#Invalid .PRJ file
47 messages in this thread
Anyone…
I'm using 3DS3 on a 486DX2/66 32MB ram, 1 gig HD. I've been having a reoccuring
problem. I'll be working on a project and regularly saving and then the next
day when I go to load the .PRJ file I get an "Invalid .PRJ File" message. This
has been happening for some time. I guess I was getting used to it until I
talked with another user who told me he has never had an invalid project file.
I really need some help here. I've lost so much work it isn't even funny.
Patrick Malone 70461,3646
Is this happening to you with just one particular file or with many files? The
primary cause of invalid files is a bad disk controller hit during a file write
operation. If I were you, I'd swap out the disk controller and see if that
solves the problem.
– G
Gary, the invalid project file happens on different files all the time….
Should I look seriously at replacing the controller card?
Patrick Malone
I would, if I were you.
– G
PMJI late – I have had this happen on different project files if I overwrite
the same project file too many times (saving with the same name). I save
often, and keep the last 2 or 3 iterations of each project file on the HD, but
try not to save a particular file with the same name more than 4 or 5 times …
I have also gotten that error message from each copy of the same .prj file,
saved from within 3ds (not copied) on 2 differnt drives (a blood-chilling
experience) – but only when it was a file that had been repeatedly saved, with
many changes between saves. If my reasoning is wrong, here, I hope someone
will let me know if I'm just engaging in superstitious behavior!
Gayle G de N
Hi Gayle,
<< If my reasoning is wrong, here, I hope someone will let me know if I'm
just engaging in superstitious behavior! >>
From product support's point of view, there have been no reports to date
regarding multiple saves destroying the scene data's integrity. However, there
have been problems that were resolved with hardware modifications (typically
it's been the HD controller).
jonas[adesk]
Hi again Gayle,
<< I have also gotten that error message from each copy of the same .prj file,
saved from within 3ds (not copied) on 2 differnt drives (a blood-chilling
experience) >>
I wondered if you were rendering inbetween saves? If so, do these machines have
very little disk space? If so, was it possible that you were paging during
rendering? If so, could your swap file's needs have exceeded the available hard
disk space? Project files saved after this condition are questionable.
jonas[adesk]
Hi twice, Jonas,
<<rendering between saves….low disk space…. swap files>>>
Hmm. It hasn't happened for quite a while (several months) (which I, of course,
had attributed to not overwriting the .prj files too often). The sys is a
486-66 EISA w 32 MB and 1 GB HD running off the SCSI controller; an MO, on
which I save duplicates whenever I save, also runs off the SCSI controller. I
also save across a network, to a 486-66 ISA, and I don't think I've gotten that
message from a file saved to the ISA machine. Back when this happened I had
allowed the HD to get pretty cramped, (I do sometimes page out, though not
often), but my usual pattern is to save before I start a render anyway. Nope,
don't think any swap files could have been that big, anyway.
But these were pretty big project files, about 10 or 11 MB, and I made
substantial changes in-between saves, maybe causing an increment of 1MB in file
size each time, and I remember worrying a bit that the snippets of the .prj
were going to be stuck in nooks and crannies all over the HD, probably none
adjacent to the bulk of the .prj file. (That doesn't explain why the MO copy
would be bad…. (this only happened once)).
I hate to put this to an empirical test … and in truth, it hasn't
happened again since I've been rigorous about not overwriting too many times
… if it were a SCSI controller gremlin, wouldn't it be getting worse, or at
least still be there?
….. I'll keep saving in triplicate until this is clarified <g>. Thanks,
Gayle G de N
PS – any idea why no one has responded to my batch render palette problem
question? I just rendered to whole thing in "high" – but "medium" still causes
and immediate error message.
Hi Gayle,
<< PS – any idea why no one has responded to my batch render palette problem
question? >>
Clueless..However, if you want to find the original message, zip it to me along
with your project file, I'll try it out here.
jonas[adesk]
Jonas –
If no one comes up with an inspired suggestion in the next 24 hrs., I'll do
just that. I will first try just any old model file, and try to determine if
it's something specific with my file, or some more general problem between our
machine and this process – it has been tried on two "nearly" identical systems
so far. I'll keep you posted.
