DaVinci Resolve 18 not saving issue?

I am new to DR and downloaded the free version of 18 onto my mac. Loving it thus far, way more than FCPX. Anyway, I noticed that sometimes when I go to save a project during the process of editing to ensure I don't lose anything, or if I am ready to close DR for the day, I go to save and it does not save. The word "EDITED" stay at the top of the timeline window. If I go to close DR it will ask me if I want to save and I'll click on save but nothing happens and I end up having to click on "don't save" for the program to close.

I noticed this more after I started using 3rd party audio effects plugins in my project. The plugins work so well in the project and that is the one thing I love about DR over FCPX so I hope I can continue to use them.


This does not happen all the time but it has happened a few times in a few days so I am wondering if anyone else has experienced this issue.

Thanks in advance

Any change selecting a different Timeline prior to saving?

Yes there is a bug that causes this behavior. Best thing to do is export the timeline you're working on (as a drt) and then import it after restarting Resolve. Hopefully they'll find and fix the bug soon.


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[Dwaine Maggart]

As Reynaud mentions, others experiencing this issue have noted that if they have multiple timelines in the project, selecting a different timeline has allowed them to save.

Or if they didn't have multiple timelines, creating a new timeline allowed them to save.

This would be something to try if this happens again.

Thanks for the responses, I'll try that. I just can't believe such a basic function isn't fixed with a software update immediately. Saving your project is such a basic feature that it amazes me that this is a known issue and Black Magic has not addressed this yet.

I will say that I am new to the Black Magic echo system with being new to the ATEM switchers and no DR and I am truly not impressed. I have had issues with my ISO extreme, (I have posted in the forum), and nothing seems to get resolved now being new to DR it seems like it has several bugs and no update has been provided to fix them.

I feel like I made a huge mistake coming over to BM and I may just go back to FCPX.

Thanks anyway for your help

BMD can't replicate the issue. They don't yet know what's causing it.

Thanks for the responses, I'll try that. I just can't believe such a basic function isn't fixed with a software update immediately.
...
I am new to the Black Magic echo system ... and I am truly not impressed.
...
I feel like I made a huge mistake coming over to BM and I may just go back to FCPX.
Thanks anyway for your help

It's always a tradeoff. My very broad opinion of Resolve:

Strengths:

• Best of breed Color Correction
• Best of breed integration between Edit, Sound, VFX, and Color
• Young product that's in very active development
• Extremely affordable
• Developers actively read the support forum - you pretty much can be sure they've heard you

Weaknesses:

• Idiosyncratic UI
• Considerable learning curve
• Immature Edit page - many bugs/quirks in core editing functionality
• Documentation, while encyclopedic, lacks an index so can be hard to find things
• Support is less formal than most companies - can't get a handle on bug reports or their status

I am having this issue as well. It always seems to pop up after I make some adjustments in the Fairlight tab.

I just lost four hours of work because of this bug... I thought it was saving this whole time

4 hours? Nice. I lost a 2 week edit due to the 18.0.1 bug that randomly deletes your project. 18.0.2 supposedly addresses the issue but does not fix the broken projects.

This is not acceptable. These issues should not have been released. Maybe it's time for BM to move to a subscription model so they can hire the staff they clearly need.

A Resolve Studio version 15.3 user here. Just being smug

The reality is that every time I think "maybe it's time to upgrade" I read threads like this one and rejoice that although the version I'm using is *years* old, it is 100 rock-solid. The bugs are few and not "mission-critical". I've never lost work to a software failure in 15.3 and I can't remember if/when it has ever crashed on me.

People sometimes forget that upgrading is *not* compulsory whenever a new version or release comes out. Sometimes it's better the devil you know....

That's the version I keep recommending to folks with lesser hardware around here.
I really appreciate that BM is keeping older versions available and nobody is forced to use the latest and greatest.

October 6th, 2022. Updated to Resolve Studio 18.0.4 yesterday. Just lost 3 hours of work tonight. Hit save about 40 times out of habit while working. No indication it wasn't saving. First indication was when I hit exit it asked if I wanted to save. So I hit yes and nothing happened. Hit close, asked if I wanted to save again, hit yes. I went through this loop about 10 ten times then realized I was screwed. Never updating again...

