\chapter{Troubleshooting and Help}%
\label{cha:troubleshooting_help}
-You can report potential problems, bugs, and crashes to the Cinelerra-GG website at:
+You can report potential problems, bugs, and crashes to the \CGG{} website at:
\begin{center}
\href{https://www.cinelerra-gg.org/}{https://www.cinelerra-gg.org}
Here you can log the problem into the MantisBT bugtracker, or use the forum Q\&A for help from other users, or email the
problem using the address:{\small \href{mailto:cin@lists.cinelerra-gg.org}{cin@lists.cinelerra-gg.org}} It is usually more
-helpful if instead of starting Cinelerra from its application icon, start from a window so that if there are error
+helpful if instead of starting \CGG{} from its application icon, start from a window so that if there are error
messages related to the problem, they can be captured from the screen and emailed or logged. The command to run
from a window is: \texttt{<directory\_path of where you installed cinelerra>/bin/cin} -- for example if
-installed in the directory \texttt{/mnt0/build5/cinelerra-5.1}, you would execute the following command to start the program:\\
+installed in \texttt{/mnt0/build5/cinelerra-5.1}, you would execute the following command to start the program:\\
\texttt{/mnt0/build5/cinelerra-5.1/bin/cin} \\
The problem you are experiencing may be as simple as an error due to the settings in your \texttt{\$HOME/.bcast5} subdirectory so you may want to first rename your current \texttt{.bcast5} in order to start with default settings. By renaming the directory instead of deleting it, you will be able to put it back and not lose all of your preferences.
-Some other troubleshooting help is also included in other sections of this manual for specific features.
+However, there are some easy things to do to fix errors that may have resulted from media problems,
+computer problems, or operational missteps so you can proceed without having to wait for help. These
+are outlined in \ref{cha:when_things_go_wrong} - be sure to read down through
+\textit{Common Problems} where some exact error messages are mentioned along with their cause or solution. Other
+troubleshooting help is included in other sections of this manual for specific features.
\section{What to Include in Problem Reports}%
\label{cha:include_in_problem_reports}
+\index{report problem}
For the best help, if you have a reproducible problem and can provide the following list of materials for analysis, it
is usually possible to figure out what the problem is and how to fix it. It may be a simple usage or setup mistake or
a real bug which a programmer would like to fix rather quickly. Although it is not always necessary to provide this
\section{Crash Dumps for Analysis}%
\label{cha:crash_dumps_analysis}
+\index{crash dumps}
If you get a SEGV crash and can explain what steps you took, a \texttt{/tmp/cinelerra\_<pid> .dmp} file is
very useful for analysis. You can also use Ctrl-c in the controlling window to force an INTR signal interrupt when
you think the program is hung up. You can only perform one Ctrl-c as the second Ctrl-c quits out of the program. It
{\small \href{mailto:cin@lists.cinelerra-gg.org}{cin@lists.cinelerra-gg.org}}
\begin{enumerate}[nosep]
- \item Use the latest version of Cinelerra as you want to make sure the problem has not been fixed.
+ \item Use the latest version of \CGG{} as you want to make sure the problem has not been fixed.
\item Be sure \textit{gdb} is installed (usually installed but if not, it is easy to do so).
\item Run as root if at all possible (this enables using gdb to create a full \texttt{/tmp/cinelerra* .dmp} file).
\item Be sure \texttt{Settings $\rightarrow$ Preferences $\rightarrow$ Interface $\rightarrow$ trap SEGV} and \texttt{trap INTR} are checked.
\item Temporarily login as root and key in:\\
\texttt{echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/yama/ptrace\_scope} \\
This opens up \textit{ptrace}, used by gdb (the debugger). You will want to reverse this when done.
- \item Run Cinelerra as an ordinary user from a window using the command line and try to create the problem. If the program crashes, this should produce a file named \texttt{/tmp/cinelerra*.dmp} where * is a number. The dump usually takes about 30 seconds or so to complete after the failure invokes the crash handler, so be patient.
- \item Email the output that shows in the window from where you started up Cinelerra and upload or directly email the \texttt{/tmp/cinelerra*.dmp} file (this file may be too large for the Mailing List).
+ \item Run \CGG{} as an ordinary user from a window using the command line and try to create the problem. If the program crashes, this should produce a file named \texttt{/tmp/cinelerra*.dmp} where * is a number. The dump usually takes about 30 seconds or so to complete after the failure invokes the crash handler, so be patient.
