Blackmagic Forum

I had the impression that Resolve has unlimited undo levels but I just found that is not the case! Any idea how many undo level Resolve store?

Nothing is unlimited, but I did read somewhere that it technicality has unrestricted undo history. What gets people in a bind is when they don't pay attention to the fact there are at least three separate and independent history mechanisms, much like cache systems. They function separately. Its important to understand that or you might get all the wrong impressions. There are other gotcha elements to keep in mind, but I would suggest you reference the reference manual for more details.

KrunoSmithy wrote:Nothing is unlimited, but I did read somewhere that it technicality has unrestricted undo history. What gets people in a bind is when they don't pay attention to the fact there are at least three separate and independent history mechanisms, much like cache systems. They function separately. Its important to understand that or you might get all the wrong impressions. There are other gotcha elements to keep in mind, but I would suggest you reference the reference manual for more details.

Well, LumaFusion has unlimited undo levels and it's only limited by the amount of RAM you have, as the developer said . On the other hand, some software gives you the option to select how many undo levels you want. For example, in CorelDraw I can set the undo level from 1 to 99999 which in my book is virtually unlimited


I wish Resolve had this option.

So if Resolve technically has unrestricted undo history, then it should be only limited by the amount of RAM I have, and I have plenty, but in my case, I was able to undo maybe around 20 times or less before it stopped and this happened already 2 times during my current project. I am not sure if this is a bug in V20 or something else but I don't recall I faced this problem with Resolve 19 or with Vegas Pro.

I will check the references manual after I finish my current project. Thank you for your feedback.

Where are you testing the Undo, Yasser?

Edit, Fusion, Color, Fairlight?

Jim Simon wrote:Where are you testing the Undo, Yasser?

Edit, Fusion, Color, Fairlight?

In the Edit page

The undo in Resolve has always been... quirky.
There are a number of functions/features etc that won't undo.
I don't know what the full list, and can't even quote one of the top of my head.
But I've experienced things that won't undo, and see numerous posts around here for years on the same.
You may have hit an 'undo-able undo' at step 20, and it just stopped 'undo-ing'

Formulating a save project strategy is advantageous.
I do it like playing an old video game like Oblivion.
Save v 1a.(start of dungeon) Make some changes like primaries, contrast etc save v 1b. (1/2 through dungeon)
Move on to Magic Mask. Finish tracking. FOR SURE save v 1c ha (defeated dungeon boss)
etc

capthook wrote:The undo in Resolve has always been... quirky. There are a number of functions/features etc that won't undo. I don't know what the full list, and can't even quote one of the top of my head.

I think that's good advice. When in doubt, I always create a new version and then make a change, and if it blows up in my face, I go back to the old version. It will probably need to re-cache, but that's better than having to infinitely re-track and re-tweak it from scratch.

I never saw a function or tool that didn't have ANY undo option; but I experienced some which only had few ones, or maybe the further ones were invalidated by an action in between.

As I always do when I - very very rarely - suggest to give a try to "shot match this clip" if it appeared to me it might help the OP, always undo* as soon as you don't like what you see, because this one is probably the closer to "1 try only" .
But... it has 1 for sure, maybe a bit more, but at least 1.

*obviously a version strategy would be a lot smarter, for sure

I ran a brief test of 30 Undo's on the Edit page in Studio 20b2 for Windows, and it worked without issue.

Thanks guys for your feedback.

The the undo function is indeed still quirky in Resolve and hopefully it will improve with future versions.

Until then, I agree that creating versions is wise but hard to always remember becouse of old habits.

Jim Simon wrote:I ran a brief test of 30 Undo's on the Edit page in Studio 20b2 for Windows, and it worked without issue.

It does not always happen .. it seems like it happens randomly. Maybe as Jack said, maybe I hit an 'undo-able undo' at step 20 and it just stopped 'undo-ing

I'm skeptical of that explanation. Things which can't be Undone simply don't show up in the list. It's never been an impediment to continuing the list.

Jim Simon wrote:I'm skeptical of that explanation. Things which can't be Undone simply don't show up in the list. It's never been an impediment to continuing the list.

I just created a test project, dragged few clips in the timeline and did 84 changes and was able to undo all the way back before dragging the clips to the timeline.
Here is screen recording showing the test:


Now, sometimes (randomly) I am not able to undo 20 levels. Explain this

I would love a “Save state” and “Restore saved state from [date/time]” (with a confirmation that comes up).


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

visualfeast wrote:I would love a “Save state” and “Restore saved state from [date/time]” (with a confirmation that comes up)

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That would be a great feature +111
Please share this request.

Yasser Saeed wrote:Now, sometimes (randomly) I am not able to undo 20 levels. Explain this

I can't. I've never had it happen.

You'll have to try and sus out the missing variable when it happens again, try to figure out what steps or conditions lead to that error.

visualfeast wrote:I would love a “Save state” and “Restore saved state from [date/time]” (with a confirmation that comes up).

This feature is called "Export Project"...

Jim Simon wrote:

Yasser Saeed wrote:Now, sometimes (randomly) I am not able to undo 20 levels. Explain this

I can't. I've never had it happen.

You'll have to try and sus out the missing variable when it happens again, try to figure out what steps or conditions lead to that error.

That is not an easy task to figure out what triggers the problem .. there are just huge amount of variables

Sean Nelson wrote:

visualfeast wrote:I would love a “Save state” and “Restore saved state from [date/time]” (with a confirmation that comes up).

This feature is called "Export Project"...

Nop .. what Bin suggested is different and does not require re-exporting the project everytime you make a change you want to keep and this can easily accumulate and make it hard to manage managing the created project files. However, with "Save state" feature, everything is saved within the open project (like Undo History) thus you don't need to close the project and deal with different project files and figure out which one is which.

Yasser Saeed wrote:

Sean Nelson wrote:

visualfeast wrote:I would love a “Save state” and “Restore saved state from [date/time]” (with a confirmation that comes up).

This feature is called "Export Project"...

Nop .. what Bin suggested is different and does not require re-exporting the project everytime you make a change you want to keep and this can easily accumulate and make it hard to manage managing the created project files.

You get exactly one file that contains the exported project, it's a very fast save, and you can put a date/time stamp in the file name. I wouldn't call it difficult to manage.