P2E Locking Up in WinXP

[Fisker]

I am running P2E 4.2 in Win XP on a high end PC with 1GB RAM and lot's of HD space.

Every now and then the PC will totally lock up while running a slide show presentation I have created. When the lock up occurs I hear a high-pitched electronic squeal and cannot even get out of it using Ctrl+Alt+Delete and cannot shut down the PC. I have to power off and start from scratch. It does not happen every time - perhaps about every third or forth time running the same slide show. It's very frustrating and I must either find a solution or find some other software. I like P2E but cannot accept this sort of behavior as it impact my clients. I have tried sending an email to support but am not getting a response. Can someone help me?

Steve

[Ken Cox]

Fisker

welcome to the forum

make the same show with no music

and run it and run it and see if same problem occurs

this will rule out a music problem

ken

[Igor]

Dear Steve,

We'll try to solve the problem!

First, please let me know how our test example of presentation works on your PC. http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/show/Per_aspera_ad_astra.zip (1,5 Mb).

Do the lock ups happen with *all* presentations you've created?

Tell me more about configuration of your PC.

And how another programs work on the PC, especially which work with sound or play video?

[Fisker]

The test presentation ran fine - no problems.

I have only created one presentation at this point so I really can't answer the question about happening with "all" presentations. I have made several modifications to this one and it has frozen my PC in previous iterations as well.

I have a Dell Dimension 8200 with a full gig of memory, two 80GB hard drives, and an NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti200 video card running at 1024x768 resolution. The sound card is a Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum eX.

I run many applications on my PC. This is the only one that has caused this sort of total lock-up.

The presentation includes 34 slides, all in jpg format. Sizes range from 38 to 1,033KB, which is well within the guidelines I have seen for P2E. Only six are in excess of 1,000KB. There is a single sound file, in mp3 format.

What is most puzzling is the fact that more often than not the presentation runs fine.

Steve

[Igor]

I recommend you to try with *absolutely* another mp3 music file (from another source, album and place).

Also please keep in some place original .exe file with presentation which brings the problem (for testing).

If it possible run this problemary .exe file on some another PC.

Probably PTE can't play this mp3 file correctly. This case easily can be solved.

p.s. by the way, it is v4.20 and not newest v4.30 beta #1?

[Fisker]

I will give your suggestion a try, although since the problem is intermittant I may not know if it will recurr until I have run the new version several times.

I have run the problem file on two other PCs but in both cases I only ran it once. I will try it on my wife's PC several times and see what happens.

I am running 4.2. I was not even aware there was a 4.3 beta.

It seems to me from all the posts that P2E is unusually susceptible to problems involving sound files. Since putting slide shows to music is likely to be a very common desire I hope that will be addressed in 4.3.

Steve

[Ken Cox]

Fisker

I am running 4.2. I was not even aware there was a 4.3 beta.

see

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums//index...t=ST&f=2&t=2093

Jul 1 2004, 09:55 AM

Administrator

Group: Admin

Posts: 482

Member No.: 1

Joined: 6-December 02

PicturesToExe v4.30 beta #1 is released

http://www.wnsoft.com/apr/apr_beta.zip (1.4 Mb)

Dear friends!

Main features of this version are new interface, thumbnails view of File panel or Slide list, light table (which will be shown on the full screen. Separately for file panel or for Slide list), waveform. The work still in progress and we'll add new layouts with vertical Slide list and with thumbnails in several rows in Slide list. Also interface of waveform is not ready yet, - it will be reworked. Some earlier announced new features also are not ready. Adding of these functions will take minor time, so please wait for them in the next betas. This first beta may contains various small bugs in the interface of the main window, because it's was vastly reworked.

Please read the list below to quickly learn about new major features.

To turn on the new interface with thumbnails, visit the Main menu | Options or use special hot keys described below:

What's new in v4.30 beta #1:

etc

most times the music is the problem with particular piece of music

ken

[Fisker]

I have re-run the problem file several times and my PC has not locked up. I also created a version with different music [for some reason it would not let me create a slide-only version!]. That version has not produced the problem. It's hard for me to know what is going on since the problem is intermittant.

Out of curiosity has ANYONE had problems with locking up in XP?

Why is P2E so music-sensitive?

[Ken Cox]

Fisker

Why is P2E so music-sensitive?

Igor will have to answer that one i'm afraid

ken

[Guest Techman1]

Fisker,

I have run PTE on XP without any problems with the exception of a recent one associated with the new beta version. This one was associated with the light table and not MP3 files. Good news, the beta 2 version fixed this problem.

Regarding MP3 files. I've seen where several slide show type programs have problems with MP3 files that are corrupt. MP3 files (or many other files) that are downloaded off the internet can get corrupted due to transmission problems causing incomplete copies. As suggested here, if you have any problems with PTE I would try finding another source for the MP3 files in your slideshow. I realize you are saying that PTE is problematic, but it really seems to be the MP3 files are. Maybe Igor can write in something to PTE to handle a corrupt file better.

I'm glad your system seems to be working better now and hopefully the replacement of the MP3 file fixed this particular issue. Good luck in the future!

Fred

[Fisker]

I spoke too soon. I ran the program for a client this morning and at the end of the program I let it sit for a minute and then hit the escape key to exit P2E. This time it rebooted my computer!

The particular piece of music I am using is especially well suited to my presentation. The music itself and the length of the piece is exactly what I want for the presentation so switching is not really an acceptable option. The music file runs without problems on my media applications (Winamp, Windows Media Player) so whatever is going on DOES seem to be unique to P2E.

Also, it seems to me that if P2E is having problems with a corrupted mp3 file it ought to give you a warning or error message, not lock up or reboot your computer. In my book that is a MAJOR defect - and that's coming from someone who spent two years as VP for Client Support in a software company.

This is a real killer problem for me. I can't afford to have P2E lock up and/or crash my computer. I often have multiple applications running so in some cases I may lose critical data. If I can't resolve this soon I am going to have to look for another application.

I love the P2E transitions and I have put a lot of time into creating this presentation so I really don't want to switch but if I can't depend on P2E then I have no choice. Any recommendations on a possible alternatives?

[MikeL117]

If this piece of music is vital to the presentation have you tried re-compressing it using a reliable compressor (Audacity with Lame is a free option) either from the exsisting MP3 file or, preferably, from the original uncompressed file.

I am sure that Igor would like to know what is causing a major crash. If you could email him directly at support@wnsoft.com and offer to send the offending MP3.

I agree that PTE should 'fail soft' under all situations, but as you will know with your background it is not possible to test all permutations.