Open project with Timelines Disabled

I'd like to ask for a feature request for which I've searched for here in this forum but haven't spotted any results for it.

It's quite obvious that a lot of people sometimes have a problem opening projects all of a sudden as the last thing they did crashed DR for whatever reason, and if they could only go back into the Project and disable a particular FX or whatever, they could continue working. However in circumstances like this, you literally have around 5 seconds to fix the problem before DR crashes yet again.

The feature that I would like to request, is one that is similar to what Reaper (a DAW) does:

The ability to open a Project with the Timelines disabled.

I would assume that we could then fix any issues with it disabled, and then re-enable it ?

There is a feature request page all the way at the top of this forum. Good idea though, kind of a safe mode. This MAY already be possible. I was setting Resolve up on my new computer over the weekend and I glanced over a setting with a check box to do something along this line. Might have been "open last" or "open all" timeline(s).

That doesn't quite answer it. The problem here is that there's no way to disable or delete a timeline which is crashing the project -- because it's crashing the project before you can do anything about it. Short of closing and/or disabling all timelines every time you save the project, which is not workable, there's no way in at present.

There is a feature request page all the way at the top of this forum. Good idea though, kind of a safe mode. This MAY already be possible. I was setting Resolve up on my new computer over the weekend and I glanced over a setting with a check box to do something along this line. Might have been "open last" or "open all" timeline(s).

I did look for something like that before I posted this message, but couldn't find anything, still can't - could you send me a link to a post from there please?

Here is a link to the Feature Request section.

https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewforum.php?f=33

There's a user preference "load all timelines when opening project" which, when unticked, will only load the last timeline worked on. But if that's the timeline that's causing the crash, you're out of luck.

Here is a link to the Feature Request section.

https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewforum.php?f=33

Oh my word, I totally didn't see that one, thanks for that !

In the meantime, if you disable the (User Preference) 'Reload last working project on start up', then Resolve will always open as standard to the Project Manager. If you have a crashing project that means you won't auto load into it. You can open a known safe or new empty project instead, then enable the 'Bypass Grades and Fusion Effects option', then switch to your problem project... unless it's the media itself that is causing the crash, it's likely the problem timeline will now load without issue and you can specifically disable / remove whatever is causing the problem.

In the meantime, if you disable the (User Preference) 'Reload last working project on start up', then Resolve will always open as standard to the Project Manager. If you have a crashing project that means you won't auto load into it. You can open a known safe or new empty project instead, then enable the 'Bypass Grades and Fusion Effects option', then switch to your problem project... unless it's the media itself that is causing the crash, it's likely the problem timeline will now load without issue and you can specifically disable / remove whatever is causing the problem.

OK, thanks, so I'm not sure exactly where you mean when you say "...enable the 'Bypass Grades and Fusion Effects option..." - in the colour page, edit page or cut page, or on a menu ? The only reference I could find for this in the manual was in the Cut page.

Also, I tried opening a different project, enabled the 'Bypass Grades and Fusion Effects' option in the timeline in the Edit Page, close the project, and open another project, but the 'Bypass Grades and Fusion Effects' option isn't enabled anymore, ie they're not bypassed anymore, so this won't work ?

Am I not understanding you correctly ?

- in the colour page, edit page or cut page, or on a menu ?

Yep, all of the above. Theres a colourful 'bypass' button at top right of the Viewer panel in each of the Cut, Edit and Color pages, and theres also a View menu > Bypass All Grades menu item. The active setting persists when you open and close projects from the project manager, but will reset to 'enabled' at app (re)launch.

Screenshot 2023-03-13 at 23.18.51.png (97.73 KiB) Viewed 1569 times

Here's a possible workaround:

1) launch Resolve without opening a project (that is, just look at the Project Manager window)

2) select but do not open the project with the problem

3) right-click the bad project and Export a copy to another drive

4) now, right-click in the gray area of the Project Manager and Import that project back into Resolve (with a name like "Copy of Bad Project").

5) Try opening the copy and see if the problem persists.

6) if you have a copy of the project from the day before (and we always suggest you make daily backups), see if the previous day's version is OK.

If you've set Resolve to automatically open the last project, I can't help you -- I don't know a way to turn that on if it's crashing at start-up.

- in the colour page, edit page or cut page, or on a menu ?

Yep, all of the above. Theres a colourful 'bypass' button at top right of the Viewer panel in each of the Cut, Edit and Color pages, and theres also a View menu > Bypass All Grades menu item. The active setting persists when you open and close projects from the project manager, but will reset to 'enabled' at app (re)launch.

