tvp crashed during 'modify proj', now can't open file

[CharlieC]

any advice on these disparate details (i'm using tvp 8.6.2 on a mac 10.5.:

was modifying a project to a smaller size and tvp crashed, now tvp crashes trying to open the original file. it was pretty large; 3300x2550, had a wav. sound file and a lo-res quicktime movie in it, entire tvp is about 530 mb. with repeated attempts ive managed to open it without crashing in hopes of copying and pasting my important layers into a new project, but then tvp crashes again.

tvp still seems to work fine with other tvp files; i guess the other one is now permanently corrupted?

not sure what info is important in the crash file, but it says things like-

"Date/Time: 2010-04-25 16:14:28.106 -0700
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.5.8 (9L31a)
Report Version: 6
Anonymous UUID: 9980FFAC-1C56-4969-8ED5-D8AA0D411934

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x00000000eefd95c2
Crashed Thread: 0

Thread 0 Crashed:
0 fr.tvpaint.tvpaint67 0x001181ad start + 1137737
1 fr.tvpaint.tvpaint67 0x00330b32 start + 3335630
2 fr.tvpaint.tvpaint67 0x003325d1 start + 3342445
3 fr.tvpaint.tvpaint67 0x00008e0a start + 26790
4 fr.tvpaint.tvpaint67 0x0000d04b start + 43751
5 fr.tvpaint.tvpaint67 0x0000ea36 start + 50386
6 fr.tvpaint.tvpaint67 0x005a964e start + 5927146"

i'd love to retrieve the animation in the file, but thankfully not a lot was lost, but this is a scary prospect if a file can get corrupted...

i've also gotten these error msgs with other files that look like this; they occur while trying to save; the msg remains for a while regardless of whether i select 'retry' or 'cancel'; after multiple clicks the msg closes and the saving seems to finish ok:

any clues to what i'm dealing with here?
thanks,
charlie

[ematecki]

Can you upload the file somewhere then PM me the url ?
I'll see what can be done.

[ematecki]

Hi,

Is your "My Book" a NAS or a USB drive ?
The read error looks like an intermitent failure to read from the drive.
This can come either from an error on the drive, or some network problem.

This also most likely caused your file to become corrupted, because TVPAP writes to a file ONLY when explicitly told to save or export.

We added checks to v9.5 to not crash with this kind of corrupted file, but display an error message, and try continue loading what it can.

[slowtiger]

Just a guess here: I had severe problems with external drives when I used them right out of the box, namely with files bigger than 2 GB - those wouldn't write at all - and smaller ones as well, being copied incompletely.

This didn't happen anymore when I made it a habit to format each drive with Mac HFS. Highly recommended for all Mac users.

[CharlieC]

i have to admit i had to look up 'NAS' to learn that it is 'network attached storage' but i don't understand much more than that about it; sorry. the 'my book' drive uses firewire as apposed to usb connectors if that's part of your question. i could attach the rest of that crash log just in case you're curious (i guess i would need to attach to a PM). do you suspect the problem could lie with the drive? it's partitioned to 'mac os extended (journaled)', btw, which i guess is the same as the recommended 'hfs'.

i'm slammed with a very important job right now; i work from the external drive and backing it up to another external drive every night, and i save a lot of iterations. beyond what i do already any suggestions for the safest/practical-for-non-techie ways to backup files? not realizing a file is getting corrupted is scary; then backing it up is moot.

thanks so much for your help,
charlie

[Paul Fierlinger]

beyond what i do already any suggestions for the safest/practical-for-non-techie ways to backup files? not realizing a file is getting corrupted is scary; then backing it up is moot.

Charlie, besides backing up at the end of the day on another drive, I suggest you set your Auto Backup under TVP's Preferences to its max; 99. If you save often, you should have a succession of backups running from morning to nigh and then if you find yourself not being able to open TVP because of a corrupted file, you can go back to an earlier time of the day and find which backup will still open and go from there.

[ematecki]

Unfortunately, Charlie is still using v8.6.x, so he hasn't access to the autobackup feature.

Maybe an upgrade to v9.5 is called for here :)