BTW – The project file is pretty big, with all the texture maps etc. How big is
"too big to send"? Also, shouldn't I send you my 3DS.set file, too, since I am
accepting many of the defaultys specified there?
Gayle G de N
Hi Gayle,
<< How big is "too big to send"? >>
Soon we will have a seperate library section for you to place these files into.
For now, e-mail it to me or place it in the Mesh/Project files as a zip
containing everyting I need including a text file describing what to look
for….
jonas[adesk]
Hi Jonas – please see my response to Brian (which crossed in the "mail" with
his last one re: writing to HD). It's apparently not my mesh file that's the
problem. I also hope it's not anything that's going to require me to <<disable
video shadow, or memory cache etc>> … I'd rather walk through fire than mess
with "advanced CMOS settings" … please let it be something easier than that
.. Gayle G de N
Gayle:
>> I have had this happen on different project files if I overwrite the same
>> project file too many times (saving with the same name)
What I recommend would be to ALWAYS click on the "+" button when saving either
project files or 3DS files. What this does is to increment a number appended
to the end of the filename (render01.3ds, render02.3ds, etc.) It saves you the
time of renaming and storing in different directories, you always know which is
the most recent version of a project, and all the previous versions if you (or
a client) ever want to go back to an earlier version.
Then just go through and delete some of the earliest ones once in a while as
you need the disk space, and if you ever get a corrupted file, you can always
just go back to the previous number!
Greg Pyros
Thanks for the response, Greg.
What you suggest is what I have been doing, (without the smarts to use the +
option (duh!)). But I take the added precaution of saving the files in a
couple of different places.
You didn't indicate if you thought this "invalid .prj file" *could* be caused
by overwriting the same file on a crowded disk … or were you recommending
incremental saves as "just a good practice" ?
Gayle G de N, SAVANTES
PS THe Book is just wonderful. Compliments, again to all involved.
Gayle:
>> or were you recommending incremental saves as "just a good practice" ?
Just good practice, and it would have avoided most of the problems you are
having right now! :^)
Thanks for the compliments on the book, from all of us!
Greg Pyros
You shouldn't be getting this problem. It sounds like a hard disk problem to
me, but maybe others have other input on this.
One possible solution is to get a program like Norton Utilities which will scan
your entire disk for bad sectors and mark them off. It could be that as you
save a file and make it bigger, the file finally hits that one bogus spot on
your drive. When the file goes bad you delete it, leaving the bogus spot
available for the next PRJ file to wander into. Marking off the bad sectors
will eliminate this situation.
If all else fails you can always reformat the entire hard drive. It's time
consuming to back up your files, reformat then reinstall all your software, but
this will at least eliminate that problem. Then if the problem persists you
KNOW it's not the hard disk.
Other places to look: hard disk controller (I had this problem once, it cost
$35 to replace and all was fine!) and I recall someone up here recently finding
the problem was their video card.
It may take time to find it but it's worth getting rid of the aggravation.
Michele
<< (I had this problem once, it cost $35 to replace and all was fine!) >>
Me too..
Hi Michele – Thanks for the response.
<<bogus spots>>
Is DOS 6.2's SCANDISK utility not considered adequate to check and lock off bad
sectors? It sure found a host of them on an old HD which recently died on
another system. I do use it periodically, but it has not yet found any bad
sectors on this fairly new 1GB HD.
<<someone up here recently finding that the problem was their video card>>
..they were getting "invalid.prj file" messages because of their video
card???!!! Oh, puhleese, is there any logic in this? How'd they ever track
that one down? Or was it serendipitious?
<<HD controller>> It's running off a SCSI controller, FWIW…
The problem is so intermittent, in my case, (hope I don't jinx myself!), that
it would not yet be worth the problems that inevitably result everytime any new
component goes in or out of that black box. The person who started this thread
was having a significantly more frequent and pervasive problems.
Thanks for the advice, though, & if you think dos 6.2 is too wimpy to do a good
disk scan, please let me know.
