MEP 2014: Many collages broken?

terrypin wrote on 11/1/2013, 10:05 AM

Because of the obscure 'invisible collages' problem I was having in MEP 2013, I switched for the time being to MEP 2014. I went straight to the 3 landscape object section of Collages. Only to find that 6 of the 18 seem to be broken.

I'd appreciate feedback from anyone who can reproduce please. It occurs with numbers 8 to12 and 16, as follows.

As soon as I try to apply one of these to the selection of three JPGs on my timeline (the only objects in my tests) I get this sort of message:

There's no such folder on my PC, although there are lots of files called _dummy.jpg that were installed by MEP 2014.

And after the similar error messages are skipped I then get:

That's incorrect too, as there is no collage already applied to these images. With no re-setting I can immediately apply one of the other working collages successfully.

I haven't checked all other collages but if a third are broken then that's pretty serious!

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Comments

johnebaker wrote on 11/1/2013, 4:05 PM

Hi Terry

Looking at the first image where is your drive E: ?

John

JohnnyO wrote on 11/1/2013, 5:11 PM

This is a bug. I just applied a collage and hit the same problem. I couldn't reset the effect because there was no effect applied. I tried a different collage and it worked.

I didn't go through them all, I specifically hit the problem on a 3 Obj.02 (16:9)

terrypin wrote on 11/2/2013, 2:23 AM

Hi Terry

Looking at the first image where is your drive E: ?

John

Hi John,

Where? It's my WD 2 TB external, on the shelf above my PC! But why do you ask? That's just one of those strange file and path references you see in obscure corners of MEP.

Here's another, this time the result of trying to apply collage >3 Obj, 16 (3D) to the set of three JPGs:

(That was using MEP 2013 this time, although I expect the same in 2014.)

Here again, although I do have a drive called C: (like most users) it's obviously not the one that Magix have in mind, with its strange folder and subfolders.

Did you reproduce the bugs?

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

johnebaker wrote on 11/2/2013, 3:44 AM

Hi Terry

I asked because those files should be on the C drive if you have a normal windows setup either in the Documents and Settings folder, the MEP installation folder for XP or Users, Username, Appdata folder or in the c:\Program Data folder for Win 7/8.

Unless of course you have customised your home folder locations.

Unfortunately i cannot reproduce the problem at the moment as we are at the Goth Weekend in Whitby.

John.

terrypin wrote on 11/2/2013, 5:01 AM

Hi John,

No customising of the base folders on this XP PC. They're all in their originally installed locations.

We look forward to seeing the video of you as a Goth.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

browj2 wrote on 11/2/2013, 9:57 PM

Hi Terry,

With MEP2014 Plus, I tried almost all of the collages, including all 18 with 3 objects. No problems, except:

When I tried a reset on 3 objects, #13, and 2 of the 3 initial images did not come back to the same length and left a gap between the third and fourth objects on the timeline. Strange. Here is the result:

All 5 photos were inserted together with my default of 6s, no gaps.

It also left a phantom of the first object on track 6 (not shown above). When I scolled down to see if there were any other phantoms on lower tracks and came back up, the phantom had disappeared. Normally I would just do a Ctrl+z to get rid of the effect, not a reset. This is probably a small bug, but shouldn't happen. See if you can reproduce the reset with shorter objects than initially.

Regards,

John

terrypin wrote on 11/3/2013, 1:59 AM

Hi John,

Thanks for going to the trouble of those thorough tests, much appreciated.

Later today I'll try to re-test MEP2014's 3-object (landscape) collages, but from experience I'm sure they will be inconsistent. That's one of the snags in pinning down the issue. I got different results yesterday to those I reported in my original posts.

I suspect that the 'false memory' bug I've described in various guises further confuses the matter. IOW, using files already recently used (in the same or different collages) affects the behaviour. And I've sometimes found that if I shorten or lengthen the finished collage and then copy it (or the original result) that too causes weird results.

I do hope not, but 'm also beginning to wonder if collages are behaving differently between XP/Vista/Win7/Win 8.

In short, a pretty unpredictable part of MEP!

I'm spending far too much time on this stuff though - virtually no progress on my current project for a week

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

terrypin wrote on 11/4/2013, 3:30 AM

Sorted!

Later today I'll try to re-test MEP2014's 3-object (landscape) collages, but from experience I'm sure they will be inconsistent.

Well, this time they were consistent. I got exactly the same errors as before. For #8 to #12 there were 3 repetitions of the message when using Skip, one for each of the three elements. For #16 there was just one message.

My files are all in their original folders, but I have copied across successive versions content. Including my own customised additions, many in the case of collages. However, after an initial inspection, including the respective translation.ini files for 2013 and 2014, I can't see any obvious cause of these 'missing dummy files' errors.

Edit: Eating dirt time - it was down to me!

A more methodical check of the respective \Collages folders revealed that a couple of files had not been transferred correctlly.

Sorry for wasting your time in fruitless testing.

However, I'm still baffled why these error messages refer to folders that don't bear any relation to those on my PC. For example, in the case of #8 to #12 above, if the message had been that this file was missing

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\MAGIX\Movie Edit Pro 2014 Premium\VideoEffects\Collage\_dummy.jpg

then I'd have been able to locate and fix the problem immediately.

Can it be possible that the file paths which MEP uses are based on the original development system? If so they are inevitably meaningless on an end user's PC!

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK