix Photostory Deluxe (20.0.1.62), i7-4770 3.40ghz, 16gb ram, windows 10 64-bit and during a large wedding slideshow project with 300 photos the application would crash frequently.

After rebooting the computer, I then unloaded any unused application (including the Magix update app), stop/disable any unused services, I do not use 3rd party antivirus since you don't need them with Windows 10. I noticed that before the application would crash, it would freeze which was a result of either high memory utilization or high cpu utilization associated with the Photostory application. Sometimes it would recover from the freeze after a long while, but other times it would not.

Although I have 16gb of RAM, I went ahead and increased the swap file size, and this reduced the amount of crashes (although it didn't prevent them). Regarding hard drive, I have a 512GB SSD with about 30GB of free space. I've noticed that the application will warn if you cannot render a video due to lack of space.

I have used other MAGIX products, and noticed similar issues occurring when large content is being edited or videos are being rendered by the application. It appears that when working on very large projects, MAGIX would prefer 32gb RAM, but I have not invested in this upgrade yet.

Any thoughts or suggestions around optimizing memory / cpu utilization would be appreciated.

johnebaker wrote on 7/16/2021, 5:35 PM

@Ray-DeLaCruz

Hi and welcome to the forum.

. . . . the application will warn if you cannot render a video due to lack of space. . . . It appears that when working on very large projects, MAGIX would prefer 32gb RAM . . .

Not quite - the low space message is telling you that there is not enough free space on your SSD drive to render the project. Having ~ 30GB free is not a lot - recommended free space should be at least 20% of the drive capacity.

The program will work quite happily with 16GB of RAM, as it will use Windows paging to utilise the hard drive for creating 'extra RAM', however a large paging file can take up valuable space on your SSD drive especially if the page file size has been set manually rather than letting Windows set and control it.

If you can create more free space on the SSD drive. Adding more RAM may improve the performance, however does not remove the free space issue.

HTH

John EB
Forum Moderator

Sherry-Johnson wrote on 7/17/2021, 6:17 PM

1) In addition to the freezing issue, PhotoStory will also suddenly close out and I have to re-open the application. This is in another project....may be another symptom of a memory conflict???

2) But back with the freezing issue, I created a .dmp file this last time. Is there value in you looking at that? It is almost 2 GB. Don't know if there is a means to transport/upload it to you? Under the Task Manager in Windows it shows the application is "not responding" and frozen with using VERY HIGH "Power Usage" and Medium "Power Usage Trend", unlike all the other applications which are Very Low.

Durn wrote on 12/4/2022, 11:36 AM

Is this forum closed?

Can I add comments that do not seemed to have been answered or resolved?

Issues: very similar problems as posted by Sherry Johnson on the 26/6/2021 affecting Photostory 2023 deluxe. Will post additional information if these comments have been followed up.

browj2 wrote on 12/4/2022, 12:05 PM

@Durn

Hi,

I suggest that you start a new post as you have a newer version. Include your hardware and OS info. See my signature for an example.

John CB

johnebaker wrote on 12/4/2022, 1:47 PM

@Sherry-Johnson

. . . . back with the freezing issue . . .

Unfortunately the dump file does not tell us a great deal of information, this would have to be sent to Magix for analysis.

However what may help is the Windows Reliability Monitor.

Run the Windows Reliability Monitor - press Windows key + R to open the Run dialog, then type in

perfmon /rel

and click OK.

Look for Photostory entries similar to those (for Movie Studio) shown below, when you select a date, this is from windows 11, Windows 10 should be similar.

Double click one of the fault notification for Photostory, the dialog in the red box opens and details what the Faulting Module was - post a screenshot of that dialog, or copy and paste the text into a comment.

What resolution and format are the video clips you are importing into Photostory ?

John EB

RONALD-STEVENS wrote on 12/16/2022, 8:28 AM

Hi, I have posted before, I deleted my deluxe 2023 version, clean all up and reloaded my project, it was working great until recently, and it constantly freezes after i make one change, very frustrating, i am not a tecky, just purchased a new laptop with lots of ram etc to do Photostory and now it keeps freezing, I am trying to get this done for Christmas, and at this rate, I will not. Appreciate any help, pls and thks

emmrecs wrote on 12/16/2022, 8:46 AM

@RONALD-STEVENS

Can you please follow the instructions in the post directly above yours and show us exactly what part of the program or, possibly, your computer is showing as the faulting item?

Jeff
Forum Moderator

RONALD-STEVENS wrote on 12/16/2022, 8:50 AM

i do not get a fault window, it just keeps freezing up on every change i make

emmrecs wrote on 12/16/2022, 9:21 AM

@RONALD-STEVENS

Please fully read John's post directly above your previous one. You need to deliberately access the data requested, it does not appear "automatically"

Jeff

EDIT: I think it would be advisable to keep all the information about your freezing problem in one thread so please add the requested fault information in your other thread and I will close this one.