3rd Bug!!!-> "Unable to create file with presentat

[goddi]

Greetings,

I have been working a new slide show for several weeks. I already have posted 2 'Bugs' that I have found and have had no resolution or answer as to why they are happening. I have posted both of them directly to Igor but no response.

The first 'Bug' is that an image that has been inserted, has mysteriously zoomed/panned down to the bottom of the frame. This has happened 4 times to the same image. I have it set correctly but, later, I happened to see only the top portion of the image is in the frame. Strange, but true.

Then, I posted a 2nd 'Bug' that the images that I have animated them to zoom/pan across the frame will not show the white shadow that I have set with 'Display shadow behind slide image'. While all of the non-animated images have my white shadow, those that zoom/pan across the frame still show a black shadow. I have also posted this to Igor, but no response from him or the Forum. Can someone test this out on their system and let me know if this is 'normal'?

Now, I have come across a 3rd 'Bug'. When I try to do a 'Create Exe' with this slideshow, I get an error message that says: "Unable to create file with presentation....Tip: try to delete the file manually or just restart Windows and run PTE again." I have to reboot and then restart PTE and then I can do 1 'Create Exe' (sometimes 2) but, then it happens again and I have to reboot, restart PTE, to be able to do a 'Create Exe'. It keeps happening over and over.

Can anyone shed some light on any of these things???? (Using 5.61 on Windows XP).

Thanks... Gary

[Lin Evans]

Hi Gary,

It would help greatly if you would post the zipped PTE file - it's very difficult to test this per your inquiry without the files....

You say you "have it set correctly" but without independent verification by seeing the files as you have programmed, it's difficult to do anything but guess.

It sounds as if perhaps you have a problem with some program running in the background interfering, but without having the zipped PTE files it's virtually impossible to help.

Best regards,

Lin

[goddi]

Thanks, Lin...

The problem is that the files are too large. I pared down one file that shows the image that was mysteriously moved down and the animated images that will not show the white shadow as the non-animated imaged do, but it is 3.4Mb. Max uploads are 2Mb.

The other slideshow that shows the "Unable to create file with presentation..." error is 72Mb. I am afraid that if I try to reduce that file's size by taking out images, it might lose the 'problem' and it won't be able to be analyzed to discover the cause of this error or to see if it will replicate on another PC.

Do you have any suggestions? Some days ago, I asked Igor for his FTP info to upload the 3.4Mb file to him but I got no response. I agree with you but I'm not sure what the best method is.

Gary

==============

Hi Gary,

It would help greatly if you would post the zipped PTE file - it's very difficult to test this per your inquiry without the files....

Lin

[Lin Evans]

Gary,

There are literally dozens of free file transfer sites on the web where you can transfer files up to a gigabyte and sometimes more.

Just pick one (do a Google search for free file transfer), upload your files and put a link here. There is no need to reduce the file size, just upload the whole zipped PTE file.

Best regards,

Lin

[Ken Cox]

MEDIAFIRE

http://www.mediafire.com/

POST LINK IN THIS THREAD for all to see

ken

[goddi]

Lin and Ken... Yes, I did not think of that. I usually use YouSendIt but the file is allowed to be up for only 7 days max. I will try the MediaFire.

This file shows the error. Pause and read the first slide with text for full explaination. This is what I wanted to send to Igor:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/k2djtt1mznz/CanopyTour-bad.exe

This file has all of the PTE files for the above slideshow:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/yw5knz2zyx2/...09_10-27-50.zip

And, here is the larger slideshow with all the PTE files that is giving me the problem that when I do a Create Exe, I get the error message: "Unable to create file with presentation..."

http://www.mediafire.com/file/zmzzj35utmm/...009_8-17-56.zip

I hope I did this correctly.... Thanks... Gary

=============

Gary,

There are literally dozens of free file transfer sites on the web where you can transfer files up to a gigabyte and sometimes more.