GAyle G de N
>> ..they were getting "invalid.prj file" messages because of their video
>> card???!!! Oh, puhleese, is there any logic in this? How'd they ever
>> track that one down? Or was it serendipitious?
It often comes down to that voodoo magic that we sprinkle on our systems from
time to time. Unfortunately, the best solution sometimes is to swap a
component and -hope- it works, then swap another and hope some more, then swap
another and sprinkle some magic dust, then say the magic words (most being the
four-letter variety <g>.
If we were all real hardware whizzes, we could look at things like I/O and BIOS
addresses, IRQ's, DMA's and chipsets and say "OH! of course that board won't
work with that other board!"
Hopefully, when you have a problem, you have another system there that you can
swap parts with -or- you have a good friend at the local computer dealership.
– Dave
Regarding SCANDISK vs. Norton's Disk Test: I've never used SCANDISK. How long
does it run for? Disk Test runs for hours and does a physical check of the
entire disk, looking for _physical_ errors, not logical ones.
The other response you got about "magic dust" is, unfortunately, quite
accurate. <g> My hard disk controller gave me no trouble at all until I had
both Animator Pro and 3DS on the system. Animator Pro worked fine until I
installed 3DS, and then all of sudden three of the commands in Ani Pro would
cause the program to crash, but only _some_ of the time. 3DS would also crash
at odd times when I had a large file. Reinstalling the programs made them work
fine for a while, but then the problem would come up again after a week or so.
I only solved the problem when a dealer-friend suggested I swap out the hard
disk controller because it was a no-name brand and therefore highly suspect for
conflicts. Everything worked fine after that.
As for the video card conflict from those other folks on the forum, they
discovered this by swapping out each card in the system and testing 3DS after
each swap. Unfortunately there is no shortcut in this method.
For consolation, just remember that once it works fine it will work perfectly
for years… until you install another component. <g>
Michele
<<MS DOS scandisk>>
It takes about 15 min on my systems to do the physical scan – sounds like
Norton must go over it more than once. It is supposed to mark dubious sectors
and stop anything from being written there.
<<<Magic dust>>>>
Arrgh! You can tell I'll only be dragged by the hair, kicking and screaming on
this one. I have two more probably irrelevant questions about HD controllers
(anyone should feel free to jump in here).
-Are SCSI controllers "as bad, worse or better" than IDE flavor for this
type of capricious, sporadic and unpredictable problem.
-Is it an issue of "conflict" or of a component of the board "going
bad".
-I'm sure my dealer wouldn't dream of putting anything but a
creme-de-la-creme SCSI controller in my system <bg – hi paul>, assuming
that's true, is it as likely a source of conflicts?
<<swapping out every card in the system>>
The good news is, we have more than one system … the bad news is, I insisted
on getting exactly the same brand and model of components whenever possible, on
the theories that "the evil you know is better than…" and that it would
reduce the number of tech support barriers I'd need to circumvent to get help
if I stuck with just a few brands.
_____ How the heck can you use this strategy if it's a problem that only occurs
every few weeks or so ( – though it's _axiomatic_ those few instances will be
timed at the worst possible moments)?
_____ Are there diagnostic programs that can be set up to test your controller
1000 times, or something? (overnight!)
A final note: If I honestly thought it were possible to put ANYthing in the sys
without something new going wrong, I'd not hestitate.
Gayle
Get an _Adaptec_ SCSI controller (if you go SCSI). They are
rock-solid, tested to the most stringent anal-retentive standards,
and don't mess up 3DS. I've got 3 different types (ISA, EISA, PCI)
in my machines and have NEVER had a problem with any, except for a
beta flavor EISA whose old BIOS didn't work with MAX. An updated
BIOS fixed that, however.
For IDE, I've got a Quickpath ISA (faster than my old no-name VLB
one) controller. It was relatively expensive ($120), but has never
given me a lick of trouble.
Moral of the story is: you get what you pay for (hopefully <g>).
I love <<stringent anal-retentive standards>>!
Thanks for your input, and I'm happy to say, my dealer didn't fail me.
