Unable to open my sequence

[lonewolf41]

When I try to open my sequence, I get the error shown. I tried repairing .NET and using both version 2.1.1.0 & 2.5 give the same error.

As background, I was unable to reorder my channels in the current profile using 2.1.0.0 and have them stay so I thought maybe it was a bug that 2.5 would fix so I upgraded to 2.5 and since then, I can't get my sequence to open in any version. Even my backup copies won't open. Any ideas? I don't want to loose the hours I already have put in. I can create a new sequence, but again don't want to loose my work.

Also, how do you reorder (or can you reorder) channels once you get them initially set up in a profile. I can change them in the profile, but they don't change in the sequence.

TIA,
-Keith

[deplanche]

I can't help you with the first problems.

As for the reordering, select the profile you are using, and then the drop down on the right side of the channel list that says "channel order" above it. Choose define new order, then arrange the channels in the way you want them. When you are done you have to click the first icon to the right of the drop down, which is the "save the current order" button. You'll add name for this order. You can repeat this as many times as orders that you want to make. When you are done, click the "done" at the bottom right of the box. When you open your sequence, there is a channel order drop down on the far right of the "display setting" toolbar. The names of the channel orders you just made should be here. It will default to the last order you used when you had the sequence open. But all the ones you just created will be listed and you can choose them as you see fit.

Hope that helps.

[lonewolf41]

OK, I think I got the channel order to work now. Thanks!

Something else I thought of last night, the same error occurs if I try and manage the profile I have associated with the sequence. I don't know enough about the software, but this is my theory:

Maybe the profile is actually the problem. I assume that when the program opens a sequence, if there is a profile associated with it that it opens the profile first. If that is the case and my profile is bad, maybe that is the problem after all and the sequence may still be OK. To test my theory, I need to detatch the sequence from the profile. I know how to do that with the sequence open but I can't get it open. Does anyone know of a way to unlink a sequence from a profile outside of Vizen?

Thanks,
-Keith

[mheuer]

EDIT:

In the Vixen 2.5 thread, there is some info about converting your 2.1 sequences to work with 2.5.
Maybe you might have to run the 'prepare.exe' program to fix your sequences for Vixen 2.5.
http://doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7535

Hope this helps,
Mike.

[lonewolf41]

I did run the prepare program. In fact, it was after this that I began having trouble. Thanks for the info.

-Keith

[lonewolf41]

Something else of note. If I try and create a new sequence with the wizard, when I get to the screen to assign a profile to it, as soon as I hit the next button, this same error message comes up. This is leading me to believe more and more that it is a profile problem. I wish I could unlink my sequence from this profile to try it.

-Keith

[mheuer]

Hmm. You might be able to try a little hackery to get this recovered.
I'm not an expert, but I've done some experimenting with the situation.

If you open up your sequence file in notepad, the profile name can be found looking something like this:


<Profile>Your profile name here</Profile>


But even if you try removing the whole line *manually* with Notepad in an attempt to detach the profile, upon opening, vixen will not know how many channels to create, and all sequence data will be truncated (lost), because there will be no channels to copy the data to.
This means, even if you manually unlink the profile from your sequence, your sequence data will not show even after associating a new profile unfortunately .

So instead, maybe try creating a new profile with the exact number of channels as your old profile in Vixen, then close Vixen, and manually edit your sequence file's profile name with Notepad.
The new line might look something like this:


<Profile>The new profile name here</Profile>


Someone please correct me if I am wrong.
This seems a little weird, but I hope it works for you.

Mike.

EDIT:
Be sure to have a backup copy in case editing does not work.

[deplanche]

Can you post your profile? I want to see if I can make a new sequence with it.

[lonewolf41]

Here it is. And I'll try the manual edit in the mean time.

Thanks,
-Keith

[lonewolf41]

Tried the manual edit and got a different error below. Keep em coming.

Thanks.

[mheuer]

Thanks for posting the new error image.
It looks like an XML parsing glitch according to the error. Some how a strange character ended up in the edited version. Hopefully it should be easy to fix.
Could you post the original sequence, and the modified version too if possible?

Thanks.

I'm currently looking to find whats causing the array out of bounds error in your profile.

[mheuer]

Don't worry about uploading the sequences.

I think I got the profile fixed!!:D

It seems somehow reordering the channels might have confused the 'prepare.exe' when you upgraded to 2.5 somehow?

I hope this works.

Mike.

[lonewolf41]

Here is my original sequence and one that should be good. The last time it was saved was last Thursday when I was working on it without trouble. I'm not sure which other version to post, but everything I did, I always started with this file. Let me know if you need anything else and thanks for the help.

-Keith

P.S. I had to zip it to get it to upload as it was over 1MB.

[lonewolf41]

It opens now, but all the info is gone from the profile. There are no names on the channels. The colors seem right, but the name is blank. Sounds like I just need to reorder the channels from a text editor. Is that what you did?

Thanks

[deplanche]

I get a similiar error when i edit and save in wordpad. Notepad seems to work fine for me. Not sure what the problem is there, just know it has happened to me.

[deplanche]

If you open up your file and the one Mike fixed for you, you will see they are very different. Not sure how those changes happened, but that's probably why your aren't seeing the channel names... either am i.

[mheuer]

Changes were made for Vixen 2.5.
Vixen 2.1 and 2.5 use different profile formats.

I'll see if I can change it for 2.1.

Thanks for letting me know.
Mike.

[lonewolf41]

OK, based on what Mike did and said, I was able to get mine fixed. There were a few sections I edited. I put all the channels in order in the upper (channel objects) and lower (channels) areas. I also made sure that the disabled channels list matched what was turned off from above as that was all messed up as well. Once I got all that corrected, it all seems fine. I was able to open up my sequence and everything looks to be there and correct. :p

Thanks so much for helping me out. This is my first experience with Vixen and it was really bumming me out. As a side note...any ideas what happened? Do you think Vixen itself did this at the last save? Didi I do something weird in the program? Did the prepare program do something? Just wanting to know so that I can hopefully prevent it from happening again.

Thanks again,
-Keith

[mheuer]

Here's the new 2.1 version.

To get the old profiles to work with 2.5, you need to use the 'prepare.exe' discussed here "http://doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7535".

After running the file through the 'prepare' process, this migrated the file to 2.5.
That's why the major difference between files.

I just assumed you were still using 2.5 (thats where the problems were occuring).

Sorry for the glitches.

Hopefully the differences should be visible now.

Mike.

EDIT:
Yep. I think the prepare.exe didn't take into consideration the channels being reordered or something.
I'm not exactly sure what went wrong, but I just took a guess.

I'm glad things worked! :)