'And error occurred while executing open' - car file won't open

teknostormteknostorm Posts: 163
edited December 1969 in Carrara Discussion

I have been working on a complex scene animation for a music video, involving pole dance while lip syncing to the song and lots of camera movements and cuts. I had broken down the song into parts so I worked on a part at a time, this sequence was 2000 frames.

I kept saving the file with a different name after each major chunk of work.

After 3 days of work, the latest file won't open. The earlier files were saved compressed, the last two were saved uncompressed. But the last 3 files won't open (one compressed 222 mb and the latest two uncompressed around 950 mbs each). I get the following error -

'An error occurred while executing Open'

My C drive has 16 GB space remaining, while the project file on D drive has 23 GB, so it's not a space issue. I have windows 7 64bit with 16GB ram and nvidia card with 2 GB memory. The project files were working fine before I closed the pc and rebooted. Now the last 3 won't open. I rebooted the pc and tried again and the same error every time.

Is there any way to get the files working?

My biggest fear is what if I redo the whole sequence and the same error pops up again?

Comments

  • teknostormteknostorm Posts: 163
    edited December 1969

    P.S. The files show loading till around 45% before it gives the error.

    I'm attaching screenshots of the scene in case that gives any idea. I'm using one genesis 2 female, one M.O.M. crowd generator, one stage set and imported pz2 animation file (converted from bvh to pz2 in Daz studio), lots of lights, one loaded wav file, and one video texture map loaded on a plane.

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  • JoeMamma2000JoeMamma2000 Posts: 2,615
    edited February 2015

    Can't recall ever having an Open error, only while Saving...

    In any case, I'd start by checking the basics.

    First, at what point in the Open does it occur? Maybe you can open the .CAR file in a text editor and guesstimate where in the file and what's going on when it chokes. BTW, you can download the free Notepad ++ to open CAR files and take a look inside. And if the file is too big for Notepad ++ you can get GSplit to split it into smaller sections.

    Also, even though you have 16GB of RAM, it can't hurt to make sure you aren't running out of RAM for some strange reason. Maybe you have something goofy in your scene that is causing it.

    Post edited by JoeMamma2000 on
  • teknostormteknostorm Posts: 163
    edited December 1969

    No my RAM shows as only 38% used when I had the project opened.

    I will check in a notepad file.. never did that before.

  • JoeMamma2000JoeMamma2000 Posts: 2,615
    edited December 1969

    The only other thing I can recommend is to figure out which object in the scene might be the culprit. If you have an older scene that opens, can you figure out what the "bad" scene has that the "good" scene doesn't? Maybe you applied some feature or plugin or added an object or something, and suddenly it won't open?

  • teknostormteknostorm Posts: 163
    edited December 1969

    I dont think I added any objects, just lights and changed some textures. The earlier file that opens is almost the same lookwise as the ones I don't, except for the animations. I imported pz2 animation data and added expressions and blinks and manually keyframed camera animation. I converted the pz2 animation to NLA and am using NLA clip on the genesis 2 track. The phonemes from mimic pro were present in the version that is opening as well.

    By trial and error if I want to remove objects, is it possible to do it from the bad .car file in notepad++? Till then I'm trying to rereate everything, it's faster the second time around, but still time consuming.

  • JoeMamma2000JoeMamma2000 Posts: 2,615
    edited December 1969

    I dont think I added any objects, just lights and changed some textures. The earlier file that opens is almost the same lookwise as the ones I don't, except for the animations. I imported pz2 animation data and added expressions and blinks and manually keyframed camera animation. I converted the pz2 animation to NLA and am using NLA clip on the genesis 2 track. The phonemes from mimic pro were present in the version that is opening as well.

    By trial and error if I want to remove objects, is it possible to do it from the bad .car file in notepad++? Till then I'm trying to rereate everything, it's faster the second time around, but still time consuming.

    I'm nowhere near an expert, or even knowledgeable with .car files, except to change the runtime path descriptor. Maybe Fenric can chime in on this. But if it was me I'd either see what was going on with the pz2 animation stuff you imported, or just re-do everything.

    If you want to pinpoint what the problem is, why not try building a very simple scene with just a character, and do the pz2/NLS/Mimic Pro stuff on a single character and see if there's something going on there.

  • teknostormteknostorm Posts: 163
    edited December 1969

    Ok I will try that, loading pz2 on a character converting to NLA, saving then reopening. I'm afraid to even close the project I'm working on at the moment in case it doesnt open again. Problem is the video texture on the projector will change, so I will need to reopen the project again :(

  • teknostormteknostorm Posts: 163
    edited December 1969

    I did everything again, and saved it and the new file won't open as well.. this is depressing..