+ \item Email the output that shows in the window from where you started up \CGG{} and upload or directly email the \texttt{/tmp/cinelerra*.dmp} file (this file may be too large for the Mailing List).
\item After you are finished creating/testing the problem, reverse the previous setting while logged in as root by keying in:\\
\texttt{echo 1 > /proc/sys/kernel/yama/ptrace\_scope}
\end{enumerate}
\section{When things go wrong}%
\label{cha:when_things_go_wrong}
+\index{problem FAQ}
+
Sometimes things go wrong and there are some ways to continue your work without much trouble. Below is a list of items
to try before abandoning your session.
\begin{enumerate}
- \item If you suddenly get hangs on media or strange looking tracks, you might want to rebuild indexes. You can do this in the Resources window with a right mouse click on the media to get a pulldown with the \textit{Rebuild index} option. For an easy way to rebuild for all of your media use \texttt{Settings $\rightarrow$ Preferences, Interface} tab, Index Files section, \textit{Delete existing indexes}. This will take some time to recreate all of the currently loaded media and subsequent loads, but can be an easy fix.
+ \item If your computer or the program crashed, you can use the \textit{File} pulldown choice
+of \textit{Load backup} to get back to the last automatically saved session. It will most
+likely not include the last few operations that were done though. But if you forgot to
+Load backup when you restarted Cinelerra, you have a second chance to use \texttt{File $\rightarrow$ Load} and
+select \texttt{\$HOME/.bcast5/backup .prev} as long as you only loaded a different file and have
+performed no editing operations.
+ \item If you accidentally destroyed your current project by a Load with
+\textit{Replace current project} when you should have changed the Insertion strategy, and
+you had not saved a recent backup, this is another time when it is useful to use
+\texttt{File $\rightarrow$ Load} and
+select \texttt{\$HOME/.bcast5/backup.prev} as long as you only loaded a different
+file and had performed no editing operations.
+ \item If you suddenly get errors or hangs on media or strange looking tracks, you might want to rebuild indexes. You can do this in the Resources window with a right mouse click on the media to get a pulldown with the \textit{Rebuild index} option. For an easy way to rebuild for all of your media use \texttt{Settings $\rightarrow$ Preferences, Interface} tab, Index Files section, \textit{Delete existing indexes}. Over time, as you
+load media, the indexes will automatically be recreated so each load takes a little longer, but this quite often
+is all that is needed to repair a media problem.
\item On an older computer, if you are playing media and it can not keep up, you can turn off \textit{Play every frame} in the \textit{Video Out} tab of \texttt{Settings $\rightarrow$ Preferences, Playback} tab. You will then see the video jump as it skips frames in order to stay caught up.
\item The \textit{Cache size} can be lowered to 1048 if playback seems choppy or if you have problems with lv2 plugins, or you can increase the \textit{Cache size} for better flow. This can be changed in \texttt{Settings $\rightarrow$ Preferences, Performance} tab.
- \item After saving your current session and exiting Cinelerra, you might want to rename your current \texttt{\$HOME/.bcast5} directory and start with the default setup. This will eliminate your settings as the potential cause of a problem; however, all of your current preferences will be lost until you go back to your original \texttt{.bcast5}.
- \item Some media has only a single keyframe at the beginning of the file so that moving anywhere on the timeline results in just a black image in the compositor. Cinelerra needs more keyframes to determine position. You can temporarily use \texttt{Settings $\rightarrow$ Proxy} to $\frac{1}{2}$ size to put in keyframes. How to use Proxy is explained in \href{sec:proxy_settings}{Proxy settings and Transcode}.
- \item If the rate at which frames are captured during Recording is much lower than the framerate of the source, the video will accumulate in the recording buffers over time and the audio and video will become out of sync. Decrease the number of frames to buffer in the device in \texttt{Settings $\rightarrow $ Preferences, Recording} tab so that the excess frames are dropped instead of buffered.
- \item If loading files locks up, this might be because Cinelerra is building picons/vicons for the Resources window. If you load a large number of images it needs to decompress every single image to build a picon/vicon. Go into \texttt{Settings $\rightarrow$ Preferences, Appearance} tab and disable \textit{Use thumbnails in resource window} to skip this process. Keep in mind though, that it only has to create these thumbnails the first time a new piece of media is loaded or the values are changed.
+ \item After saving your session and settings and exiting \CGG{}, you might want to rename your current \texttt{\$HOME/.bcast5} directory and start with the default setup. This will eliminate your settings as the potential cause of a problem; however, all of your preferences will be lost until you go back to your original \texttt{.bcast5}.
