getting stuck outputting to HTML

[dylan]

Have resumed a project today and keep getting issues when I output to html.

When I have Live Update set to on and I save the project I get a progress bar titled 'HTML file' that appears underneath the Live Update button, and this is stalling completely and getting stuck (just pressed save and it's stuck at 87%. If I click the cancel button just underneath it the bar turns blue but it remain there and remain stuck. At this point if I have a previous output in a browser window I can go to the browser and refresh it and it appears to have been updated with latest changes despite the progress bar stalling. If I switch off Live Update the bar disappears. But, if I then click the output button I get a pop-up window titled 'progress' and that has a mini HTML file bar which gets stuck (this time it's 12% but that figure does vary).

If I completely close the project and restart it then all is well, sometimes for a few saves (with Live Update) or a few presses of the Output button - and then it all happens again.

I saw a similar thread recently by jakenorton titled "BUG: Project hangs when creating HTML file". It seems to be exactly the same issue as I've just noticed I have a grey bar in the main window with 'Calculating Image Pyramid'.

I have restarted many times, and have also deleted the output folder for a fresh start several times. As far as I'm aware I have no special characters in any images. I'm using output from a Canon R7 camera and a DJI mini 3 pro, both of which I have used in several projects with no issue.

I was quite excited to see an update earlier today and installed it hoping this might fix it, but the problem persists.

[Hopki]

Hi Dylan,
With jakenorton post it was due to very odd charictors in the user data, it containd lots of curly brackets, equals signs, line breaks etc.
Basicly whatever application he used added this to the title metadata field and was necer corrceted.
The only other instance of this, we asked for more information and never got any.
As we have quite a few users and no one else has reported this or said anything about it, we concluded it was it must have been a local issue that was found.

Can you check your User Data and do you have any special charictors in files names or user data?
You shoidl be using a to z, A to Z and 1 to 9 to keep it web safe.

Are you exporting locally, a folder on your computer or to say and external drive, network drive, DropBox or Google Drive?
If you are getting stuck at caculating Primid what is your memory doing?
How much RAM do you have and what is your memeory hint, see: https://ggnome.com/doc/pano2vr/getting- ... gs/#images

How much HDD space do you have, as a quck calculation you wnat at least 4 times the space of the project folder including all teh panoramas and asets.
Pano2VR has to make a few copies in memory so as you work in your panoramas it opens them quickly.

Does it get stuck at the same image, or sets of images, for example you may have 20 images, but it always seems to get stuck at one of five that keep showing, so may get get stuck at node6, 7, 8, 9 or node10, but not at any others.

How were the images built/which application stitched them, are they all stitched by the same application?

Finally, if it seems memory is the issue, what you can try is create a new set of panoramas using our TIFF (tif) output which are tilted tiffs.

To do this make a copy of your project file, the .p2vr file.
This is so if anything goes wrong, you get a power cut half way through or you run out of memory etc you have not touched your origanail project file.

Modify the name so you know which one it is, so add somthing like "your file name then _TiledTiff.p2vr"

Open the copied project file, select all the panorama in the tour browser then select the Properties - Panorama panel, then select Convert Input.
The type shoudl be Equqircetangular and the format should be TIFF (.tif)

This will create new panoramas with the modified path or _equi .tiff in the same folder.
The project file will then use the new panoramas.
As these will be tiled tiffs that will be larger then your origanals but have the advantage of opeing very faset as Pano2VR does not need to load them into memory.

Try this does this work?
Regards,

[dylan]

Hi Martin

Answers to a your queries:

The project is at this point just 8 panoramas (7 TIF and 1 JPG format, largest one being 1.5GB)
Have looked at user data and can't see any special characters apart from 1 field had a semicolon. I removed this and behaviour is still the same. The only thing other than A-Z is using "-" instead of spaces (web background so I don't use special characters and even spaces in file names).

Project and all files on local SSD (D drive with 17GB free at time of issues (I hadn't realised it was so low)).
Outputting to same local SSD.
Pano2vr installed on C drive SSD (172GB free)

PC spec:
OS: Win 11
CPU: Intel Core i5 10400 @ 2.90GHz
RAM: 32.0GB Dual-Channel DDR4 @ 1331MHz
GPU: 4095MB NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (Gigabyte) using latest (not beta) drivers

Memory size hint is set to 16341 MB

It seems to get stuck at different stages rather than at same point or same panorama as far as I can tell
RAW images are processed with On1PhotoRAW then stitched with PTGUI. Some adjustment made with Affinity Photo (1 was adjusted with Photoshop 2023 trial)

Step 1: Cleared extra space on D drive (now 57GB free)
Opened Project. First press of output button and it output fine in few seconds, but the grey bar is visible in main window saying "calculating image pyramid). I press the output button again and this time the small 'HTML file' popup window gets stuck on 50%.

Did as you asked and created copy of project, selected all panos and coverted (type: Equqircetangular and the format should be TIFF (.tif))
Once completed I tried outputting and this was outputting fine (repeated outputs without issue).

It seems the copy with the new tiled TIFs is outputting fine. Does this point to one of my pano's being corrupt in some way? Although the tiled TIFS were converted from my pano's so I doubt corruption.

If you have anything further I can try to narrow it down that would be great. Am happy to supply my project/panos from inspection if that would help.