I DO have an Adaptec SCSI controller AHA2740/2742 on the EISA system
…. ('course it's possible I got the bad one in the batch) …
there's also an Adaptec AHA-1510A "AT-to SCSI Host adaptor" on the
ISA system to run my old Bernoulli and an MO. Not sure what's running
the HDs on that sys, & can't find any lit in my box of unread HW
manuals… but the problem has shown up mainly on the EISA sys on
which I do all the modelling & the most frequent saves.
I really think the problem was/is due to overwrites on big project
files with pieces all of the disk … or random cosmic ray strikes,
pixie dust, whatever.
<<and have NEVER had a problem with any…>>
(I hoped you knocked on wood, after saying that, and there were no
thunderstorms in your state …)
Gayle, A second thought regarding your problem. The _only_ time I have
ever had a bad .PRJ file was under the following conditions: I was
working on a project and started rendering without first doing a
save. (bad) During the rendering process the combination of the swap
file size and creation of the .FLC filled the HD. 3DS simply aborted
and stated it ran out of space. So, I saved the project file. Bad
again, because 3DS never gave me an error and said that it couldn't
complete the save operation because the drive was full. I then quit
3DS to get rid of the swap file and clear off some more space. After
making room, I went back into 3DS and tried to load the project and
it came up corrupted. I was very surprised that 3DS saved the project
with no error. I haven't done that again as I always save a file .3ds
or
.prj before I committ to rendering. Good practice if nothing else.
BTW, you got the best SCSI adapter as JohnT mentioned. That's the
kind I own also. <g> Good luck on solving your problem.
Dave Mennenoh
I, too, had one of those Adaptec EISA cards. I'm not sure if I have the latest
BIOS, though. I do know I had a collision between QEMM, Adaptec, Ethernet and
who knows what, resulting in a CONFIG.SYS that starts out:
DEVICE=C:\QEMM\DOSDATA.SYS
REM Fix Exception 13 problems with UltraStors DEVICE=C:\QEMM\ULTRAFIX.SYS
REM UltraStor ASPI, between DOSDATA and QEMM, don't scan x300 Ethernet
DEVICE=USPI14.SYS /F /X300
DEVICE=C:\QEMM\QEMM386.SYS RAM XST=C000 R:2
DEVICE=C:\QEMM\DOS-UP.SYS @C:\QEMM\DOS-UP.DAT
DEVICE=C:\QEMM\LOADHI.SYS /R:1 C:\QEMM\QDPMI.SYS SWAPFILE=DPMI.SWP
SWAPSIZE=1024
Of course, this setup wouldn't work with QEMM's automatic install program, so
it had to be tweaked by hand after hours of confusion and tech support calls.
A few thoughts on your situation:
We're talking about "conflict", not a component "going bad". My
experience is that when a board "goes bad" it's totally fried and
unusable.
To help solve the mystery, look for a time when the problem occurs,
and then TRY TO DUPLICATE IT. For example if you do something to a
3DS file, save it and it later comes up as a bad file, try loading
the previous version of the file and doing the same operations to it,
and see if the same thing happens again. This will require you to be
very alert with your 3DS work, and you may wind up with 100
successive versions of a file in an attempt to pinpoint the problem.
Once you have a duplicatable problem, you can do lots of things. You
can ask your dealer to spend a morning with you swapping boards out
so you can test the sequence with other products, or you can try it
on a friend's system that has different components. If you don't have
anyone to help you, send [continued]
Michele –
Thanks for your thoughtful and detailed response – nice to know someone can be
witty – and also methodical/compulsive/thorough!
<<100 successive versions>>
I'm so glad someone else goes to these lengths if driven – I thought I was
crazy. I just finished doing just about that trying to solve a batch render
problem … But at some point, if a problem is really sporadic, and you're
fairly confident you can slide around it with compulsive multiple backups, you
have to ask how cost-effective it is to spend the time tracking down the exact
cause, no?
<<try to duplicate it immediately>>
That's of course, really good scientific advice. Next time this happens (if
ever), once the icy clutch of fear releases my heart, I'll immediately try to
reproduce, rather than fousing all efforts on restoring the project I was
working on.
