Davinci won't render my 2 hour project

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Daisyjones

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Davinci won't render my 2 hour project

PostThu Nov 25, 2021 9:07 pm

I've used a MacBook Pro 2017 to create a 2 hour project in Davinci Resolve. I've done lots of simple edits in Davinci before, but none this long, I'm also not very good with tech which is why I've come here desperate for some help please!

I'm storing most footage on an external hard drive and 4 files on my Mac/iCloud. I've tried several times to render the project but it won't. At first, it rendered to 20percent and said Davinci couldn't decode a certain media file. It's stopped saying that and is now rendering to 60percent and saying error writing to database disk.

Some tracks do say Media Offline, I'm not sure why it says this and assume this is not the issue as playback is fine and all files are properly relinked to their locations.

Please help!

More Mac details-
Processor 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory 8 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3
Startup Disk Macintosh HD
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Peter Chamberlain

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Re: Davinci won't render my 2 hour project

PostFri Nov 26, 2021 7:00 am

Can u put all source clips on the one drive?
Which resolve version?
Free?
Which render codec?
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TCP786

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Re: Davinci won't render my 2 hour project

PostFri Nov 26, 2021 7:37 am

Can you render the project if you mute/disable the clips/tracks that say "media offline"? If so, it suggests that the full render isn't working because of something having to do with those files, and if not, it might mean that you are running out of hard drive space on the drive you're exporting to. I'm not sure, but it might also need extra space on some drives during the render process, so you will probably need more space than just the space needed for the final render. I've seen 30Gb in a temp folder before, even though that wasn't one of the folder locations I specified for renders/proxies/etc.
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TheBloke

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Re: Davinci won't render my 2 hour project

PostFri Nov 26, 2021 8:05 am

Yeah, "Error writing to database disk" definitely sounds like the system disk is out of space. Rectify that immediately, as you're at risk of not being able to save the project.

If you have Render Cache enabled, then that's likely also writing to the system drive, which will be using more space and could explain why you're running out of space unexpectedly.

You really have too little RAM to run Resolve, and if you have any other programs open at the same time (email client, web browser, background programs) you may well be swapping - which will use more disk space.

I'd try and have at least 50 - 100 GB free on the system drive to give yourself a safety margin. And keep an eye on free space as you're using Resolve.

First thing I'd do for freeing up disk space is to check your CacheClip folder, see how much space it's using. If it's huge, it may contain old render cache from other projects. You can load each project and then Delete Render Cache -> All to clear out the cache for that project. You may not want to do that for your current project if you know you're using render cache (blue line at the top of timelines), but definitely do it for any old projects you're no longer working on.

If you want to know where all your disk space is going, then I use DaisyDisk. It has a free trial period, and it's only £5 in the current Black Friday deal. It's a useful app to very quickly find out what's taking all your disk space. It gives you a top level summary, then you can drill down through each level.

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TCP786

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Re: Davinci won't render my 2 hour project

PostFri Nov 26, 2021 8:42 am

TheBloke wrote:If you want to know where all your disk space is going, then I use DaisyDisk.

For the Windows users among us, the equivalent is TreeSize (which I guess does other things too if you upgrade to the paid version?).

...Also how on earth is this not a feature provided by our operating systems at this point?
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raptor22

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Re: Davinci won't render my 2 hour project

PostFri Nov 26, 2021 8:31 pm

TCP786 wrote:
TheBloke wrote:If you want to know where all your disk space is going, then I use DaisyDisk.

For the Windows users among us, the equivalent is TreeSize (which I guess does other things too if you upgrade to the paid version?).

...Also how on earth is this not a feature provided by our operating systems at this point?
He can also use WindirStat for finding out where all his space went

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Marc Wielage

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Re: Davinci won't render my 2 hour project

PostSat Nov 27, 2021 5:29 am

Daisyjones wrote:I've used a MacBook Pro 2017 to create a 2 hour project in Davinci Resolve. I've done lots of simple edits in Davinci before, but none this long, I'm also not very good with tech which is why I've come here desperate for some help please!

What source media format? What timeline format? What is your delivery file format? My opinion is that a 2017 MacBook Pro will be dodgy with a 2-hour render in some cases. Under ideal circumstances, if it's very simple material (like ProRes 422HQ HD or something), and relatively-straightforward color correction, it can work.

Worst case, you could slice up the show into multiple parts: for example, render 6 half-hour segments out to ProRes 444 as a mezzanine format, then start a new (empty) session, load in the 444 files, and then re-render them out as a single flattened 2-hour file. This can work in cases where the machine is choking due to graphics or transitions or noise reduction or some other CPU/GPU-stressful situation; it lightens the load a little bit. My opinion is that 444 is "visually lossless" enough that nobody will see or measure a difference, provided you check the levels at each stage and make sure nothing is changed.
marc wielage, csi • VP/color & workflow • chroma | hollywood

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