[Peter Chamberlain]

October 6th, 2022. Updated to Resolve Studio 18.0.4 yesterday. Just lost 3 hours of work tonight. Hit save about 40 times out of habit while working. No indication it wasn't saving. First indication was when I hit exit it asked if I wanted to save. So I hit yes and nothing happened. Hit close, asked if I wanted to save again, hit yes. I went through this loop about 10 ten times then realized I was screwed. Never updating again...

We have seen a few similar reports but trying to repo new cases is challenging.

What version did you update from?
Was this a new v18 project or one from an older version?
Can you post the .drp from this project?
When you opened it again and then modified and saved, did it save this time?
Can you try, export timeline, and save project as if you see this again, and report on this thread.
thanks

I’ve had similar problems yesterday losing work using 18.0.4 using fusion and paint set to clone, it kept none of the cloned areas. It did keep changes to the time line where I added more clips. The machine I was using at the time was a new laptop running the latest version of windows 11.

To try to get a different outcome I did it all again today on my desk top (that is about 8 years old) also running 18.0.4, doing exactly the same thing using fusion and paint set to clone, on the same footage and same clips it saved the it saved the painted areas first go. The only other difference is the desktop is older and running windows 10.

I have the feeling this may not be an obvious problem, and could be an operating system issue or a settings issue or an issue/bug with 18.0.4 and how it relates to some newer machines/components or the latest operating system.

Hope this triggers an idea for someone.

I too noticed this morning I have lost several hours of edits. Last night's work didn't save. Nothing crazy going on in the timeline. No fusion etc. I have "Live Save" turned on. I just updated to 18.0.4.5 for windows 11 two days ago. This was against my better judgement since I usually like to let the new versions "settle in." I'm not offering any solutions or anything, just saying "me too."

To add my 2c worth I haven't come across these issues and I have used 18.01, 18.03, and 18.04.

Information for diagnostic purposes: We do events and over that time have ranged in length from from 45 minutes to 2hrs 15mins. We normally do a 4 node colour correction and minor Fusion effects, particularly on title screens.

Win 10 - nVidia 1050 - AMD 8 core CPU - 32GB ram

We have seen a few similar reports but trying to repo new cases is challenging.

Hi Peter. Have you added any debugging instrumentation such that, when this happens in the field, the debug log could prove more useful in understanding it? Given that this is such a longstanding problem, I'd think it would be warranted at this point.

Based on my own experience and a few comments I've seen in the forum it seem this can be triggered by adding (or perhaps modifying) audio keyframes, possibly only in the Fairlight page.

And in case anyone here doesn't already know it, this can be worked around by switching to a different timeline and then back. If you only have one timeline in the project, create a new one.

I've seen this since at least V17, possibly as early as V16, so it's definitely not new to V18.

Finding a repeatable test case is challenging since it's so intermittent.

Wish I knew this a few days ago. Mine finally fixed itself when I downloaded 18.0.4 again, updated some drivers, and rebooted my computer. And the phone support was no help because I have the Free version, not the Studio version.

BMD can't replicate the issue. They don't yet know what's causing it.

I've been struggling with this problem quite a few times now. I've come to find that it always happens when I try to copy the Master Bus effects from one timeline to another. It will not paste it, and then after that it won't save. And none of the suggested fixes works for me. But it's consistent every time I replicate the problem.

Regular mixer tracks can be copied and pasted without a problem, but with the master channel it bugs for me. It's almost always containing an Ozone 9 and Fabfilter L-2 effect when doing it.

Can you verify this repeats for you and post the exact steps you use? I sure hope you're right!

BMD can't replicate the issue. They don't yet know what's causing it.

I have encountered it as well with 17. What I noticed is, about 5 hours into a session, I'd idly hit command-S and I didn't see the momentary hesitation I used to see. I checked the Project Manager page and was horrified to see that the "Modified" date and time was hours before... so everything I had done recently was not saved. Tried to export the session and got a warning: "You must save this session before you can export." (Was not using Fusion or Fairlight, only the Edit page and Color.)

Had I been thinking clearly, I would have started a new session and tried to cut-and-paste the timeline(s) into the new session, and I suspect that might have worked. As it was, I just crashed out, rebooted, and sure enough... the only session file in the Project Manager was the one from hours before. It was a one-time thing and I haven't experienced it since.

The other trick I might use is to export just the DRT Timeline, and maybe that would reflect the current changes. Hasn't happened again, so I haven't tried to replicate the problem.