Just pick one (do a Google search for free file transfer), upload your files and put a link here. There is no need to reduce the file size, just upload the whole zipped PTE file.

Best regards,

Lin

[Lin Evans]

Hi Gary,

I'm going to look at one problem at a time. For this post, I'm only discussing shadow color.

First, slides 12, 13, 15 and 16 have the shadows set to black, not white. Could you have not saved your work after setting the shadow colors? The "default" is black. If you neglected to save the file after making changes then the original shadow color would stay black.

Lin

[goddi]

Lin... Oh...I have saved it dozens of times. I just can't get those slides with animation to change the shadow from black to white. I also clicked on 'Set for existing slides' but that did not help. I set the shadow to be 'white' in the Project Options where I expect all the slides to be effected with this change. Am I misunderstanding the process?

Gary

========

Hi Gary,

I'm going to look at one problem at a time. For this post, I'm only discussing shadow color.

First, slides 12, 13, 15 and 16 have the shadows set to black, not white. Could you have not saved your work after setting the shadow colors? The "default" is black. If you neglected to save the file after making changes then the original shadow color would stay black.

Lin

[Lin Evans]

Hi Gary,

I think perhaps a misunderstanding. Setting a slide in Customize this Slide overrides any global setting so that if the slide shadow setting in Customize this Slide is set to black while the global Project Option is set to white, the slide shadow will remain black. I had no trouble getting these slide shadows to remain white. The best way is to check the Customize this Slide setting.

On the slide which was located at the bottom rather than where you set it, I have no explanation - only the observation that it indeed was positioned very low. If I change the position it remains where I place it after saving the show.

On your large show, I fear you have some local resource issue. This could be available RAM (try a Ctrl Alt Del and check resources available in the Task Manager) or such. Also perhaps an anti-virus program may be usurping your resources. I had no problem creating the executable for you. Click the link below to download the zipped executable.

I did find one problem with the word "Bogota" and I took the liberty of rasterizing the text to PNG because it didn't fit on my screen (ran off to the right side). I suspect it's because you used a font not resident on my computer so this may change the font you selected. It's probably a good idea to rasterize any fonts which are not very common (Times Roman, etc. are common) to png rather than leave them as text because there are many differences in local computers - that way your audience will see the same fonts in the same positions as you do regardless of which font you select.

http://www.learntomakeslideshows.net/gary/Quindio2.zip

If you want to make changes and can't create the exe file, upload the altered file as you did the original and I'll be glad to save it as the exe for you. Look for RAM issues, etc., locally. It's a fairly large show and this problem of not being able to create the exe file undoubtedly is a resource issue on your system.

Best regards,

Lin

P.S. On the issue of saving - Brian discovered a bug in Vista/XP where if you use "save" frequently and you have lots of images, photos, etc., and you do not use "save as" at least once during a session, the system will revert to the last "save as" thus causing your previous "saves" to be lost! This is a Windows bug and not a PTE bug so it is indeed "possible" that you may have run up against this issue. This happens on systems which do not have PTE even on the hard drive. The work-around is to use Save As rather than "save" on a frequent basis. This situation could be exacerbated if "auto-save" is set on in PTE so perhaps a bit of caution is advised.

[goddi]

Lin.... Ohhhhh... I think I see what is going on. I had not set any Custom settings. I used the Project Options/Screen/'Display shadow behind slide image' to get the white shadow. So that is the only place I looked. Now, with your idea, I happened to look in the Object and Animations/Common tab and I see that the Drop Shadow menu has Black chosen. Now, I don't know what I did to have this happen. What is the difference between the two menus? Is the O&A/Common tab a customize setting for that particular slide? I don't remember doing this to only the animated slides. Can there be a 'bug' of some sort?

Yes, I understand about the fonts and rasterizing to PNG. I think I just missed that one.