+ \item You can also temporarily rename just \CGG{}\_rc in your \$HOME/.bcast5 directory, so
+that a new file with the original name will be created with original defaults. You will lose your preferences,
+but it is just for testing and you can move back the renamed \CGG{}\_rc over the new one if that is not the
+cause of the problem. Be sure to stop and restart \CGG{} whenever you rename this file.
+ \item Some media has only a single keyframe at the beginning of the file so that moving anywhere on the timeline results in just a black image in the compositor. \CGG{} needs more keyframes to determine position. You can temporarily use \texttt{Settings $\rightarrow$ Proxy} to $\frac{1}{2}$ size to put in keyframes. How to use Proxy is explained in \ref{sec:proxy_settings} {Proxy Settings and Transcode}.
+ \item If you have enabled an \textit{Automation Curve} such as Fade or Speed on your track but it
+does not show, it could simply be because the range minimum and maximum are incorrectly set in the zoom bar.
+Set them to more reasonable values until you see the lines appear. Just as a reminder, the zoom bar is on the
+bottom of the main window (figure~\ref{fig:automation}).
+ \item If the rate at which frames are captured during Recording is much lower than the framerate of the source, the video will accumulate in the recording buffers over time and the audio and video will become out of sync. Decrease the number of frames to buffer in the device in \texttt{Settings $\rightarrow $ Preferences, Recording} tab so that the excess frames are dropped instead of buffered.
+ \item If loading files locks up, this might be because \CGG{} is building picons/vicons for the Resources window. If you load a large number of images it needs to decompress every single image to build a picon/vicon. Go into \texttt{Settings $\rightarrow$ Preferences, Appearance} tab and disable \textit{Use thumbnails in resource window} to skip this process. Keep in mind though, that it only has to create these thumbnails the first time a new piece of media is loaded or the values are changed.
\item For an older computer with less CPU power, in \texttt{Settings $\rightarrow$ Preferences, Appearance} tab, be sure that \textit{Autocolor assets }is disabled; set \textit{View thumbnail size} \& \textit{Vicon quality}\& \textit{Vicon color mode} to lower values or switch to \textit{No Play} instead of \textit{Full Play} in the Resources window (this is to the right of the word \textit{Visibility} in the left hand side of that window). You will then have more CPU and more memory available to do actual editing.
\end{enumerate}
\textbf{Some Helpful User Readable Text Dumps}
-On the File pulldown, there is a \textit{Dumps} option with a submenu of dump EDL, Plugins, Assets, and Undo. In all cases, you will have to have started Cinelerra from a window instead of from an application icon and
+On the \textit{File} pulldown, there is a \textit{Dumps} option with a submenu of dump EDL, Plugins, Assets, and Undo. In all cases, you will have to have started \CGG{} from a window instead of from an application icon and
the text results will be shown in that window.
\begin{itemize}[nosep]
-\item \textit{Dump EDL} will display your current EDL state on the screen in the window from where you started Cin. This can be useful to see information concerning a specific edit or a file path.
-\item \textit{Dump Plugins} will show the names of the currently loaded plugins.
-\item \textit{Dump Assets} displays the media assets that you have loaded and various pertinent details on each, such as samplerate, width, and height.
-\item \textit{Dump Undo }will dump the last 32 edits on the undo stack exactly as kept, which can be useful if you are looking to see how far back in the undo to go to get to a specific spot.
+\item \textit{Dump EDL} \index{EDL dump} will display your current EDL state on the screen in the window from where you started Cin. This can be useful to see information concerning a specific edit or a file path.
+\item \textit{Dump Plugins} \index{plugins!dumps} will show the names of the currently loaded plugins.
+\item \textit{Dump Assets} \index{asset!dump} displays the media assets that you have loaded and various pertinent details on each, such as samplerate, width, and height.
+\item \textit{Dump Undo} \index{undo dump} will dump the last 32 edits on the undo stack exactly as kept, which can be useful if you are looking to see how far back in the undo to go to get to a specific spot.
\end{itemize}
\textbf{Common Problems}
Some messages you may see in the startup window may or may not be errors. Some examples are:
\bigskip
-\textit{FFMPEG::open\_decoder: some stream times estimated:} \quad \texttt{/your directory/filename}
+\textit{FFMPEG::open\_decoder: some stream times estimated:} \texttt{/your directory/filename}
-This is not a problem. Basically, when you open a file if a stream has a known duration, there is no message. If the duration is unknown, it is estimated by using the File Size and Bitrate to estimate the duration. This may just indicate that the stream number Cinelerra uses versus ffmpeg may be counted differently.