  • mhscspomhscspo Posts: 101
    edited December 1969

    I did everything again, and saved it and the new file won't open as well.. this is depressing..


    just to make sure how you are opening your files, are you double clicking on the saved filed itself or are you opening your file from within the Carrara browser, I've had the same problem off and on both opening and saving the file.
    The one thing that I did to remedy my situation was to delete the files out of the DAZ temp folder after each and every session of using Carrara (these files are often overlooked and they do cause some problems while you're using Carrara), the DAZ temp folder is normally located in the my documents folder on the "C" drive unless you specifically had it placed somewhere else. I too have Windows 7 64 bit with 16gb ram and an Nvidia Quatro 4000 with 2gb memory (HP Z820 work station) and some times while doing a spot render my texture size is reduced by Carrara (depends on the amount and size of objects in the scene I guess), hope this helps you some.

  • teknostormteknostorm Posts: 163
    edited December 1969

    I had saved many versions, after each step (adding speech, importing dance pz2, adding expressions and animating camera). The versions before importing the dance animation pz2 open, but none after that. So I guess it is the dance NLA (bvh converted to pz2 from poser exporter plugin in Daz studio, then imported into Carrara and converted to NLA) that is causing the problem.

    (( Also - I had imported the pz2 into Carrara and saved it as NLA, and moved a copy to the content browser. When I try to load that NLA clip into a genesis figure from the content browser I get the error - 'The file (pathname) could not be opened. A file not found error occurred while executing'. This error does not happen when I'm loading the clip from the Clips tab in the project itself. So that reaffirms that the dance animation problem might be causing the problem.))

    I opened the last car file in Notepadd++ after splitting it with Gplit as you suggested and could find 'PoleDance1PZ2' that I think is causing the problem. But I don't know how much of this to delete. I tried changing PoleDance1PZ2 to PoleDance1PZ2RENAME in the car file then opening in Carrara but got the same error.

    Here is some of the text around the PoleDance1PZ2 in the car file -

    qfix -0.322025
    twee {
    line {
    EZIO 0,1
    isEx 1
    }
    }
    time 176999
    qfix -0.322025
    }
    }
    }
    }
    isEx 1
    }
    }
    }
    macl {
    name "PoleDance1PZ2"
    clip {
    keyf {
    WfSt 0
    TraX 0
    TraY 0
    TraZ 0
    Dura 17700000
    xdat {
    attr {
    attr {
    425
    {
    path {
    vers 2
    path {
    4
    {
    type 6
    inde 1
    id 1
    name "Hip"
    }

    {
    type 4
    inde 1634559348
    id 1634559348
    name ""
    }

    {
    type 4
    inde 1414676814
    id 1414676814
    name ""
    }

    {
    type 4


    ....

  • teknostormteknostorm Posts: 163
    edited December 1969

    mhscspo I tried deleting carrara temp folder on your suggestion, but no luck opening the file. I have tried double click opening the file as well as opening from within carrara, same error.

  • teknostormteknostorm Posts: 163
    edited December 1969

    I have uploaded the car file here (compressed save version) -

    http://www.savitaworld.com/stuff/BewdaI3TheShowSetd1stAntaracPoleRedoDanceExprCamerab.car

    I think deleting the PoleDance1PZ2 clip in this might help open the file.

  • teknostormteknostorm Posts: 163
    edited December 1969

    I deleted all lines from what seems to me the clip for PoleDabce1 -

    macl {
    name “PoleDance1PZ2”

    till the next macl (which seems to be the clip for the letter 'R' from mimic pro).

    Now I get an error - An I/O error occurred while executing Open. Not sure what to do now!

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    If the file is compressed using Carrara's file compression option, there may be a way to recover the file.

    Try Headwax's solution here:
    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/31940/P45/#476946

  • teknostormteknostorm Posts: 163
    edited December 1969

    I already unzipped it (using winrar) and edited in Note ++ as advised by JoeMamma2000. First I had to split it using GSplit (agan advised by JoeMama).

    I must have edited or rejoined it wrong.

    Because I tried this - loaded only genesis 2 female, imported the pz2 dance animation on it, converted to NLA, saved it, opened it - got the exact same error.

    Then I edited the file in Note ++ to remove the pz2 dance clip, and it opened fine.

    Now I'm going to try editing the latest car file again..

  • teknostormteknostorm Posts: 163
    edited December 1969

    Yayy I managed to delete the pz2 NLA clip information from the last saved CAR file and open it in Carrara.

    It plays but I get a null pointer error and it stops. I tried deleting all the NLA tracks, but it's still erroring. I guess I will save all the movements as NLA clips and import to the last stable CAR file.

    Now does anyone know how to save Camera movement as a file to import in another CAR project?

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Yayy I managed to delete the pz2 NLA clip information from the last saved CAR file and open it in Carrara.