(Was not using Fusion or Fairlight, only the Edit page and Color.)

Is it possible you had done any keyframing on an audio track?

I've had it happen over a dozen times (I often use Izotope plugins) and the trick of switching to another timeline has always enabled me to save.

This has happened 2 or 3 times to me in v17, and doing the drt export saved me each time.

Every time I noticed it wasn’t saving thanks to the “Edited” text at the top, which turns yellow after I think 15 minutes then red after 30 minutes of unsaved.


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Again, if someone finds a set of steps that RELIABLY REPRODUCES the not-saving problem then BMD will be able to fix it - and probably quickly. So that's our job - give them the steps and it'll get fixed.

Again, if someone finds a set of steps that RELIABLY REPRODUCES the not-saving problem then BMD will be able to fix it - and probably quickly. So that's our job - give them the steps and it'll get fixed.

I've spent over 2 hours trying so far without any luck.

I have that "not saving issue" since vers 18 alongside with "forgetting" the fader positions in fairlight.
Atleast I have found a way to save my work with the following method:

1. As soon as the "Edited" label apears next to the project name - which means I have done any changes in any of the rooms, none of the usual saving commands (as described by other users) work! (Live-save is turned on.)
2. If I go to the fairlight page, select any random audiofile in any of the tracks, then deselect it again by clicking into an empty track, the cmd+s function works.
3. If I select any random audiofile in the fairlight page and wait for a moment the live-save function also does its job.

This bug cost me a lot of time and work until I could find the described workaround.
Maybe my explaination can help blackmagic to fix it soon, thank you!

I have made an account just to share what I have found and I believe it is fully repeatable.

The issue seems to to be connected to what Chris said, but more simple.

If there is anything selected in the Fairlight page, or any audio region still there, it will not allow the project to save. So far, I have tested this and it seems to be the problem, albeit, a very stupid one. Once deselected, project saves fine.

Thanks for keeping at trying to isolate a repeatable test case.
I just tried switching to the Fairlight tab, selecting something, and then saving.
It saved with no problem.
So this wasn't sufficient for me to reproduce the bug. This on 18.1.2 on MacOS.

Hope what you've found is getting close though! Is there anything else I need to do to make it repro?

Same problem here.

Studio 18 version 18.1.2 Build 6, M1 Mac mini, Ram 16GB, OS 12.6.2, working files residing on a small raid, project database in home folder on main drive.

None of the suggested tips worked for me, I have save out a drt file but have no confidence that it will contain any changes since the last successful save which may have been as much as 6 hours ago. Has anyone succeeded in completely resurrecting a time line that will not save by using the export DRT method?

This seems to be a recurring issue in the application, as it also happened to me in version 17 and perhaps even 16 as well.

Some commonality in possible causes:

Using some waves audio plugins.
I have copied settings, including plugins, between buses, though not I think from or to the master bus.

Selecting and or deselecting audio regions has no effect on ability to save.

I can create a new timeline, but attempting just now to edit within that timeline has caused a hard crash, as in the entire Resolve window just vanished and the Icon in the dock indicates that Resolve is no longer running. Immediately after creating the new timeline it was not possible to save.

Disabling all audio plugins did not help. My next step was to delete all plugins but unfortunately I did not get that far.

I had checked memory pressure earlier when an audio plugin became a little slow to respond. Memory pressure only registered at 23%, no swap pages.
Before I lost everything I attempted to render out the final version, although I was only using proxy video files at this point. Video rendered surprisingly well. However only one audio track rendered out of about 9-12 tracks going thru 8 or so busses. The track that rendered was track 5, tracks 1-4 contained scratch audio which was muted.

Total length of project approximately 45 minutes.

Audio was a mix of 2 camera scratch (stereo) tracks and the rest 32 bit files from a Zoom F6.

Exported file was to be dispatched to client tonight but that ain't happening now. 12:40am here.

If the DRT file contains all my unsaved work I will report back immediately. Going to try that right now!

Dickon Whitehead

Re my message above, the export DRT timeline file method was a resounding failure, it contained only Video track 1 and audio track 1 (stereo scratch file from camera). That was too much to hope for!

Dickon Whitehead

(Was not using Fusion or Fairlight, only the Edit page and Color.)

Is it possible you had done any keyframing on an audio track?

No, this was an image-only session, no sound at all.

(Was not using Fusion or Fairlight, only the Edit page and Color.)

