That's a very interesting find, but I don't think it's related to the Pack Projects function.

I created a very simple project using 3 sample clips and just the two themes you mentioned, and I can pack and open the packed project normally. I've attached it here and I'd like to know if you're able to succesfully open the project after you've unzipped it.

However, I can get the same behavior that you've described if I copy those 2 themes and then create a new project. Usually, I can paste them in the new timeline and they work normally, but if I reopen the original project and paste them there, the content is blank when previewing and the Theme Designer is completely empty!

The problem seems to be with the content of those themes rather than something with how they're packed, and I'd strongly suggest that you contact support (using the link at the top of this page) and provide all the details including a link to this thread. Other members may be able to add more findings, but this does seem to be a legitimate bug.

YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

Thanks for testing that - much appreciated.
Still downloading your test project (very slow download) so will test it out latter.

In the meantime I've found another problem with the pack project function.
Even though the "Copy unused..." was UNCHECKED when I packed my project it STILL copied some unused pictures and music files to my packed project folder.
To make matters worse even if I select "Remove All Unused Content from Library" (from the Media Library menu) after I've opened this packed project, these unused assets are removed from the library (so now only assets with a green tick are displayed) however when I go to these UNused assets in the packed folder and try to delete with File Explorer I get "The action can't be completed because the file is open in PowerDirector 14".

The above occurs even if I save this project (after removing the UNused assets using this function from the Media Library menu), exit PD14 then restart it and reload the newly save project.

So once again the "Pack Project Materials" function is broken as it copies UNused assets (even though you've explicitly told it not to) AND to make matters worse you can't get rid of these unused assets from your packed project because even if you manually delete them you will get error messages that these assets are missing when you load the packed project.

So with all these issues this function:
1) Is not safe to use since you may damage your project (as per my initial post).
2) Does NOT leave unused assets behind.
3) Creates file handles to these unused assets in the Project .pds file.

One thing is that you can't delete anything that's in PD's library if PD is open UNLESS you do it from within PD itself. If you want to use File Explorer to delete items, PD has to be closed. It may complain when you reopen it, but if you cancel browsing and then save the project it won't ask about them next time.

I'll see if I can replicate the issue about unused content still ending up in the packed project area, and in the mean time can you please provide the information requested in Parts A and B in the Welcome sticky?

YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

RE Can't delete anything in PD's library if PD open:
Yes understand BUT I used the "Remove from library" function so it should release the file handle so you SHOULD then be able to delete it manually using File Explorer so not releasing the file handle is a bug (in my opinion).

RE Complaining after manually deleting then reopening PD:
Yes selected "Ignore all" when I reopened since among others it kept complaining about "Gallery.wma" MANY times (don't know why this was in my packed folder as I never used it). Resaved project then exited PD, reopened project and now all OK & no complaints however you shouldn't have to jump through all these hoops.

RE Version & DXDiag.txt:
Have attached. There wasn't a "Run 64BIT DXDIAG" button as per Part B so hence only the single DXDiag file.
PD Version: 14.0.2302.0

Thanks for your help.

I understand. Obviously releasing a file handle is Windows' responsibility and I don't know how long it typically takes, but I agree that removing an item from the library should free the object.

Thanks for the DxDiag results. Your Intel graphics drivers date from May 2014. While this isn't directly related to your problems, it will be worth a visit to Intel.com where you can manually grab the latest driver or use the app there to scan your system and get all the latest updates.

There are also some serious crashes at the end of the DxDiag results file. Any WindowsUpdate failures are a pretty serious red flag. You have 7 of those, along with 2 crashes of PD and one of the Intel video driver.

I'd like to see if you're able to open the packed project I sent before we go into any further troubleshooting. It'll be another hour or so before I can test whether any unused content is saved and similar things, so maybe you could upload one of your test packed projects here for me (or other members) to try out.

You can just zip everything up and attach it to your post if it's smaller than 100MB, otherwise upload it to a shared folder on OneDrive or DropBox and post the link.

YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

RE: File handle is Windows' responsibility:
My understanding is that it is the APP (i.e. PD) NOT Windows is responsible for releasing a file handle.
Windows just does what its told by the app. If that is the case then the bug is that PD is not telling Windows to release the file handle to files that have been removed from PD's Media Library.

RE: Serious crashes at the end of the DxDiag results file:
I think these are probably old ones where I've either had a flakey WiFi connection at a Cafe' somewhere and a Windows update has failed to download and\or an update has failed to apply as an app is open and locking a binary that is to be updated OR I needed to reboot after applying one lot of updates before the 2nd lot can be applied.
Reason I say that is b'cos I remember these events occuring in the past and my laptop is very stable plus I don't have any current problems applying Windows updates plus I'm fully up to date except for Microsoft's Windows 10 upgrade malware which I won't allow to install on my system.

