Powerdirector 365 has become completely unstable

CyberSimon

Newbie Joined: Jun 04, 2017 14:13 Messages: 9 Offline

Solved by

Jan 11, 2021 09:25

The latest PowerDirector 365 is constantly crashing on my PC, mostly just by itself, but other times it is taking all other desktop apps with it and less often, the whole operating system.

It is happening every time I run PD, whether I start a new project (more stable) or load a saved project (worse), and then do basic tasks such add titles, transitions, and even just doing nothing (letting PD idle) will crash the software.

In most cases it just stops working and closes without warning and without any error messages, even without Windows detecting an application error.

I have seen an error messages in Powerdirector about not having enough resources, but this is after several attempts at restarting the software after multiple crashes. (I guess not all PD processes are getting cleaned up after a crash)

I have an otherwise very stable system, running latest W10 updates, and Nvidia graphics drivers (GTX1070) etc.
My system has 32GB RAM and all SSD HDDs.

No other application including heavy weights such as Adobe Lightroom / Photoshop / Premiere is showing this behaviour.

I have tried reinstalling PD via the Application Manager, and this has made no difference.
I have tried just using the latest PD Essential, but that has the same issues.

I can run my last perpetual license version of PD16 without issues.

I really don't want to reinstall the whole OS, to solve an isolated issue with just one piece of software.

Can I rollback to an earlier stable release if I have a 365 subscription?
Is there a way to do a hard cleanse of all Powerdirector software before another try at reinstalling PD 365?

Any help much appreciated.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Jan 11. 2021 09:30

optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

Jan 11, 2021 14:22

The best way to get help here is to follow the steps in the Read Me Before Posting guide and provide the DxDiag test results. That's the only way to understand how your system is configured and should help us figure out what's going on.

jean louis switzerland

Newbie Joined: Jul 27, 2017 03:52 Messages: 1 Offline

Jan 12, 2021 11:49

Earlyer I had identical problems, I have discovered that sometimes you reinstall "visual Basic", then it finctions better.
Salut
Jean Louis

CyberSimon

Newbie Joined: Jun 04, 2017 14:13 Messages: 9 Offline

Jan 16, 2021 06:41

Quote The best way to get help here is to follow the steps in the Read Me Before Posting guide and provide the DxDiag test results. That's the only way to understand how your system is configured and should help us figure out what's going on.

Thank you for your offer of help.

I had reinstalled again, and thought it was better, but alas no. I have attached my DXDIAG for your diagnosis.

IPD 365 continues to crash without error, and also takes out other apps that are open at the time such as MS Edge, Spotify, etc.

I had contacted Cyberlink support to ask if I could rollback to an earlier stable version, and they say this is not an option which is a shame, as you have no control of which version you are running if the latest update proves to be problematic.

Regards

Simon.

Filename	DxDiag-20210116.txt	Download
Description
Filesize	128 Kbytes
Downloaded:	145 time(s)

CyberSimon

Newbie Joined: Jun 04, 2017 14:13 Messages: 9 Offline

Jan 16, 2021 13:07

As an update to my original post, I have just managed to pin down the problem causing my PowerDirector crashing issues: The Render Preview feature.

Whilst attempting to work on my current project, saving every step of the way in anticipation of the next crash, I noticed something in the user interface that I hadn't paid any attention to before.

Integrated in the time-scale in the Timeline window, were green coloured bars over various clips in the project. I wasn't sure what these signified in PowerDirector, but having recently used Adobe Premiere, I knew in that product they indicate the presence of Proxies for each clip.

Render Preview indicators

I checked in the Preferences dialog box in PowerDirector for the Shadow File (Proxies) setting and saw that it wasn't enabled, but whilst in the Preference dialog I used the option to manually delete Temporary Files.

Returning to my project the Green Bars had now gone, and so had the problems of PowerDirector crashing every few minutes. I was able to work for a few hours without issues for the first time in weeks.

The green bars appear if you click on the "Render Preview" button which has now located to the main output window. If I click this option over any section in my project, PowerDirector will crash shortly afterwards 100% of the time, if indeed it manages to finish the pre-Render process without crashing before completion.

I must have clicked on this button a few weeks ago without paying much attention, and it has been the root of my problems since.

Removing temporary files using the Preferences dialog box, effectively undoes the Render Preview option and has solved my problems.

optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

Jan 16, 2021 13:57

I'm very happy to hear that you've figured out what was happening. I've never been a fan of Render Preview but I've also never seen it cause this much mayhem.

You DxDiag results look ok to me. There are newer nVidia drivers available if you'd like to update to one of them, but the most interesting thing to me is that all the crashes listed at the end of the report are for explorer, and there a none shown for PD.

I imagine that will be of interest for the tech support people, since whatever is happening with the rendered preview clips seems to have a system-wide impact.

Your i7-7700K CPU should be powerful enough to work with HD clips without needing shadow files or (shudder) using the Render Preview tool. 4K clips may work better with shadow files enabled, and if you check that box it's best to wait until all the yellow icons on all media library clips have turned green before you start serious editing.