+This is not a problem. Basically, when you open a file if a stream has a known duration, there is no message. If the duration is unknown, it is estimated by using the File Size and Bitrate to estimate the duration. This may just indicate that the stream number \CGG{} uses versus ffmpeg may be counted differently.
+\bigskip
+
+\textit{FFMPEG::scan: codec open failed} followed by
+\newline
+\textit{FFMPEG::scan:file=} \quad \texttt{your directory/filename}
+
+This is not a problem. \CGG{} is building an index for your file in order to better seek. In that process, different methods are tried until a successful scan is complete.
\bigskip
\textit{AudioALSA::write\_buffer err -32(Broken pipe) at sample \#}
This indicates that there is something wrong with the audio. Some reasons for this are:
\begin{itemize}[nosep]
- \item You simply stopped playing in Cinelerra while the audio is in progress.
+ \item You simply stopped playing in \CGG{} while the audio is in progress.
\item Running on a computer where there is no sound card.
\item Incorrect setup of the audio parameters in the \texttt{Settings $\rightarrow$ Preferences, Playback} tab.
\item Your sound system is already in use by another program, like when playing \textit{tunes} outside Cin.
\textit{Playback does not keep up so you hear the audio ahead of the video.}
-When this occurs, it most likely means that there is not enough CPU power to keep up. You can go into \texttt{Settings $\rightarrow$ Preferences, Playback} tab and uncheck \textit{Play every frame}. Not playing every frame means that as it plays, if it can not keep up with doing all it has to do to change the frame into a vframe and then draw it, the program just notes that it is falling behind so skips frames to catch back up. This does not affect rendering. A different solution is to use Background Rendering as described in \href{sec:background_rendering}{Rendering}.
+When this occurs, it most likely means that there is not enough CPU power to keep up. You can go into \texttt{Settings $\rightarrow$ Preferences, Playback} tab and uncheck \textit{Play every frame}. Not playing every frame means that as it plays, if it can not keep up with doing all it has to do to change the frame into a vframe and then draw it, the program just notes that it is falling behind so skips frames to catch back up. This does not affect rendering. A different solution is to use Background Rendering as described in section \ref{sec:background_rendering}.
\bigskip
-\textit{Cinelerra will not start and produces error message on the startup window.}
+\textit{\CGG{} will not start and produces error message on the startup window.}
-There can be various reasons that Cinelerra does not come up. Some of the recent reasons are listed here. Please notify the {\small \href{http://www.cinelerra-gg.org/}{www.cinelerra-gg.org}} website when you have any unknown startup issues.
+There can be various reasons that \CGG{} does not come up. Some of the recent reasons are listed here. Please notify the {\small \href{http://www.cinelerra-gg.org/}{www.cinelerra-gg.org}} website when you have any unknown startup issues.
\medskip
\begin{itemize}[nosep]
You can usually install the required library to fix the problem. A temporary fix may be to create a symlink but this must be done with extreme caution as it may create an unstable condition. A better workaround is to use a tarball to install the software instead of the package build until the libraries are in sync between the build and your Operating System install.
\bigskip
-\textit{ Loading a very large number of media files, for example 500 clips, crashes Cinelerra with messages similar to the following that are displayed in the window from where you started Cin:}
+\textit{ Loading a very large number of media files, for example 500 clips, crashes \CGG{} with messages similar to the following that are displayed in the window from where you started Cin:}
\begin{lstlisting}[numbers=none,xleftmargin=10mm]
\section{Menu Bar Shell Commands}%
\label{menu_bar_shell_commands}
+\index{shell commands}
-In order to provide some types of help, the Menu Bar Shell Commands are available for customization purposes. In the
-main window on the top line containing the File, Edit, {\dots} Window pulldown menus, all the way to the right hand
-side is the \textit{shell cmds} icon. You might see a small gold-color bordered box with the $>\_.\_$ inside
-and if you mouse over it, the tooltip says \textit{shell cmds}. This is a configurable popup which gives you the ability to
-see a table of Shortcuts in html format, refer to the reference manual or execute a pre-defined script to perform a
-specific task, such as some type of post processing which you plan on performing on a repeat basis. Unless redirected
-elsewhere, the output from executing any script-type commands will be displayed in the window from where you started
-Cinelerra.
+In order to provide some types of help, the Menu Bar Shell Commands are available for customization purposes (figure~\ref{fig:trouble-img001}).
+
+\begin{figure}[h!]