Screenshot 2023-03-13 at 23.18.51.png

Oh Wow !! when I tried it the other day, the setting didn't seem to persist between projects, but has done today, that's useful to know, thanks for that !!

Here's a possible workaround:

1) launch Resolve without opening a project (that is, just look at the Project Manager window)

2) select but do not open the project with the problem

3) right-click the bad project and Export a copy to another drive

4) now, right-click in the gray area of the Project Manager and Import that project back into Resolve (with a name like "Copy of Bad Project").

5) Try opening the copy and see if the problem persists.

6) if you have a copy of the project from the day before (and we always suggest you make daily backups), see if the previous day's version is OK.

If you've set Resolve to automatically open the last project, I can't help you -- I don't know a way to turn that on if it's crashing at start-up.

Thanks for that - I totally forgot about the backups too ! I will try that and see if that works.

Thanks for that - I totally forgot about the backups too ! I will try that and see if that works.

I had a problem a year or so ago where a timeline kept crashing because it was looking for an OFX plug-in that had become corrupted and obsolete. Dwaine suggested to me that I open a dummy session, to the User Prefs and turn off that plug-in, then re-launch Resolve. All was well.

So that was a case where the timeline became corrupted because of something outside Resolve -- not Resolve itself.

A "safe mode" would be great.
Opening a project with all effects disabled (audio, color, plugins, etc.)

A "safe mode" would be great.
Opening a project with all effects disabled (audio, color, plugins, etc.)

+1

+1
Could have come handy last week.

- in the colour page, edit page or cut page, or on a menu ?

Yep, all of the above. Theres a colourful 'bypass' button at top right of the Viewer panel in each of the Cut, Edit and Color pages, and theres also a View menu > Bypass All Grades menu item. The active setting persists when you open and close projects from the project manager, but will reset to 'enabled' at app (re)launch.

Screenshot 2023-03-13 at 23.18.51.png

Seems like it's not as useful as I thought it might be. Got another 'simple' project which keeps crashing. I set the Bypass button on from another project, go back into the problem project, and although the Bypass button is still enabled (ie all effects are bypassed), the project still crashes !

Here's a possible workaround:

1) launch Resolve without opening a project (that is, just look at the Project Manager window)

2) select but do not open the project with the problem

3) right-click the bad project and Export a copy to another drive

4) now, right-click in the gray area of the Project Manager and Import that project back into Resolve (with a name like "Copy of Bad Project").

5) Try opening the copy and see if the problem persists.

6) if you have a copy of the project from the day before (and we always suggest you make daily backups), see if the previous day's version is OK.

If you've set Resolve to automatically open the last project, I can't help you -- I don't know a way to turn that on if it's crashing at start-up.

That has worked so far, it's got me a little way further to fix the issues, thank you for this advice

If you've set Resolve to automatically open the last project, I can't help you -- I don't know a way to turn that on if it's crashing at start-up.

One possibility might be to rename Resolve's "config.user.xml" file (to config.user.xml.old or some such)... then when you launch Resolve it should open with default presets (including 'Reload' set to disabled). Once the issue at at hand is addressed then quit Resolve, delete the 'new' default config.user.xml file and rename the old config file back as it was to recover the previous user settings.

If you've set Resolve to automatically open the last project, I can't help you -- I don't know a way to turn that on if it's crashing at start-up.

One possibility might be to rename Resolve's "config.user.xml" file (to config.user.xml.old or some such)... then when you launch Resolve it should open with default presets (including 'Reload' set to disabled). Once the issue at at hand is addressed then quit Resolve, delete the 'new' default config.user.xml file and rename the old config file back as it was to recover the previous user settings.

Thanks for the info, that looks quite useful, although I would never set the last project to open automatically for the reasons mentioned above.

I'm reviving this thread.

I'll add these:

1) Ability to decide on which page the project opens (media, editing, fusion, etc.)
2) Ability to load a project with all effects disabled.
3) When saving a DRA/drp, we should be have more options. Because the first thing I did to try to recover a buggy projects was to save a DRP from the projects manager. But opening the DRP still made Resolve load the Fusion page instead of the safer Edit page, or even the Media page.

This could save hours or days of work.

We should have a "safe-mode" option for problematic projects, fusion comps, and VSTs.

Backups are fine, but they should be the last resort.

I had to deal with this problem just right now. For some reason, Resolve constantly opened my project on the Fusion page, when I had saved when I was the Edit page. And I had a bug that made the program crashes. I loaded a 30 mins old backup of the project, but this scared me a lot.

Yeah I'm on the 19b, but this can happen with any version of Resolve.

+1

That said, it would be really nice if Resolve’s error handling were improved to the point that it pretty much couldn’t crash - especially from reading external data. Even if that data comes from the database.