    It plays but I get a null pointer error and it stops. I tried deleting all the NLA tracks, but it's still erroring. I guess I will save all the movements as NLA clips and import to the last stable CAR file.

    Now does anyone know how to save Camera movement as a file to import in another CAR project?

    As an NLA clip. You may need to convert your animation to an NLA clip first, but it sounds like you may have already done this, based on your previous posts. Simply select the Clip tab on the Instances palette and drag the clip from there to the Clips tab in your Browser. You will be given an opportunity to name the clip and add a description/comment if you wish.

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  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,987
    edited December 1969

    gah, sorry about that, don’t you hate it when the software just doesn’t do it’s job…..
    did you try 7zip when it was a zip file?
    seems to ring a bell, the suggestion originally was Fenric’s by the way.

    7zip did job for PhilW, but probably won't do your's

  • teknostormteknostorm Posts: 163
    edited December 1969

    Yayy I managed to delete the pz2 NLA clip information from the last saved CAR file and open it in Carrara.

    It plays but I get a null pointer error and it stops. I tried deleting all the NLA tracks, but it's still erroring. I guess I will save all the movements as NLA clips and import to the last stable CAR file.

    Now does anyone know how to save Camera movement as a file to import in another CAR project?

    As an NLA clip. You may need to convert your animation to an NLA clip first, but it sounds like you may have already done this, based on your previous posts. Simply select the Clip tab on the Instances palette and drag the clip from there to the Clips tab in your Browser. You will be given an opportunity to name the clip and add a description/comment if you wish.

    I didn't know camera movements could be saved as NLA clip. Will try that, thanks!

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Yayy I managed to delete the pz2 NLA clip information from the last saved CAR file and open it in Carrara.

    It plays but I get a null pointer error and it stops. I tried deleting all the NLA tracks, but it's still erroring. I guess I will save all the movements as NLA clips and import to the last stable CAR file.

    Now does anyone know how to save Camera movement as a file to import in another CAR project?

    As an NLA clip. You may need to convert your animation to an NLA clip first, but it sounds like you may have already done this, based on your previous posts. Simply select the Clip tab on the Instances palette and drag the clip from there to the Clips tab in your Browser. You will be given an opportunity to name the clip and add a description/comment if you wish.

    I didn't know camera movements could be saved as NLA clip. Will try that, thanks!

    Oops. I missed the camera part. I don't know if the camera will save an NLA track. To try it, first select the camera, then go to the Animation menu and select Create Animated group. In theory, this should add an NLA track to the camera. I haven't tried this myself with a camera, so hopefully it will work.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Just checked. You can save a camera animation in an NLA clip if you first put the Camera in an Animation group, animate the camera and then convert to an NLA clip. You can then save the clip to the browser.

    There may be other ways, such as saving a group to your Objects browser that has a camera in the group.

  • teknostormteknostorm Posts: 163
    edited December 1969

    Great, thanks for figuring that out! I'm waiting for a render to finish, then will save to NLA.

    Can you tell me if there is a way to get mimic pro lip sync data from one project to another?

    I have run mimic pro then manually added corrections to the phonemes and then manually added expressions ( mimic pro is not adding any blinks or expressions on my Genesis 2 female for some reason ). Now I need to use the same lip sync and expressions on a new scene on the same genesis 2 female.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited February 2015

    That's a good question. I don't have Mimic, well, not installed, and have never used it, so I don't know the best workflow, so I'm spitting in the dark here, but if Mimic is using NLA clips for the phenomes, and you are not getting eye blinks and facial expressions, but need them, you should be able to create more NLA tracks for the figure and layer tracks with eye blinks and expressions with the phenomes. See this post on how to do it:
    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/52949/#768236

    As to how best to use the Mimic data in another scene, I will have to defer to someone with some actual knowledge. ;-)

    Post edited by evilproducer on
  • teknostormteknostorm Posts: 163
    edited December 1969

    That's a good question. I don't have Mimic, well, not installed, and have never used it, so I don't know the best workflow, so I'm spitting in the dark here, but if Mimic is using NLA clips for the phenomes, and you are not getting eye blinks and facial expressions, but need them, you should be able to create more NLA tracks for the figure and layer tracks with eye blinks and expressions with the phenomes. See this post on how to do it:
    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/52949/#768236

    As to how best to use the Mimic data in another scene, I will have to defer to someone with some actual knowledge. ;-)

    Thanks, I actually did add the blinks and expressions using another couple of NLA tracks.

    Expressions and blinks I have managed to save as NLA and import into another project, but not the Mimic Pro data. Mimic Pro does a decent job, but with many mistakes / leave outs. I had manually inserted those from the phoneme NLAs. Now all these NLAs need to be combined and saved as one NLA to be imported into another project.. but I've not been able to do that.

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