+ \centering
+ \includegraphics[width=1.0\linewidth]{trouble-img001.png}
+ \caption{Some windows used to manipulate Shell Commands scripts}
+ \label{fig:trouble-img001}
+\end{figure}
+
+In the main window on the top line containing the \textit{File}, \textit{Edit}, {\dots} \textit{Window} pulldown menus, all the way to the right hand side is the \textit{shell cmds} icon. You might see a small white-color bordered box with the "\texttt{i}" inside and if you mouse over it, the tooltip says \textit{shell cmds}. This is a configurable popup which gives you the ability to see a table of Shortcuts in html format, refer to the reference manual or execute a pre-defined script to perform a specific task, such as some type of post processing which you plan on performing on a repeat basis. Unless redirected elsewhere, the output from executing any script-type commands will be displayed in the window from where you started \CGG{}.
The Shell Cmds popup menu items are configured in:
\end{itemize}
\item \textit{Del} to delete an existing menu item
\begin{itemize}[noitemsep]
- \item select to highlight an entry in the Cinelerra: Shell listbox
+ \item select to highlight an entry in the \CGG{}: Shell listbox
\item click on the \textit{Del }button
\item click the green checkmark for OK in the Shell window
\item click on OK or Apply in the Preferences window (the entry is now deleted)
\end{itemize}
\item \textit{Edit} an existing menu item:
\begin{itemize}[noitemsep]
- \item select to highlight an entry in the Cinelerra: Shell listbox
+ \item select to highlight an entry in the \CGG{}: Shell listbox
\item click on the \textit{Edit} button (the Commands window appears)
\item set the label and/or commands to the new desired values
\item click on the green checkmark for OK in the Commands window
\end{itemize}
-When modifications to the Shell Cmds are included in a new Cinelerra release, they are not added to your Preferences file automatically unless you create a new one. But if you have added no custom scripts, you can update your currently existing \texttt{\$HOME/.bcast5/ Cinelerra\_rc} file to delete the lines that are all grouped together that begin with the letters: \texttt{SHBTN} (the entire line -- these are the \textbf{SH}ell \textbf{B}u\textbf{T}to\textbf{N}s). \ You should first Quit out of Cinelerra, edit the file, and then when you restart Cinelerra, it will create the new default buttons in that same file.
+When modifications to the Shell Cmds are included in a new \CGG{} release, they are not added to your Preferences file automatically unless you create a new one. But if you have added no custom scripts, you can update your currently existing \texttt{\$HOME/.bcast5/ \CGG{}\_rc} file to delete the lines that are all grouped together that begin with the letters: \texttt{SHBTN} (the entire line -- these are the \textbf{SH}ell \textbf{B}u\textbf{T}to\textbf{N}s). \ You should first Quit out of \CGG{}, edit the file, and then when you restart \CGG{}, it will create the new default buttons in that same file.
-There are 2 specific Cinelerra file names that have unique characteristics that allow for usage from a user-defined
+There are 2 specific \CGG{} file names that have unique characteristics that allow for usage from a user-defined
script. The first one is an environment variable, \texttt{CIN\_RENDER} which is used in the \textit{RenderMux} shell command that is already setup. It contains the complete path and filename of the file in your session that you selected as \textit{Select a file to render to} when you ran a Render operation.
The second one concerns usage of the Resource window assets to use as argvs in shell scripts. The added command line
\item \textit{Shortcuts} html file for easily looking up a particular shortcut.
\item \textit{RenderMux} shell script to use ffmpeg concatenate to copy files such as \textit{look.mp4001}, \textit{look.mp4002}, \textit{look.mp4005}{\dots} that were rendered using \textit{Create new file at each label} or with the Render Farm.
\end{enumerate}
-\clearpage
-
-\begin{figure}[h!]
- \centering
- \includegraphics[width=1.0\linewidth]{trouble-img001.png}
- \caption{Some windows used to manipulate Shell Commands scripts}
- \label{fig:shell_script_manupulation}
-\end{figure}
-\section{Cinelerra Command Line -h}%
+\section{\CGG{} Command Line -h}%
\label{cha:cinelerra_command_line_-h}
+\index{command line}
-To see the command line parameters available to use with Cinelerra, key in:
+To see the command line parameters available to use with \CGG{}, key in:
-\qquad \texttt{<your Cinelerra directory path>/bin/cin -h}
+\qquad \texttt{<your \CGG{} directory path>/bin/cin -h}
What will be shown in the window where this line was entered is:
projects / goodguy / cin-manual-latex.git / blobdiff