Motion 5.8 project can't be opened / corrupt Motion project

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Level 1

16 points

Motion 5.8 project can't be opened / corrupt Motion project

I have been working on a project for almost two weeks. Recently I ran in a problem that I wan't able to export my project. After quitting Motion I couldn't open the project anymore. I was able to open an older backup file and recreated all what was missing and I ended up with the same result. I contacted Apple Support and had a remote desktop session with a specialist and He couldn't find a solution and passed the case to other department, but He said it may take longer for them to come back to me. My client is waiting for this updated version and I don't know what to do.

The strange thing is that the corrupt project files are much bigger (27MB) in size compared to the backup files that can be opened (4MB). And the changes in between the versions are relatively minor (like 5%), so there is no reason for such a bump in size.

I was using a lot of Adobe Illustrator files and PDF files in this project and I suspect that some of those files may be causing the problem, but the question is how to find out what is causing the problem and how to repair the project file and open it.

Any ideas?

I'm working on a M1 Max Mac Studio, running the latest Mac OS 14.5 and latest version of Motion 5.8.

Just that You know what we tried already:

-deleting Motion preferences

-removing all plug-ins (titles, transitions, generators ...)

-moving the project files to another location

-reinstalling Motion two times

-using different accounts

-restarting

-I tried even running an antivirus

-I tried to run some kind of XML validation, but the file was too big for the app and it didn't work

Mac Studio

Posted on Jul 25, 2024 11:46 PM

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Answer 1

Hirapuri Author

Level 1

16 points

Jul 26, 2024 12:12 AM in response to Hirapuri

Edit: I tried to open the project again - I got the same spinning beach ball and Motion Not Responding in the Activity Monitor. I tried letting this state hang in there for a longer period of time, like 20 minutes and the project did open! Now I'm trying to export it again - for now with no success. The progress bar doesn't even appear after 10 minutes of waiting.

And someone may probably ask if I have enough RAM available - Yes, at the moment there are 18GB of free RAM, even with the Motion project and Safari opened.

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Answer 2

Jul 26, 2024 1:14 AM in response to Hirapuri

We can't say exactly what is happening, but using vectore files is harder for Motion to handle than raster files.

And you say you are using a lot of vector files in this project. Slowdowns are probably due to that.

What is "a lot"?

I expect that using png files with just high enough resolution might alleviate the problem.

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Answer 3

Hirapuri Author

Level 1

16 points

Jul 26, 2024 1:39 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Hello Luis,

that is exactly what I'm trying to do now. First I'm trying to replace .ai files with .pdf and see if there is any difference. If not, I will convert all into PNG's and see if that helps.

The strange thing is that there are no big differences between the project versions and the older has 4MB and the new has now 40MB (it is constantly increasing, even if I don't add up anything). And the 4MB file opens up normally and quickly, and the 27 or 40MB file opens up 20 minutes.

I counted the number of vector files used for You and they are 89.

Thanks!

Radim

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Answer 4

Hirapuri Author

Level 1

16 points

Jul 26, 2024 4:49 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

So replacing the .ai files with .pdf made no difference. I tried replacing them with PNG's, but I found it almost impossible, as the sizes don't match and many of the 89 vectors are used repeatedly with different masks, etc., so this would take several days to match everything.

By the way, the crash report at export shows this, if anybody can understand it:

Crashed Thread: 12 Dispatch queue: com.apple.CompressorKit.CKImmediateBatchOperation

(QOS: UNSPECIFIED)

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)

Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000000000000

Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000001, 0x0000000000000000

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Answer 5

Hirapuri Author

Level 1

16 points

Jul 26, 2024 7:27 AM in response to Hirapuri

So finally I solved the problem - I made a copy of the project and went deleting all assets one by one and saving the project and after deleting one single logo the project size went down from 42MB to 2MB. So it was caused by one single logo made in Adobe Illustrator. It is hard to tell why and how this happened. So I deleted this asset from the project and imported it again in PDF, remade the animations and the project works fine finally ... But just replacing the .ai file with the .pdf didn't work. It had to be deleted and imported again.

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Answer 6

Jul 26, 2024 8:39 AM in response to Hirapuri

Thank you for reporting the solution.

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