Quote Previously i chatted in here about getting a basic template to save and i will say thats hit or miss till i see everything saved in packed materials i dont trust it. Well here i sit today after power went out and the PDS files dont work for what i was working on. Everything source wise is in the same place - same external drives with same drive lettters and locations. Same default local paths for the powerdirector program. And the autosave path is valid and has almost a hundred different autosave files including one minutes before the power went out. What i dont understand is why you all rely on this feature but for me it never works. My PC build is a fresh Windows machine with only Cyberlink Powerdirector loaded and all the drivers for the machine. couldnt be any fresher built. The PDS files when i load them go through the whole oading bar but them the timeline is empty. I made sure prior to to import all files and music and all that to the program just in case it goes looking for that - but seriously i have been struggling with this application and i just dont understand why the save project features are so unreliable for me. If you are going to say that everything works perfect for you then i need to know exactly how you have modified the product to work reliably. Do you use external drives for source media. Thsi is just so frustrating.

Hi,

I've gone back over your issue. I think the best thing to enable others to help is to start at the beginning so that we can understand what is happening for you.

Can you follow the process outlined here:
https://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/85748.page#post_box_354916

Can you provide the exact version of PDR you are using :
https://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/85748.page#post_box_354918

Can you provide screenshots or screen captures - you indicated in a prior post that you could not?

Quote
"The PDS files when i load them go through the whole oading bar but them the timeline is empty."

Does this happen with any/all of .pds files?
When the .pds file is loading, what, if any, messages/dialog box pops up. (this is where a screen capture is useful)

If you have a problem .pds file that produces a blank timeline, it would be very useful to attach it for analysis.

If you can answer the above, as precisely as you can, than we can use that to see where we go for the next steps.

I don't think there is any point in trying to troubleshoot the issue in one hit - it didn't work last time - so a step by step approach is likely to be more successful, but may take a little longer!

Cheers
PowerDirector Moderator

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So in response to previous questions:

PowerDirector Version : 20.4.2829.0 (64 Bit)
Version Type : 365

Installed on curret version of Windows 11

I have attached a video showing a few things.

First : a successful reload of a packed materials test folder i made - that took a few attempts of Saving Packed Materials before I saw it actually save all the files versus just leave me an unusabled PDS file with no other files.

Second I try to autrecover from yesterday and show you there are multiple PDS files from that date and timeframe. The external drives where the source files (mp4 files that were imported to the project) are located is attached and I took care of re-importing all those files into the project. However, when i click to open that auto-save pds file is brings up the little progress bar and quickly finished with nothing

Third : I choose a different auto-save from a different date and time (when i was building a different video) - this project uses the same external drive and similar video files which arent imported at all. When i click to open that PDS file it brings up the progress bar and ultimately items load into the timeline - not the complete project just the fragments that i have actually imported.

So these examples prove a few things.

• the backup and recover isnt reliable


• i still dont know if it works with media stored externally


• i dont know whether or not i need to import into the project BEFORE trying to reopen an old or autosave PDS file.


• I dont do packed material backups - i only chose that option when doing my intro and outro template because i knew for sure i didnt want to do all that again. so saving different ways different times was key

Again if someone says this is reliable and does it all the time then what are the specifics.

Attached PDS Files

Quote Attached PDS Files

PDS files only store the edits you've made and don't contain any of the media clips you're working with. You'll need to use Pack Project Materials from the File menu and save the entire project to a cloud folder, then paste a publicly shareable link to it here so other people can access it. See this FAQ for more info.

You can also change the autosave folder to something more accessible. Maybe changing the destination to a non-system folder will give you more reliable results.

FWIW I see the same issue with the 2nd project not trying to load any clips. I imagine that somewhere between the earlier (working) version of the project on 6/26 and the one that doesn't work on 6/27, the project became corrupted and you'll need to go back to the last one that will load properly.

You may want to report this to CL tech support to see if they can help you recover one of the later versions with more editing. You can reach them here.

We got into this discussion last time. I fully understand PDS files DONT store the media files - i DO expect them to know where they are and contain the timeline data so that they can reliably and successfully recover the project. In the video you will see that they dont do that. And you should have to use Pack Materials to do so. I again state it is hit or miss with this software solution on backup and recovery. I expect a project to SAVE when i say save and that it remembers how to reconstuct the timeline as long as all the files are in the same location (internal or external) as when i saved the project.

If yall are reliably saving and recovering projects without using the pack materials feature then I would love to know how. I dont believe the manufacurer meant for us to use pack materials for projects all the time - only in unique or re-occuring template situations i believe otherwise they would have made the auto-save a pack materials.

So again - I want to import media files from external drives that stay connected and never change locations or drive letters. I then want to build out a project either saving freuently or relying on auto-save. Then i want to be able to close the program and reopen without losing anything. Today i would say i have a 20% or lower success rate on that. Pack Materials (which i only use for the intro/outro template of my videos) i have about a 50% success rate.

The funny thing with what i am doing is my stuff isnt very complex at all - its really just drag and drop of video clips in their entirety - then overlays of titles at various points and transitions between clips and then music as a backing track. Not complete - no special color profiles or FX or any of that special custom stuff. this should be the easiest of projects to save and restore .....

