Anyone out there use Avid Express Pro or Avid Media Composer? I thought so. Has anyone had a time when the software won't load properly? You click the icon, it starts loading, and somewhere after loading the "audio" subsystem, it just goes away?
I recently had that problem, and I searched high and low for an answer. I did a google search, and found that many others had this problem, but no fixes. I searched the Avid forums, and again found many users with this same problem. the best solution they offered was this - re-install Windows and Avid, and that should fix it! But four hours later, it didn't fix anything. Maybe it was the video card not being an "NVidia" card? I had an ATI card that worked properly for several years with no problem, so that couldn't be it. Maybe a bad Windows update? I didn't install any.
So here I was, with a project that had to get done, and a broken computer. At this point, I figured that I would copy all of my project data to another drive, borrow a friend's Avid system, get the project done, and probably have to get a new computer. Definitely not what I wanted to do.
But then, the problem hit me like a ton of bricks! As I was copying the data files, the computer gave me an error - "corrupted file". As I continued to copy, I found two more corrupted files. I was able to move one of these files to another place, to use for a test later. I then deleted all of the corrupted files that I found, copied the good data files back to my computer, and then tried Avid again.
It worked! as a test, I moved the corrupted file back to the data folder, again tried Avid, and it crashed in the same place as before. Removing the file again fixed it. I wish that Avid could have told me this, and saved me many hours of grief, but oh well. Anyway, I fixed it, it works, I finished the project, and I'm happy!
Maybe this tip can help some of you out there in video land - when Avid won't start, check for corrupted data files!
See Ya Soon,
Captain Video