Is it possible you had done any keyframing on an audio track?

No, this was an image-only session, no sound at all.

Oh, well that shoots down my theory that adding or modifying audio keyframes would trigger it.

I just hit this on the 18.5 beta. never noticed it before, but in fairness I haven't done a ton of Resolve work for a while, though some lately that had no issues. sure enough, hours of work lost, the 4 automatic project backups didn't contain the recent changes either. I also only noticed that CTRL-S didn't do anything after saving that way and then attempting to close the project, where I was also repeatedly prompted to save the project changes, which also never took effect (endless loop).

as a programmer what really bugs me about this is that it seems to show a lack of defensive programming. ie. something is failing somewhere, yet the code is not checking for those potential failures and just ignores them silently. that is very bad coding practice, a failed save (for whatever reason) should be detected and the user warned.

I hope BM will investigate the possible failures and add code to detect and notify the user of them.

UPDATE:

I repeated some of the lost changes (both grading and timeline), and then exported the project to DRP. sure enough, the changes were not saved again in the (local) database, but the exported project had them. However, after importing the project and making a test change, this then did save to the database, as if the export/import fixed something in the project?

Yeah there’s examples all over the place of no defensive programming, lack of error checking, etc. The answer from the forum tends to be: the user should have been more careful. Sigh.


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Yeah there’s examples all over the place of no defensive programming, lack of error checking, etc. The answer from the forum tends to be: the user should have been more careful. Sigh.

yeah that's unacceptable. it's just sloppy programming to not check for potential failures in your code. a lot of newbies do that because they want to get a quick result - and it results in horrible-to-use software that fails inexplicably in many scenarios.

mature programmers should always check every potential or likely failure and report it (and preferably have a fallback strategy to avoid the worst).

Of course we’re not in the code, don’t have the marching orders and timeframes imposed on us, etc. Easy to armchair quarterback but I don’t want to bash people who’s situation I don’t know.


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Of course we’re not in the code, don’t have the marching orders and timeframes imposed on us, etc. Easy to armchair quarterback but I don’t want to bash people who’s situation I don’t know.

while all that's true, this is programming basics. you don't just say make an API call, or 'save something to disc' call, and assume it won't come back with any errors. that's just not OK to do. with the latter for example, loads of things can go wrong - is the disc no longer available? is it out of space? is the file locked by something else, and so can't be overwritten? etc etc. you don't just code it assuming it will work, and ignore all the potential errors. else you can get this kind of scenario where a save just fails and the user has no idea.

a programmer should learn early on that you don't ignore potential failures, because they are all usually documented, so your code needs to check for them. this really is programming 101, and not something super-advanced. nobody should hire a programmer that doesn't understand that, as the resulting code will be failing all the time once it's released into the wild.

I agree - and I also know that a considerable amount of the code and time writing and testing it is tied up in doing this properly. If management says go faster this is what usually gets left behind.

Many reports I’ve made over the years have been essentially requesting this code be written.


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I agree - and I also know that a considerable amount of the code and time writing and testing it is tied up in doing this properly. If management says go faster this is what usually gets left behind.

Many reports I’ve made over the years have been essentially requesting this code be written.

right. I guess if you have to cut corners, don't do it on the most crucial functions, like saving or rendering a project (eg. renders that just abort when the disc is out of space, rather than asking you to clear some space and try again, are _such_ a pain when you then lose potentially hours of render time). I realise there are harsh realities, but those crucial functions at least should never be compromised in a professional app.

A decent amount of the message volume in these groups is people asking why:

• media shows as offline/won't draw
• media won't reconnect
• Timelines won't play smoothly
• Resolve won't start
• Resolve can't find or won't open a database

These and more are really about plumbing errors up to the user so they know specifically what's going wrong. So there's lots of work to be done here. Work that doesn't look very impressive in a product announcement. I'm guessing that's why it all remains on the back-burner.

October 6th, 2022. Updated to Resolve Studio 18.0.4 yesterday. Just lost 3 hours of work tonight. Hit save about 40 times out of habit while working. No indication it wasn't saving. First indication was when I hit exit it asked if I wanted to save. So I hit yes and nothing happened. Hit close, asked if I wanted to save again, hit yes. I went through this loop about 10 ten times then realized I was screwed. Never updating again...