THanks again for all your advice. If the problem reappears and I am able to
determine the cause, I'll let you know, just to see if it was a controller card
thing.
GAyle G de N
Good luck to you. Where are you located?
Michele <just curious>
me the file and I'll try it on my system. Any of these paths will lead you to a
solution of some kind.
If the problem is never ever duplicatable, then I strongly suspect strange
little things happening system-wide, such as your hard disk having bad sectors,
your memory being not quite stable, etc. I once had intermittent crashing with
my system and it turns out that my new memory was the problem. I returned it to
my apologetic dealer and he gave me Toshiba chips instead of the no-name brand
from Taiwan that he originally sold me.
Once the problem is solved you can always set up all your systems to look like
the one that works.
What do you mean by "more going wrong?" Are there other problems with the
system? It is important to solve one problem at a time, although sometimes
solving one problem solves them all.
As far as I know there is no program to test the disk controller for this
problem, because the problem only occurs when you're doing something within a
program and it conflicts with something going on in the controller. (If the
controller is indeed the culprit!) Can you ask your dealer to loan you another
controller for a few weeks?
In any case I hope you can enlist the help of your dealer in solving this
problem. Is he local to you?
Michele
>> and he gave me Toshiba chips instead of the no-name brand >> from
Taiwan that he originally sold me.
Had to laugh at this one. <BG> I mean, like Toshiba chips _aren't_
from Japan. Oh, and about ideas for the UG meeting. Normally that
sticker is the only thing watching me render. But, I could always
make an exception. It's been known to happen. I think you should do a
demo of using networked rendering on a single machine. Unless of
course you've done that one. I've been using it a lot lately and it's
great how much easier rendering large projects can be. I've been
using to render .FLC's and then have those .flcs automatically used
as backgrounds for the next in line. Makes composoting .flcs a snap
since you always have full alpha. Just a thought…
Quite often Japanese (and other godless heathen foreigners' <g>) manufacturing
techniques and quality rival and/or surpass US stuff. I know SGI uses Toshiba
RAM for their Indigo/Onyx/Challenge machines.
John Tissavary (LUNA cie, inc)
Gayle, PMJI, but I couldn't resist. Neither IDE nor SCSI controllers
are "known" for sporadic problems. They are both mature and reliable
and under normal situations operate basically error free. I have
never had a bad .PRJ file and I have both an IDE and a SCSI II
controller in my system. I'm sure you've probably done this, but let
me know what boards etc. you have in your system. Do you only get
file corruption in 3DS? Are you on a network? Did this just start
happening recently or has it always been like this? Have you checked
for viruses? Well, let me know what you can and I'll see if I can
help.
HI again –
I just found this message (don't quite have the hang of finding my messages in
DOS OZcis so y'all bear with me please)
<< they are both mature and reliable and under normal situations operate
basically error-free >>
I have some single friends who'd like to know if they have a brother.
::::: NOTE: Please, I'm not the person who started this thread (and I don't
have his name). I really appreciate evryone's time on this, but my problem has
been very sporadic and minor – the person who started this was having really
bad problems, so I hope he's reading all these great diagnostic
suggestions!:::: With that in mind …
<< file corruption only in 3DS? >>
Hmmm. When working with really big image files (14 – 20 MB) on the same system
(the EISA with 3D Studio), I sometimes have gotten "unexpected end of file"
error messages. Could this be related? I had sort of figured that was some of
my paint programs finding each others file formats only partially digestable –
like HiResQFX doesn't like Altamira Composer, which in turn doesn't like
Fractal … and Photoshop dislikes all the others except on alternate
Wednesdays.. I have also had this problem with graphics files on the other
system (ISA), and I'm trying to remember if it has happen with files which were
only saved/manipulated on the that local system, or that were loading over the
network from the EISA (which sometimes really does not like these big ones),
<<network>> Lantastic, 2/3 systems, and I use it constantly, more for tweaking
texture maps on the ISA system while working in the materials editor in 3DS on
the EISA, lots of file transfers, and especially – making sure I can make
multiple backups of those crucial project files on both systems, and also on
MO, while I'm in 3dS. Some network rendering, but I actually prefer to do that
with batch files for a number of reasons, (one of which is that I like to be
able to turn the boss sys off, and also not all sys are on net).
