HELP -frozen - can't add new transitions

[bddorsey]

I'm doing a custom sync in timeline view with a couple of hundred slides and am about 70 slides into it with lots of music left. But i get to a certain point and it just won't let me add any more transitions.

I've tried deleting slides and replacing with others but it seems to keep dying at this same slide number.

ANy suggestions?

I'm totally bummed - been at this for like 5 hours and I'd hate to have to scrap it.

Thanks.

~bd

[alrobin]

bd,

I'm not sure what to suggest, other than it might help some if you describe in detail the method you are using to add slides and transitions (e.g. by using "add slide" on the timeline, or by setting up the slide list with all the slides first and then using "new transition" on the timeline to add the transition, in time to the music).

[bddorsey]

The latter. I'm putting all of the slides in a slide list and then adding the transitions in the timeline view. But i get to a certain point (seemingly arbitrary point) and it just stops letting me add transitions. And of course, when i preview it, it stops on that slide and that's it; despite the fact that there is both more music and more slides....

[alrobin]

I'm baffled. Does this only happen with the one show, or have you experienced it with other shows? (i.e. with other music selections and groups of slides).

Are you using several stacked pieces of music, or a single selection. If the former, try joining them together in a sound editor like Audacity.

What version of PTE are you using? What PC, processor, and how much RAM and available hard-drive space?

What happens if you "create" the show as is - does it stop playing shortly after the last slide added, or does it keep that slide on screen and keep playing to the end of the music? Wish I could look at your setup so I could think of something that would help.

[Marianne]

Have you looked in the projectoptions whether PTE recognizes the right music duration? Maybe it is a matter of a corrupted mp3 file which does play but hasn't got the right specs...

Marianne

[goddi]

bd... Interesting to hear your problem. Just yesterday, my project started to have similar problems. After I added a bunch more slides, the "Start preview from current slide" would not start the preview if I tried it toward the end of the slide show list. It just sat there. It would work if I chose a slide in the earlier part of the list of slides. Also when I would start the show fromt the start, it would stop at somewhere short from the end of the show. The music would stop and show would stop, suddenly.

I fiddled around and, just by chance, I noticed that the "custom synch..." was checked. I switched it back to "automatic synch..." and it went back to working normally.

Maybe there is a bug of some sort. But it does not seem to be happening to too many people. This is not a solution or a fix but we both may have a problem that might be fixable in future versions. I really have no clue as to why it happens. I always use the "automatic synch..." because I just am not sure how to use the "custom synch..." method.

Gary

[alrobin]

It could be due to a transition not finishing before asking the system to start another. Check the horizontal grey bars for each transition to ensure that there is no overlap.

This would not likely be a problem in "auto sync" as each transition and slide duration would be the same length, unless some slides were customized with longer transitions. However, in custom sync, it is quite common to find a few incompatible transition times.

[Ian]

A friend had a similar problem with 'preview'. We tried various potential solutions with no joy. Finally he downloaded new drivers for his graphics card, and instantly the problem disappeared! Might be worth trying the same thing, just in case the problem lies outside of PTE.

Ian