File Saving Bug On MAC

Discuss Moho bugs (or suspected bugs) with other users. To report bugs to Smith Micro, please visit support.smithmicro.com

Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger

Post Reply
tyke44060
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun May 18, 2014 1:53 pm

File Saving Bug On MAC

Post by tyke44060 »

I am using Anime Pro 9 on a MAC OSX 10.7.5 and for some reason I cannot fathom the application has developed a bug when saving files. I save the file and then cannot open it again. I'm concerned I've lost quite a bit of work this way as I am in the middle of a project. Does anybody know a way to get the application back on track?
User avatar
heyvern
Posts: 7035
Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2005 4:49 am

Re: File Saving Bug On MAC

Post by heyvern »

Is there an error or just a crash?

It would help to know what happens when you "can't open" the file. If there is an error during a save and the file is damaged in some way, opening the file again would show some sort of error, like a line number reference in the file.

If after saving and opening Anime Studio crashes, this could be caused by an issue with a complex or very large file with lots of layers and possibly a memory issue.

Without making promises, I don't think the files are lost and they could be recovered. It would help to know where the error occurs and of course would need to have access to the file to see what's causing the problem. I have fixed many of my own files with text editors that got "squashed".

This may be a stretch, but it could be an issue with the computer or hard drive. If this just started happening "suddenly" to more than one file, it could be a bad sector on the drive or some other OS or hardware issue. I would say this is the least likely cause and not as likely as some other simpler issue. It wouldn't hurt though to run some sort of hard drive utility to make sure your hardware is okay.

Also as you work, do a save as or make backups of files. For most of my projects there are piles of incremental saves I've done so I have something I can step back to incase of any issues.
tyke44060
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun May 18, 2014 1:53 pm

Re: File Saving Bug On MAC

Post by tyke44060 »

Thanks for your reply - this is more than I have from Smith Micro at present.

I first noticed the bug after trying to repopen a base file I hade made the night before for a scene. The program opens and the menu bar appears and then becomes unresponsive before the windows and timeline appear. The beach ball icon just sits there and spins. The program has to be killed or it will spin its wheels indefinitely. The computer lists it as unresponsive.

At first I thought it was a bad file and something had failed during the save. After a reboot, I opened the application normally and recreated my scene, calling in my artwok files and pre-done characters into a new document. I basically redid all the work put into the previous file. So I saved the new document under a new filename and then saved a second copy with yet another filename so I could start animation. Niether of these new files would open - same symptoms. I will post the offending file later when I am at home. The files are not zero size they are about 3.1 Mbytes. The have a several background layers and four character sprites. I don't think it is a memory issue, I have used bigger files in this project. I was also only using the application and the finder without other things running.

The computer appears to be working quite normally with all my other applications and saved a whole bunch of sound files I had prepared for use with animating the base scene, before I discovered the issue.
User avatar
heyvern
Posts: 7035
Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2005 4:49 am

Re: File Saving Bug On MAC

Post by heyvern »

At this point the only way to help would be to have access to the file.

Are the backgrounds images? If so it could be the resolution of the image files or even possibly a corrupted image. I have had that problem. An image that was "messed up" was causing AS to crash. Resaving it can help.

Make sure you have all of the upgrades to Anime Studio.v9 which had a few updates that may have fixed a few issues.
Genete
Posts: 3483
Joined: Tue Oct 17, 2006 3:27 pm
Location: España / Spain

Re: File Saving Bug On MAC

Post by Genete »

Does it happen when you do a simple document (i.e. a shape)?
-G
tyke44060
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun May 18, 2014 1:53 pm

Re: File Saving Bug On MAC

Post by tyke44060 »

I did a bit more poking about with application last night. I was able to make a new file and save it with the background scene. I was then able to save and recall. I pushed on and added a character and again I was able to save and recall. So far so good.

Given the helpful comments about memory I checked the file sizes of previous animation files I have used with version 9. The size of 3.2 Mbyte is the biggest so far, so it is possible I have hit a memory limit of some kind.

I also played with Preference settings and turned off the auto save option before trying to read in my old file. It went through a valiant effort to read in the file and reported some of the links to layers in the file as not found, so my guess is that the old file has some problems in it.

The good news is that the application is not irreversibly blocked, which was my biggest fear, and I can try build the scene with some scaled back character rigs to save memory and see how it goes. I would like to thank you guys for the helpful comments and hopefully I can pull off my scene and it won't all end in tears tomorrow.
tyke44060
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun May 18, 2014 1:53 pm

Re: File Saving Bug On MAC

Post by tyke44060 »

I did a little more research on the bug and I am now convinced it is a memory problem. The application fails to save a file if you build it over 2MB. My files are mostly made up of imported PNG files. I carefully built the file up using 12 versions, each version, a few more layer or character parts. Failure occurred between 2 and 2.3 mbytes file size. So my original file at 3.2 Mbytes is way out of line.

I was able to create an acceptable version of my base scene and made two animation clips from it. So at least my application isn't totally busted which is what I first thought. It does take a full restart of the MAC to recover from Force Quit you have to use to stop Anime Studio Pro, before you can read in previously working files. Simply restarting the application isn't enough to get beyond the mess the issue creates.
kitzeldikatz
Posts: 25
Joined: Thu Sep 11, 2014 9:05 pm

Re: File Saving Bug On MAC

Post by kitzeldikatz »

Are you sure that it's 2 MB and not 2 GB?
I have .amne files bigger than 2MB on Windows 7; why shouldn't this work on Mac?
Post Reply