Re PD crashes in DxDiag results:
There's been several occasions where I've been using PD and I've received a Windows error msg that PD has failed to respond - you get the option of ending the program or waiting for it to respond. I choose to wait and PD then resumes normally.
I've put this down to the fact that these occured while I was running on my battery power save power scheme so assume the CPU is throttled to save power and this may have resulted in a slow\stalled response from PD which Windows has interpreted as an application hang. Could be wrong but that's my hunch.

OK. Here's what I found on my machine: I can select Remove from library and delete the clip using File Explorer immediately.

If I pack a project with the Include unused clips box unchecked, no unused clips are packed. If I check the box, then all the unused clips in my media library are packed. There's no deviation from normal operation on my end, even when I'm using the two themes that you've been having problems with.

Since I can't replicate any of the problems you're having, that leads me to believe that the issues are being caused by something on your PC. You say your system is fully up-to-date, but again, your DxDiag results show that your video driver is 1 1/2 years out of date.

Clearly it takes both the app to release a file handle and Windows to respond, and rather than spend much time trying to unravel the chicken and egg situation here it sounds like uninstalling PD14 would be a good idea. I'd like to see a reboot and then a reinstallation but without adding any of the update patches.

I'd also like to make sure that you have the latest version of QuickTime (v7.7.8 from quicktime.com) and then try these operations with this same project and the new Intel driver and see what happens. If you've been able to download my test packed project, I'd like to see if you can open that and have viable content before uninstalling PD.

YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

RE Can't replicate unused assets in packed project and unable to delete removed assets:
Then the only thing I can think of is that originally this project was created in PD13 - perhaps there's something in the .pds file that's causing this.

RE Uninstall\Reinstall:
I uninstalled PD13, rebooted then installed PD14 so it was a very smooth install plus b'cos my system is stable I'm very reluctant to redo the install as past experience is that you risk getting rid of one problem that you CAN work around only to be replaced with another that you CAN'T work around.

RE QuickTime:
Don't use QT in any output so shouldn't need to worry about it.

So I guess we'll have to park these particular issues however the original Theme segment post packing problem still stands.
Will try your test project out within the next 24hrs.

Quote: RE Can't replicate unused assets in packed project and unable to delete removed assets:
Then the only thing I can think of is that originally this project was created in PD13 - perhaps there's something in the .pds file that's causing this.

You can test that by creating a new PD14 project and try using the same themes


I know what you mean, but if you think that there's always going to be some problem and uninstalling a program will somehow cause the problem to shift or get worse, then you probably won't be able to do much to deal with the problem you currently have. Uninstalling/reinstalling is a very effective approach to dealing with these kinds of issues, in fact it's the only way that a corrupted/damaged/incorrectly installed program can be repaired.

It's obviously your call to uninstall or not, although if you don't want try uninstalling we'll run out of other options pretty quickly.

You can also make a backup system image before you make any changes, so if something terrible happens you can get right back to where you are now.
That's a common misconception. QT provides the necessary framework for almost all of the codecs that PD uses, and it's required by PD regardless of whether you ever produce to or work with MOV clips. All kinds of ugly problems have been caused when QT isn't installed correctly or is out of date.

So I guess we'll have to park these particular issues however the original Theme segment post packing problem still stands.
Will try your test project out within the next 24hrs.

Again, I'm going to politely disagree. The packing problem (and the other issues) still stands on your machine, but not on anyone else's.

Your problems are real and repeatable, and all the steps I've outlined are intended to help you and I get to the bottom of the problem(s) so we can get PD working properly for you. You're welcome to park any of these issues if you don't want to spend any time flushing them out.

Let me know if you're able to open up my packed project, and also if you decide to go forward with new video drivers and the PD14 uninstall/reinstall. I'll work with you as long as you want to keep going. My goal is to get PD working properly as quickly and efficiently as possible.

YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

Hi NigelVideo & optodata -

You seem to be closing in on the issues.

Just to confirm a few things from here:

1. Optodata's "middle 1 test" project opened perefectly fine


2. I was unable to replicate NigelVideo's first posted issue, where some sequences from the template were missing in the packed project... didn't test the copy/paste themes into a new project, but that's not how I'd work with it anyway.


3. After deleting media from the media library, then saving & closing the project, I was instantly able to delete media from the packed project file (like optodata)

Not much help, but not nothing either

Cheers - Tony
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