<<boards>> Apart from the Adaptecs, a Vortek VL 24 bit by Boca, and a Targa
64+.
(BTW-Have I told you about my mysterious Targa problems… if I access the
targa from ANiPro IL or non-IL, and whether I swtich back to the VGA display or
not, when I exit Anipro the tga locks up hard, no display at all, and I have to
cold reboot to reset it ….? This is a "100% every-single-time problem"." I'm
not shelling out from 3DS cause I'm not willing to sacrifice the mem to do it,
so when I go to AniPro, it's direct.)
<<time frame>>
I think as long as I've had the EISA sys, < 1 year … and I honestly can't
remember if it ever happened when the dongle was on the ISA sys. These
systems, BTW are both 486-66's with 32 MB, then there's another eisa, same
config, not on net.
<< viruses >>
Nope, and the little sys I use for COM is not on the net, on purpose, to help
avoid communicable disease problems.
Final note – it is hard to answer all of Michele's and your careful questions
with the precision they deserve, because this is so sporadic (thank goodness)
>>I have some single friends who'd like to know if they have a brother.
Hilarious Gayle. Well, sorry my suggestion didn't help any. Good luck finding
the problem. Those intermittent ones are always the hardest to find. I can
still "hear" 3DS render in my speakers but I've never bothered with it. Oh
well…
Dave Mennenoh
Are you by chance using one of the SmartDrive disk caches, Patrick?
If you do, might try 3ds without it.
FWIW,
-Alan
Alan…
yes I am, mostly for windows. I guess I'll have to go back to two configs…
Patrick
>>…two configs…<<
Yup, I've been doing it for quite a while now, and (at least) have some *very*
stable systems.
I've heard of some folks having problems with files while running SmartDrive
once or twice before. Hope you fix the problem…
-Alan
Thanks guys….
I'll let you know if I have any other problems. I've got 32 meg ram. any
suggestions on getting the optimum usage from it? DOSHIGH? EMM386? etc….
I've always wanted to ask that.
The only drivers I'm loading are for my CD-ROM and SCSI controller…
Patrick
You're welcome, Patrick.
Many folks running 3DS have had great luck configuring their systems using
Quarterdeck's QEMM memory manager.
Good Luck,
-Alan
Patrick,
I run Windows a lot too when I'm not using 3DS. To make this work I simply left
SMARTDRV out of the AUTOEXEC. When I want to run Windows I run SMARTDRV from
the DOS prompt, then load Windows. Then later if I want to use 3DS I just
reboot. Works fine.
Michele
Michele, You should try the Norton Speedrive. You can install it and uninstall
it on the fly. I have a windows batch file configured to run speed drive first,
and my 3d bat file to get rid of it. Quite easy and I never have to reboot.
Actually, most of the time I just leave speed drive installed and only
uninstall it if I need the extra 8mb in 3DS. Just makes life a little easier.
Dave Mennenoh
I have Norton Utilities which includes something called Speed Disk. I thought
this was just a defragmenter. Is this the program you're talking about? If so,
I don't understand how I can use it the way you describe. What does your batch
file look like?
Thanks
Michele
Michele, Not Speed Disk, Speed Drive. It's seperate of NU. I like it anyway.
I've been using it for a long time both with 3DS and without it and I've never
had a problem with corrupt data. Just a thought. So, when will Barnes & Noble
officially start carrying your books? Will they be available seperately? Well,
as the sticker affixed to my monitor states "Render Naked" Bye. <g>
Dave Mennenoh
>> my monitor states "Render Naked"
I'm looking for topics for the next user group meeting. Would you care to
demonstrate your technique?
Michele
Double entrendre or what? By the way, love your name – very lyrical…
Thanks Michelle…
I think you and Alan are correct. I've removed Smartdrive and haven't had a
problem since. It was happening WAY too often.
Patrick
Pat,
Along with what Gary suggested, you may want to try SCANDISK'ing your drive.
Sometimes that will make this go away.
Ang