David,

What kind of "crash" are you referring to ? Please explain. and give us a hint as to what type of files you are working with. Win 10, i7

Ah, yes it says importing media but its media that loads automatically at the start of the running of the program. I see the basic screen for a new untitled project but never get to actually do anything. So this time it has an alert box saying importing media 66% ~/SampleClips/ships.jpg and it has frozen there. Usually it gives the error message.

Does this suggest anything to you?
David -- David

Hi DavidN ,
Please provide a diagnostic of your computer.
Guide, Part B please.
http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/24771.page

Please download the attached pds and place on your desktop..
Double click the pds file and PDR11 should open.
Does that work?

It is a pds for NTSC and 59.94fps - should not be a problem.

Dafydd

Dafydd,

Hi, the little file you sent did nothing different either. It dies before it gets to load anything.

Attached is the diagnostics you asked for. Tech support supplied a different copy which i downloaded - but that yeilded the same results. Seems it hangs on the first try. Then i kill it with the Task Manager. All further runs then fail with the "importing media x%" leading to PowerDirector has crashed :please send this file to Cyberlink.... The first crash from a reboot is just a frozen PowerDirector that does not respond.

One suspicious circumstance. Earlier i ticked the "open full program each time i load" check box (so it does not give the three options on a dark screen but loads directly to the PowerDirector work screen) but even though i have removed powerdirector, and deleted all the directories holding assorted files, each new install bypasses that initial screen still. So much of this program is not removed when uninstalled.

I'm asking tech support to arrange to install this on a different computer (identical computer belonging to my daughter) which might be a fine work-around. Does the diagnostics suggest something?

David
PS. thank you kindly for your time and experience by the way.

-- David

David:

I had a quick look at your dxdiag file. Your CPU is marginal, particularly for HD editing. Of more concern is that you only have 64 MB of dedicated video RAM on your on-board video chip, which means that PD will try to use system RAM to compensate. Since you are running a 32-bit version of Windows, only a max of 2 GB will be allocated by Windows to any app, so I think you MIGHT be dealing with a struggling computer.

I also note that your video driver is more than two years out of date. You should update the driver from the Intel website. Also make sure that you have the latest version of Quicktime installed, and patch your PD11 to either the former or current build.

Of course, it could be any number of other issues, including a corrupt .pds file, but since you had the same results with Dafydd's file, I think we can eliminate that possibility.

Perhaps others will have some suggestions, if you try the above and have no joy. Hope this helps. Have a great day.

Regards,
-Phil Windows 10 Pro x64
Dell XPS 8930
Intel CoreT i7 (4.6 GHz)
32 GB DDR4-2666 RAM
1 TB PCIe -x4 SSD
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060
PD14 Ultimate x64, 4207
CD4 Ultra and AD6 Ultra
Bleeping Computer Malware Response Instructor

If I understand correctly the new installation does not get past the loading sample file stage.

Autoload sample clips on is the normal default unless it is turned off in Preferences, so if there is a problem with a sample file then PD may crash.

Given you cannot get to Preferences to turn them off, you may like to edit your registry to force PD to load with no sample clips. It is fully reversible and relatively easy

HOWEVER if you do not feel happy with editing the registry then don't.

Any accidental changes to the registry may be terminal - to the machine, not you, unless it is someone else's machine, then they will kill you.

Ideally take a backup of the registry, then use the regedit program to enter the registry, navigate to the following key
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\CyberLink\PowerDirector11\AutoLoadSampleClips

and then change the value from 1 to 0 by rt clicking on the AutoLoadSampleClips entry and modifying.

Just in case you have autoload previous project on and this is causing the issue, note the AutoLoadPrj registry key above the sample clips and change that to 0 as well.

Cheers
Adrian Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.

Splendid suggestions. I'll do both and I will try to install on a sister computer here at home. I am sure one of these will succeed. Yes, i knew the computer was borderline for this work - though i am using it for an audiobook at the moment so less intensive - but the symptoms had me puzzled. The regedit sounds particularly promising. And update drivers.

Thanks for the advice.
David -- David

SUCCESS!!
I finally traced the error to a faulty installation of Quicktime7. Director has a dependency on Quicktime, so a bad install of quicktime shows up as a failure before i can get control over Cyberlink Director11.

Special thanks to vn800rider for the registry instructions - this led me to recognize what went wrong when i installed it (successfully) on my daughters near-identical computer.

So, just FYI, if anyone else experiences a similar failure - consider reinstalling Quicktime.

David -- David

Hi DavidN,
Thanks for the update.

An uninstall should have included the uninstall of all programs installed by/with PDR11 via the Control Panel.
PDR11
Wave Editor
QuickTime
Being the prime programs.
On the forum we have seen in the past a failure to run caused by QuickTime corruption. I did not on this occasion suspect QT as the cause. I was swayed more to Phil's input rather than Adrian's as the pds I gave eliminated the need for any media in the library. I should have questioned you further on the uninstall information.

Thanks for the data.

Dafydd

Yeah Dafydd,
I thought that's what you were trying to do and i'm not certain why it still insisted on running Quicktime with that file you sent. Its working well again now, so Quicktime was definitely the problem. With each reinstall, i do recall constantly installing the WaveEditor but never Quicktime. I may have had Quicktime installed prior to installing PowerDirector though.
Glad its behind me.
David

-- David