Thanks for the ideas!!! I will now go and check on the resource in Task Manager when I have this file open and I'll report back. I can eventually Create it as an Exe after I get the error message if I reboot and restart PTE. I get one or two chances, then I get the error message. But originally, I did not have this problem. I had Saved and Created the Exe many time. Then, suddenly, this started to happen.

Thanks for your time and suggestions... Gary

==============

[goddi]

Lin...

I was watching the Performance Tab in the Task Manager as I did a 'Create Exe'. Interesting. Normally it sat around 8 - 10%. Then, as I did a Create Exe, it jumped up, as expected, to about 75%. If I did another 'Create Exe' before the graph reduced down to the normal range, I got the error. I also noticed that the peak of the graph comes down to 'normal' a little after PTE is finished doing the Create Exe. I must admit that I tend to do a Save and Create Exe after I make any changes, and maybe I am doing them too fast. What is strange is that now if I wait a little longer to do another Create Exe, I don't seem to get the error message. But I thought before that I had waited sometime and still was not able to do a Create Exe without getting another similar error message. I think you are correct in pointing out that it is probably a RAM issue, though I do have 2 Gb of RAM. I will keep my eye on this more closely.

Thanks...I am pretty sure now that it is something connected with my PC. It only has happened with this large PTE show.

Much appreciated...

Gary

======================

...On your large show, I fear you have some local resource issue. This could be available RAM (try a Ctrl Alt Del and check resources available in the Task Manager) or such. Also perhaps an anti-virus program may be usurping your resources. I had no problem creating the executable for you. Click the link below to download the zipped executable.

Best regards,

Lin

[fh1805]

Hi Gary,

You sure do come up with some unusual problems! I see that Lin has given you a steer in the right direction so I'll not offer additional advice on what to do (that might simply add confusion). With regards to your last post about observed resource usage...

Although all computers try and keep everything they are working on in RAM, there comes a time, inevitably, that they run out of RAM. At this point they ship some of the contents of RAM out onto a special file on your hard-drive. That frees up some RAM for them and away they go again! When a RAM-hungry task (such as the "Create" of a large, complex PTE sequence) has finished, there are still some loose ends to be tidied up: the RAM contents that were sent out to the hard drive being just one of these loose ends.

So it is, perhaps, not unexpected that you hit your problem only when you try and do two complex actions back-to-back. Think of it like asking an athlete to set off on a second race just after they cross the line at the end of the first one! They want some recovery time - and so does your PC (it only needs a minute or less, they might need a hour or two).

Fitting more RAM, provided that your PC has space for it physically and your Operating System can exploit it, would ease the strain; but even that might not totally resolve this problem. As Lin indicated in one of his replies, it all depends on what else is running (anti-virus, etc.)

regards,

Peter

[Conflow]

Peter,

You are so right in that simple explaination you have just given ~ may I expand on that as follows for the benefit

of other Forum Members ?

RAM is an 'Interchange Working Area' on every PC.

Compare it to a Major Railway Interchange Signal Box ~ if there is too much Traffic it gets blocked up.

Because its an 'Interchange' it controls signal-routing and where the Train (program) is going to go.

So it assigns a Route but also an amount of real-estate (Virtual Memory) for the Train (program) to run on.

It also fill's in a 'Traffic-Log' called Page File Memory so it can keep an eye on on the (program) Trains progress.

In Summary:-

RAM is an 'Interchange Working Junction ~ It assigns Virtual Working area ~ It keeps a Log Page-File of work progress.

So if any of these 3 Tracks get clogged-up the Train will be delayed or it wont run ~ same thing happens with all PC's.

OOhh, and dont forget the slow Goods Train (Celeron) ~ that really makes a 'hames' of any Interchange Switching.

Now you have it, thanks to Peter....

Brian.Conflow

[goddi]

Peter... Thanks to you and all the other for your responses. I've got another 'unusual' problem. I'll be posting it soon.

Gary

===================

Hi Gary,

You sure do come up with some unusual problems! ...............

regards,

Peter