problem exporting some powergrades

Hello
I an having a problem exporting some of my powergrades (DPX files).
For instance I get the message " Failed to export still: failed to write image in c:\Users\ruben\Desktop\untitled_1.1.17.dpx"

This problem happens to SOME of the powergrades. Not all of them..!
Of course the disk has enough space, and the desktop folder is writable,
and it is also registered in the Library.

Resolve Lite 9 on windows

I will appreciate any help.!!
Thanks / Regards
Ruben

[Dwaine Maggart]

For the Stills that won't export, are you sure you really have the source still? Can you see it in a wipe in the Color page GUI viewer?

Thanks Dwaine..

the answer is: NO
I cant' see the still in the wipe (color pane) for the unexportable powergrades.....

in the other hand, the exportable ones display correctly..

Now, would you please tell me how do I correct this issue?

Thanks in advance
Regards

[Dwaine Maggart]

Unfortunately, I can't tell you that, since it's impossible for me to know.

By default, the Still images are stored on your system in the first path defined in Resolve Preferences / Media Storage, in the Scratch Disks area. The stills are stored in a hidden folder in this path. If this path changes, or the hidden folder is messed with at the Finder/Explorer level, that could cause existing stills to not be found.

You can also verify what the current stills path is in any project, by looking in Project Settings / General Options / Working Folders. The paths there should be the first Scratch Disks path, unless they have been changed for a particular project or Preset.

If you recover a project that had stills saved in a particular path, and that path has been messed with or changed, or was on removable media that is no longer present, that could explain the stills not being available.

I know you'll ask, so I will further comment that the stills are saved with obscure cryptic non-descriptive files names, so there is no way to search for stills that might have been associated with a specific project, or anything like that. These names are tracked in the Resolve database for the project.

My best suggestion is to regrab the stills, if that is possible. If that's not possible, then they are likely gone.

[Peter Chamberlain]

I think Dwaine is correct, if you can't play the still you certainly will not be able to export. It looks like you have the reference thumbnail but the underlying still is missing, most likely due to a path change to a different default scratch drive.
Peter

Dwaine, Peter, thanks for your help.

You give me enough information to understand what happened. I actually had my Media Storage disks reorganized, and it seems to be the cause of this problem.

Fortunatelly, the 'unexportable' powergrades had the thumbnails and node trees information, so I could go and reopen the original project , went to the specific frame, apply the powergrade back , and then grab the still again. This new powergrade was generated correctly.

So I think a possible workaround is to do this procedure for every 'unexportable' powergrade, and of course, next time will create a backup DRX folder for all oth them.

There would be nice also to let the user have the gallery stills and cache files stored into an independent folder than the first media folder.

Well. I really appreciate your quick answer and support. This is great software product, the best. I am very enthusiastic about it. Thanks agrain and Regards.
Ruben Silva

[Dwaine Maggart]

The stills, cache and proxy files are stored in the first Scratch Disk path by default. But you can always change this in the Project Settings / General Options / Working Folders. And you could store such a change in a Preset, so that whenever you use that Preset, you would be using the Working Folder paths stored with that Preset. And of course that Preset could be your user default preset.

I figured this problem out.
I re-applied the grade I was having a hard time exporting onto a shot. Then I took a "Grab Still" of that newly applied Grade from which I could then export it.

Hi Dwaine, I am having the same problem but just with the powergrades albums, not stills albums. We have couple of machines (windows 10 pro and Mac OS 10.13.6) with Resolve Studio 15.2 and shared SQL database installed on Windows. Each machine got it's own still route but that is working fine, but we can't export any powergrade from windows neither mac (and they look black if we "play still")

Any idea what might happen?

Thanks for your time. Best

[Dwaine Maggart]

If they are black when you Play Still, then the full res DPX image of the still is not being found. But you see the thumbnail images?

Any number of things might have happened to make the full res stills not available.

New in Resolve 15, is the ability to select the path to the Powergrade stills in the Gallery area 3 dot menu: "Change PowerGrades Path. Selecting that will show you the current path. You could go look in that path for a folder in the .gallery folder and see if there are any DPX frames there.

PowerGrade stills are stored per database. So if you are in a different database than the one your PowerGrades were created in, that would be an issue.

If you point multiple database PowerGrade paths to the same location, a folder for each database will be created in that location, under .gallery. So you can't just make a new database, point it to an existing PowerGrade path from a different database, and see the PowerGrade stills. You'd have to copy the stills from the original PowerGrade database guest user to the new Powergrade location, as discussed on pages 2057 and 2058 of the Resolve manual.

If your original PowerGrades were grabbed before Resolve 15, that might cause an issue with missing full res stills, just not sure.

The problem and solution are ludicrous - essentially design flaws. How is it possible that I save a Still in one moment, try to export it in the next, and the software can't find the still? Ludicrous. I suggest two things:

Know where you save the Still. I want it in the project, not stored in some obscure place.

Separate Still for color grading from the image. I need to save the color grades, but that is fundamentally different from simply needing an image from the clip.

Also, Images should be captured in Edit and Cut, not in Color since I don't need the color grading with an Image.

Thanks. Very frustrating.