Newer Resolve user here. Just dropping in to say im experiencing the exact same issue on 18.1.4 with an M2 Max. 2 of the 8 serious projects I've tried to edit in Resolve have had this error-No saves, no live saves, no backups. When you try to exit the program, it asks if you want to save over and over. Trying to replicate the issue, but seems random so far, wish I could be more help!

As Reynaud mentions, others experiencing this issue have noted that if they have multiple timelines in the project, selecting a different timeline has allowed them to save.

Or if they didn't have multiple timelines, creating a new timeline allowed them to save.

This would be something to try if this happens again.

This trick works for me, although this has been a problem for a while now. So I'm surprised it's still an issue. In my case, the problem always occurs after adding an iZotope audio plugin to a track and then exporting from the Delivery page. This is usually the point where I export a DRP as a backup, but it needs to be able to do a regular save before it can do that.

Before learning this workaround, I would have to Force Quit and restart Resolve and would usually lose a few changes. My previous workaround was to never add any audio plugins until the very last step — and then remove them temporarily before making any changes.

Does anyone experienced this problem with 18.5? Will the update fix it?

It would be about the time to fix it. I only use the free version of 18.1.4, so I feel I should not complain too hard, but being able to save and live-saving should be priority processes to run, even as a free software! The other day I lost three quarters of a project, due to a crash, only to discover the live-save did not save about three hours of work.

Please BM, do fix this!

Thanks!

[Peter Chamberlain]

I just hit this on the 18.5 beta. never noticed it before, but in fairness I haven't done a ton of Resolve work for a while, though some lately that had no issues. sure enough, hours of work lost, the 4 automatic project backups didn't contain the recent changes either. I also only noticed that CTRL-S didn't do anything after saving that way and then attempting to close the project, where I was also repeatedly prompted to save the project changes, which also never took effect (endless loop).

as a programmer what really bugs me about this is that it seems to show a lack of defensive programming. ie. something is failing somewhere, yet the code is not checking for those potential failures and just ignores them silently. that is very bad coding practice, a failed save (for whatever reason) should be detected and the user warned.

I hope BM will investigate the possible failures and add code to detect and notify the user of them.

UPDATE:

I repeated some of the lost changes (both grading and timeline), and then exported the project to DRP. sure enough, the changes were not saved again in the (local) database, but the exported project had them. However, after importing the project and making a test change, this then did save to the database, as if the export/import fixed something in the project?

Was this a project that was started on 18.5 or upgrade from a previous version? If upgraded, from which version?

Can u provide a link to the drp that did have the changes and if u have it the whole database that didn’t save them?

[Peter Chamberlain]

As a reminder, v18.5 also offers automatic timeline backups.

As Reynaud mentions, others experiencing this issue have noted that if they have multiple timelines in the project, selecting a different timeline has allowed them to save.

Or if they didn't have multiple timelines, creating a new timeline allowed them to save.

This would be something to try if this happens again.

This trick works for me, although this has been a problem for a while now. So I'm surprised it's still an issue. In my case, the problem always occurs after adding an iZotope audio plugin to a track and then exporting from the Delivery page. This is usually the point where I export a DRP as a backup, but it needs to be able to do a regular save before it can do that.

Before learning this workaround, I would have to Force Quit and restart Resolve and would usually lose a few changes. My previous workaround was to never add any audio plugins until the very last step — and then remove them temporarily before making any changes.

YES! Dax Thanks. Can confirm my project will not save when iZotope audio plugin is running. If I delete it the save function is restored!

Hello,
I have created an account to add my personally reproducible step that caused this issue.

-On the Fairlight tab, I tried to copy-paste my Bus1 settings from Timeline 1 to Timeline 2.
-Timeline 1 Bus1 had a Multiband Compressor and a Limiter on it.
-Timeline 2 Bus1 started with no changes to it and the copy-paste made no effect.
-After that point I could no longer save the project.

No attempts to reset Bus1 or changing other settings of Timeline2 Bus1 would regain the ability to save.

18.1.4 beta 9. Seeing this right now, along with various other weird symptoms, such as the preview not updating when I change clip properties (position, zoom level, etc). It only updates when I move the cursor. I also observed that undo/redo stopped working.

I did previously paste settings into Bus in Fairlight, and remember being vaguely bemused that nothing seemed to happen, and don't recall seeing an explicit save since then.

I've checked that I have nothing selected in Fairlight, and I've tried creating timelines and switching between them, to no avail.