Archive saving problems

[Naturopath4you]

Hi everyone
I finally reshot a small missing part of one of my classes and am on the last stretch.
For some strange reason, although I have not previously had any difficulty doing the Archive copy that one of you told me about so I can move a project off my crashing computer to my stable laptop to work on, I am now having very strange issues after getting the work done, saving the archive copy to move the project back to my main computer after getting a new hard drive and resolving the crashes.
I do the archive save copy as before and I take the drive to my mainframe and open it in Element 13 on the big computer.
It loads up but the second screen (it is a split screen with me lecturing in the 2nd box on the left side) does not have my face as it should, it has the orange pattern with all the Asian characters that Element opens with instead and the audio track is there but with no audio.
I have done the archive copy 3 times from my laptop and get the same result when I open it on the main frame.
I finally gave up and saved the audio from the project on the laptop by itself and brought that to the main computer so I could clean it up with Audition.
If I can't get it to completely archive correctly, I will have to bring the cleaned audio to the laptop to finish my project, but the i5 takes twice as long or longer to render compared to the i7.
Any ideas what the heck might me happening??

[Peru]

Did you try relinking the missing media?

[Naturopath4you]

Not sure what you mean, sorry
When I bring it up on the laptop, it always looks fine but once again is goner when I re-archive copy it
How do I re-link something that I don't believe I ever unlinked?
I will happily try whatever you tell me to do

[Steve Grisetti]

I think what Peru is saying is that, when you open your project on your new computer, you should get a warning telling you if files are missing and need to be relinked. When that happens, browse to and relink the indicated file and you should not see the Media Missing indicator.

You can also manually relink the file by locating it in your Project Assets panel (It will appear as a little circle with arrows on it, indicating that the media link is missing), right-clicking on it, selecting Replace Footage and then browsing to the file's location.

I'm surprised, though, that this is happening, if you're using File/Project Archiver/Copy Project to move the files from one computer to another. When you use this tool, the program should maintain the links to the media.

But I guess that depends on HOW you're moving the archived project from one computer to another. How are you doing it? Are you porting these archived files to an external hard drive? A network?

[Naturopath4you]

I am not getting any error message, the left screen of the split screen just isn't there, only all the Asian text like when its first opening before it loads.
I save the archive onto a new 1T WD Passport Ultra in perfect condition with a USB 3.0 cable
I just gave up and figured I would bring the cleaned up audio back to the laptop and just do the final render there but obviously there is some as yet unidentified issue here as I have tried to render it twice and it gets to the end (7 hours on that computer) and comes up with an error message unable to complete although it looks perfect on the time line and plays perfectly as well
This is very weird And maddening

[Steve Grisetti]

The screen with the Asian text is an indicator that a media file has become unlinked from your project. So something is getting lost somewhere in your archiving. Which, if you're archiving to an external hard drive and then plugging that hard drive into your second computer and editing right off of it should not be happening.

But glad to hear you've come up with a satisfactory workaround.

[Naturopath4you]

Actually the "work around" didn't work as I mentioned in my post.
I tried just rendering it on the laptop for the final render but even the render never makes it to 100% but stops near the end with an error in saving memo. Tried twice, same result.
By the way, What does the Progress 10% mean that appears below my name

[Steve Grisetti]

That 10% progress is just a little joke we have on our forum. The more you post, the more progress you show. But at this point, no prize when you get to 100%.

[Steve Grisetti]

So does any video show up in your Project Assets panel with the red/green arrow indicator, which indicates a broken link to the media?

I'm particularly interested in if there is an indication like this in Project Assets for the video that's MIA in your video.

[Naturopath4you]

Everything looks perfect in the project view along the entire timeline
Both of the split videos look perfect
When I play the project, it plays perfectly with the audio and both videos playing and looking perfect all the way through so I am baffled

I am trying something new. I clicked on the render button that is used without saving to get perfect playback in Project view.
Now that it completed and again, the project view is playing perfectly as before, I am for the 3rd time trying to save/render the project.
Maybe having done the other render first, for whatever that actually does, will make everything connect properly and save correctly.
I will know when I wake up tomorrow as the i5 laptop takes 8 hours for the 3 hour project. Mu i7 main frame does it in under 4
We shall see, but it does not explain the problem, I just hope it will save this time

[Steve Grisetti]

Something is just not right about this project, Naturopath. Maybe a couple of things. But without having your computer in front of me, I just can't say what it is.

It could be related to your source media. (You still haven't told me if the "missing" file appears in the Project Media panel.) Or there could be a bug in your operating system or a program conflict. Or it could be a mismatch between your source media and your project settings.

With an i7 processor, project rendering should not take overnight! I guess I don't know how long your project is, but rendering with a current processor shouldn' t take much more than twice the running time of a movie. A half hour movie shouldn't take more than an hour. Most likely less. (On the other hand, if your project is longer than 45 minutes, it might be wise to break it into smaller pieces.)

So I just don't know what to recommend at this point, if you're still having problems. Problems with version 13, especially on Windows 7+ and an i7 processor and plenty of RAM, are very rare. And I'm just not sure what's up.

It's up to you if you want to continue to hack away at this project or if you want to do some very deep troubleshooting, including building an experimental project from scratch. We'll be glad to walk you through it. But whatever is up is sure not obvious!

[Naturopath4you]

Steve,
you must be so busy that you only scan through my posts and don't have time to really read them.
You often ask me for, or tell me you would need something, that I clearly wrote in the post you are responding to, so I am quite confused??
I did not say it took 8 hours to render on the i7. I said it took that on the i5 laptop and that it took about half as long on the i7 and I also said that
it was a 3 hour project so I don't know why you were wondering how long it is.
None of the other five 3 hour classes had any issues, but then they were all rendered on the i7.
Since each class will end up being used as a complete class or maybe even a DVD, there would seem to be no benefit of my cutting them into smaller pieces as I would still need a final render of the entire 3 hours as one class

Last night when I tried for the 3rd time to save/render this, the green bar went up to 100% and yet the folder was empty and the error message, which I had not copied down before to be able to tell you in case it helps, is
Error Compiling Movie Unknown Error (those five words on two lines)

Since it was able to complete the other render, the one that is shorter and helps you view everything in the project more clearly (I don't know what that other render button is referred to as) it seems even more strange that the final save/render will not complete after that other shorter render worked fine.

You are obviously right about my having to possibly compile this class project again on my main i7 since it won't complete on my new laptop nor will it archive properly to be moved
In answer to your other question, I opened the Project Assets panel and yes everything that is on my timeline appears there as it should.
Guess I will try some other things or re-do the whole thing
Darn. So many wasted hours, Oh Well, computers sometimes do that to us.
IS THERE A METHOD with the project open, either on the time line or with the Project Assets area, to somehow examine each video file that shows up clearly on my laptop
and report to you what it says and maybe figure out why it vanishes when I archive it???
By the way, I have tried moving the videos to a different video track and as usual, it play great on my laptop when the project is open but the video vanish when I archive it to move and still won't render if I try to complete it

[Steve Grisetti]

I'm just not sure what to recommend at this point, Naturo. Maybe someone else has a suggestion. I'm sorry but you've got me stumped.