I just tried outputting mine again and it was ok for a few outputs then the grey bar with 'calculating image pyramid appeared, and next output failed (this time at 37%).

Really enjoying V7 and this has been really bugging me.



Thanks,
Dylan

[Hopki]

Hi Dylan,
It still could be an issue with one of the images, Pano2VR is just remapping them and converting to TIFF so it may not be an issue with just conversion.
By using the newly created TIFFs, Pano2VR does not need to try and load them into memory so far less memory is being used.

What may be a good thing to try, again with a copy, is to convert one image at a time, in between creating an output.
Then make a note of what pano you swapped out before it started to work.

Then again using a copy, just convert that one image, does it now work?
Regards,

[dylan]

Ok thanks Martin. Will give that a go!

Cheers,
Dylan.

[dylan]

Hi Martin

Due to the output not failing consistently it was a long process of elimination - thanks for the logical advice on tracking it down. It does appear that the first image is causing the issue.

I have looked carefully at the image file (16bit TIF) and can find nothing wrong with it at all, and looking at all the file info it appears exactly the same as my other images and was created with the same workflow. Very very odd.

Cheers,
Dylan.

[dylan]

I went back to my original photos adjusted with ON1 photoRaw, stitched with PTGUI and re-output the suspect image.
Getting the same problem again, stalling during HTML output - when I dismiss the stalled progress bar and click on first pano I have the grey bar with 'calculating image pyramid' message.


What I have found is that the output does take place. E.g It stalled at 50% outputting HTML and sure enough the calculating image pyramid message is there so I hit close (x) on the HTML file progress box - go and add a new hotspot then press the output button, when I refresh the browser from previous successful output, the new hotspot is there. Note that Live Update does not work at this point.

Confused and frustrated by this.

Dylan.

[Hopki]

Hi Dylan,
So if you swap out the first image all loads ok?
Can you send us that image?
Regards,

[dylan]

Hi Martin

To be totally sure, I just created a new P2VR project file rather than a copy of one I'm working on and added this single pano. Within about 7 or 8 outputs I got the grey bar with calculating triangle message on screen and it then stalls on outputting HTML.

As I said in previous post, I re-created this pano (link below) from original image files as I thought that would solve my problem if original was corrupt.

https://digitalspin.co.uk/gg/frontroom1B.tif

Sorry big file as 16bit TIF. But I always believed P2VR had no problem with big TIFs?

Recap:
System: Win 11, 32GB Ram, Nvidia RTX 3060 (4GB GPU, latest non-beta drivers)
Software used: On1PhotoRaw, PTGUI, P2VR 7 (all latest versions)

Thanks for looking, this is driving me bit nuts.


Dylan.

[Hopki]

Hi Dylan,
On a MacBook at the moment and do not see any issues, already on about 15 outputs.
In the office, we have a Windows 11 computer so will test on that Monday.
Just to be sure, when you say a Big TIFF, you mean a large TIFF file and not an actual Big TIFF which would have the file extension .btf.
Do any of your other files cause the same issue?
If not are they roughly the same size in pixel and file size?
Regards,

[dylan]

Hi Martin

I meant a large file size TIF, I didn't actually realise there was a BTF file format!

Am not even sure it's that specific image anymore. I created a new 8bit version to replace that image and I still got the same behaviour.
I removed that image completely and added a different one and it stalled on HTML output but without the pyramid warning.

I reinstalled P2VR yesterday but that didn't help.

To be honest I give up. Everything is fine when I convert the TIF's like you got me to do in testing, so I will just adopt that as my new workflow as I believe that just adds a small amount of conversion time and a bit more storage for the larger TIF it creates? This works reliably which is what I care about.

Very odd as been using p2vr for couple of years and never had any issue like this before.

Thanks for helping me look into this and pointing out the Convert Input feature.

Dylan.

[Hopki]

Hi Dylan,
Just to let you know, testing with your image it was repeatable using a Windows 11 Laptop.
We will need to look into this.
But using "converted" TIFFs in Pano2VR means you will load the project very quickly, even if you have hundreds.
Regards,

[dylan]

Hi Martin

Do you mean it was repeatable as in you were able to replicate the issue I've been having? If yes and you need any files or any more info about software used, just let me know.

I did notice that it was considerably faster to load a project with the converted images, so definitely part of my work flow from now on - thanks for that

Cheers,
Dylan.

[Hopki]

Hi Dylan,
Yep, I managed to get the same results you did, so we will have to have a look at this.
In the meantime just use the converted TIFF files as this circumvents the issue with your image.

As a thought, you can create a "Droplet" to convert your images.
So your workflow could be Stitch your image and drop them in a folder, Drop the folder on the droplet, then done.
All your images will be ready for Pano2VR.
The only thing to remember is if you edit the equirectangular image in a photo editor you will need to run it through the droplet again

You can of course just do it in Pano2VR, but if you have lots of images, the first time you add then you will need to wait for them to load.
The droplet process one image at a time so not taking up system resources, then when done, dropping them into Pano2VR will bo so fast.
Regards,

[dylan]

Thanks Martin.

That's a relief you replicated the issue as I was beginning to suspect I had some faulty memory or I was doing something stupid. Good luck with investigation.

Thanks for the droplet pointer - another useful feature I've neglected to try so far.

Thanks again,
Dylan.