Quote FWIW I see the same issue with the 2nd project not trying to load any clips. I imagine that somewhere between the earlier (working) version of the project on 6/26 and the one that doesn't work on 6/27, the project became corrupted and you'll need to go back to the last one that will load properly.

You may want to report this to CL tech support to see if they can help you recover one of the later versions with more editing. You can reach them here.

Quote If yall are reliably saving and recovering projects without using the pack materials feature then I would love to know how. I dont believe the manufacurer meant for us to use pack materials for projects all the time - only in unique or re-occuring template situations i believe otherwise they would have made the auto-save a pack materials.

So again - I want to import media files from external drives that stay connected and never change locations or drive letters. I then want to build out a project either saving freuently or relying on auto-save. Then i want to be able to close the program and reopen without losing anything. Today i would say i have a 20% or lower success rate on that. Pack Materials (which i only use for the intro/outro template of my videos) i have about a 50% success rate.

I have no idea why you're having such difficulty, and the only thing that stands out is that you're using an external drive.

I've used PD for 11 years and made 1000+ videos and have always been able to simply save the project file and open it again, and if PD crashed I've always been able to find a usable recovery image. Not once have I ever had to resort to packing a project just to be able to reopen it, so there must be something amiss with your external drive.

It would help if you posted the DxDiag test results as requested by PDM. It contains tons of technical details and some might help us figure out what's going on with your D: drive.

Other CL apps (like PhotDirector) have had trouble with external devices unless they're connected and mapped in a specific way, and you could easily test this by copying some of the media to your C: drive and checking to see if the problem ever shows up there.

I would think that also about the external which is why i ask about other peoples processes. I did copy all the working file locally last time i discussed all this and attempted the save project and then closed and reopened and no luck - that was 4 simply clips dragged to the timeline and a music track - little to no editing there. still it opened blank nothing in timeline. I chose packed materials and at least it did that. That was at the end of a 6 day video series so i let it go at that time and completely rebuilt this computer. I only ever switched to an external drive because I started shooting a lot more video and releasing many more videos - so localized storage can only ever be temporary going forward with that much content. For now to rule out the external i will just localize several files and run through video captures again to show you what happens. again - fresh built non-cutom windows 11 with Cyberlink straight out of box.

Quote

I have no idea why you're having such difficulty, and the only thing that stands out is that you're using an external drive.

I've used PD for 11 years and made 1000+ videos and have always been able to simply save the project file and open it again, and if PD crashed I've always been able to find a usable recovery image. Not once have I ever had to resort to packing a project just to be able to reopen it, so there must be something amiss with your external drive.

It would help if you posted the DxDiag test results as requested by PDM. It contains tons of technical details and some might help us figure out what's going on with your D: drive.

Other CL apps (like PhotDirector) have had trouble with external devices unless they're connected and mapped in a specific way, and you could easily test this by copying some of the media to your C: drive and checking to see if the problem ever shows up there.

It would help very much to see the DxDiag test results as requested for the 3rd time. You should also open a support ticket so someone from tech support can help you.

I also have tried to look for strange things in your PDS files. The fact that (as Optodata wrote) the PDS file with "PackedProject" in the name does not load anything, nor does it warn (me) for differences in settings, like NTSC, is in itself already very very weird! As far as I can see, the PDS file with PackedProject in the name, is NOT a project file that has been saved from the menu option: Pack Project materials, because if it did, it would carry the tag Pack="TRUE". But it may be that the name of the project has Packed, and the auto save has not.

Mind you: the most current (365) version of PD is: 20.6.3001.0 did you try that?
The questions from the moderator are still valid : does this happen fro all PDF files, have you also tested with a current project?
I am sure that you know that when packing a project a separate PDS file is stored along with all the material and settings in the same folder, and you should use that rather than any other (related) PDS file?

The only thing we can do is maybe have a look at the DXDiag file should you have one to see if anything is not good in the system settings. And if you went as far as to complete uninstall PD and reinstall it again (which would assume that you have an application that works as delivered), I would certainly open a support ticket, because something looks rotten in the state of Denmark. I would recon that Cyberlink development can quickly see what is wrong with the XML in the PDS files and help you out.

Quote

I don't think there is any point in trying to troubleshoot the issue in one hit - it didn't work last time - so a step by step approach is likely to be more successful, but may take a little longer!

Next stage:

Can you force PDR to exhibit the same issue only using the supplied sample files. As you say there's not a whole lot of edits in your .pds files. Can you create a similar project and simulate what you think causes the issue and see what happens?

I notice on your screencapture that you use shadow files, at least one of which is not generated - I can't see the rest. Can you switch off shadow files and see if that makes a difference? Preferences>General>Enable shadow files

The Dxdiag is quite important to show anything system related, so it would be good to have it for reference.

Cheers
PowerDirector Moderator

For customer support related issues, please contact:
- Customer service: https://membership.cyberlink.com/support/customer-services.do
- Technical support: https://membership.cyberlink.com/support/service/technical-support.do