Shows disappear in a project and even in the back-ups

Posted by: @cash

For the second time, a show within a project just disappeared. I saved the project many times while i was working on that show and I have an auto-save every 7 minutes. I did not remove the show by accident.

Finishing the show I saved the whole project once again and closed the program. 1 minute later I re-opened the program and the project. The last finished show was gone, totally gone. All the 20 back-up files of the project gave the same result in size and number of shows (without the missing show) and that's not possible because I was working on that show for days. Now I have 5 shows on the project instead of 6. A few weeks ago the same thing happened with another show in the same project, so I see this as a serious problem. That's why shows need to be saved separately from a project, with separate data, just like it was in Proshow. I'm asking Joshua again for this feature because it's necessary to work safely on a  project without worrying if the project will keep your shows or not. I worked for hours and hours on that lost show, for nothing.    

I notices that play back in full-screen wasn't working either (before the show disappeared) , only a white screen without a show was visible.

I wanted to send a problem report with all the project data enclosed but I get on error during uploading. Not once, but 3 times, so I'm a little bit disappointed now.

This problem has to be solved, any suggestions? The show doesn't exist in the bak file of the project, neither in b01, b02 and so on.

I had the same thing happen as stated in the top two paragraphs of this post by @cash.  This has happened more than once to me.  The only option I had was to recreate the program.

We've seen this issue reported, obviously, but haven't been able to reproduce it on our end. That's going to be the key to getting it resolved. Separating slideshows in a project into individual single-show files could work around the issue, but even that might not actually resolve the underlying complication. We need to see this issue occur on our end, which we're working on, so our developers can figure out what is causing it and get it resolved properly.

In the meantime, you might want to create your slideshows in separate projects then import them each into the same project once they're all complete. The import option is available from an open slideshow project under "File" > "Import Show into Project". Given what we know about how this issue occurs, using separate slideshow projects SHOULD work around the issue for now.

Thanks Jozua, I'm already working with your suggestion, 1 show is 1 project. When I import finished shows in a new project to bring them together, will the original shows and data still exist? Can I do this without the risk that the original finished show will disappear again? 

@cash 

Yes, when a slideshow is imported into another project the original slideshow (in its original project) remains as-is. You effectively end up with two separate copies of that slideshow, the one in the original project and the one in the other project (where it was just imported).

I have been working on one slideshow in one project, and I think when I hit the save the current project button the entire show disappeared and I can't find anything but its folder and associated picture/video files. I tried to call it back using Windows' "restore previous versions" without effect. This is a super bummer! 

@arthur-malm that's terrible! This problem needs to be solved. 

@arthur-malm 

It's not clear why that slideshow project might have been removed from the "Projects" list. We'll certainly be looking into the issue to see if it can be reproduced on our end.

Given that you still have the slideshow project folder on your computer, it should be possible to restore the project. Open up Photopia then click the "Import" button from the "Projects" list (which will bring up an "Open Project" window) then open the slideshow project folder (which it sounds like you've already located), select the NPS project file, and clicking the "Open" button. That should put your slideshow project back in the "Projects" list.

The "Projects" list is effectively a 'recently used' list, so if a project is missing from that list it does NOT necessarily mean the project is missing from the computer, just that Photopia has somehow lost track of the project. Going through the "Import" process allows Photopia to regain access to the project and thus put it back in the "Projects" list.

If this doesn't work for some reason, reach out through the Contact Us form on our site and we'll be happy to dig into the issue further to see what's going on.

@joshua that's a good explanation, thank you. I'll hope this will help him out, but when the nps file is 'gone' during saving, there is nothing else you can do I'm afraid. 

@cash 

If the NPS file were missing from the project folder after the project was saved then we would need to look at the backup files. Generally speaking, it should be possible to restore a project from one of those project backup files by changing the file extension (ex. BAK, B01, B02, etc.) to NPS. Photopia should then be able to "Import" the 'new' NPS file.

Even the bak file is an old file when a show disappears. I think the disappearing happens when you push the save button a lot during making a show, or maybe at the same time when there is an autosave. I don't know, but that's what I think. 

One of my files that disappeared has been found and is 100% intact.  The file name ended in .nps but it had an extra .~tmp at the end.  I renamed the file deleting the extra .~tmp.  This is an example of how it all looked.  Filename.nps.~tmp

Tom

@thomas-christensen 

Thank you for providing that additional information. While it's not clear why this might have happened, at least we know more about what we're looking for in this case. If the issue happens again, please reach out through the Contact Us form on our site so we can get some additional information about your computer.

yes I run a small business and one of our services is slideshows.  We have had about 25% crashes of this sort.  Basically the autosave erases the current project and BAK files to completely blank.  So we can just watch 4 hours of production disapear before our very eyes.  We actually have 3 copies of software to replace proshow and have only had success with one.  I have reached out via Customer Support and no return messages.  Finally I spoke with someone on Facebook messenger, but they were not able to help either.  We are currently searching out more reliable options for slideshow creations.

@arthur-malm The big difference with Proshow: A project in Proshow was nothing more than a collection of stand-alone shows with there own data files.

Now a project collects all shows in the project to 1 data file. When there's a problem in the project you will lose everything because there are no stand alone shows anymore when you bring them in a project. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is the problem, no separate data files for shows in a project.