Filters remain after a track is removed (bug)

Bug
1

I added a second video track, then added simple text to it via a new filter. I later removed the added video track.

The filter remained, though not visible anywhere in the UI (only if I edit the project file in an outside text editor can I find it).

I would expect removing a video track to delete all filters that had been applied to it. (Or at least warn me that there are filters on it and if I remove the track I will not have any way to edit them.)

Alternatively, there should be some way to display all filters in the UI (some master list). Having orphaned filters that show up in my export but which I can’t access from the UI is a bug.

2

Hey shosho

Very strange … are you sure you did not apply to other video track on other timeline ?

Never happened to me this issue

What happen when you export the video … the filter modification persists on final exported video ?

Do you use windows or linux ?

3

(I use windows).

Yes, it was in the final export which is why I saw it. I couldn’t find the filter after clicking on all the segments in the remaining video track, including using the ctrl+right arrow and ctrl+left arrow to go through the sections. I can send you the project file if you give me an email address.

I googled “can’t remove text shotcut” and found this other user talking about the same issue, so that user couldn’t find it either:

For me too I could find the text in notepad++ (since I could just find the text).

Obviously it is a major bug to have to open the project file in notepad to remove an orphaned filter.

I suggest there should be an interface to list all filters in the file. (Including orphaned ones), so I could remove it from there rather than notepad.

Nowhere in the normal shotcut project interface could I find the filter.

I think you could reproduce this easily (using the steps I listed) but if you want I can make a screen recording of reproducing this bug.

4

I could not reproduce this issue.

It’s possible that you applied the text filter to the master track. If so even if you remove video tracks the filter applied to the master track will still show up in the mlt and export.

5

You can view the MLT XML and look for every <filter>
I did not reproduce it either, I agree with @sauron that you must have confused track filters. If there is no video on a track then a video filter will not be applied, and likewise for audio and audio filters.

6

I tried to reproduce it in a new project and I couldn’t. Still, FYI it can happen.

(For your reply, I originally thought the user shouldn’t have to open the xml file in a text editor ever, but if it is easily readable it could be cool. Very easy to script for example. So I guess I don’t mind if that’s your design.)

If you want I can send you guys the xml file where the filter isn’t visible in the UI, only the xml if edited in notepad. (But I couldn’t easily reproduce it.)

7

Of course, that would help. Please attach it here.

8

I noticed a similar anomaly a couple of weeks ago (can’t remember when exactly). I remember deleting a clip with some filter applied to it. Then, when I dragged a different clip to the track, the filter of the deleted clip was applied to the new one. I’m pretty sure it was not applied to the hole track or to the master track because to correct the problem, I just applied then remove a random filter to the new clip and it fixed it.

Sorry, I have no document for you to analyse, but anyways, now you know it did not happen only to shosho2019.

It did not happen again since then, so I presumed it was fixed when I installed the a newer version of Shotcut.

9

All right I’ve attached it. When I open this project in shotcut no text filter is visible anywhere but text appears in the preview (when playing) and in the export. (You can see the “correction: blah” text flash in the first transition.)

I made this file just using shotcut, no direct editing of the mlt file in a text editor nor any other peculiar behavior on my part. I’m using shotcut 19.10.20

copy_of_broken_project_22.mlt (25.8 KB)

10

Looked at your project.
“Correction: blah” fades in then disappears in the first dissolve transition.
There are no text filters on any clips, tracks or the master track.
This is very bizarre.
The text filter is in the project file on line 186.
:confused:

11

Is it possible that you deleted the clip after the transition then reapplied the clip?

I was able to duplicate the issue.

  • Clip A (no filters)
  • Clip B (Text filter)
  • Transition Clip B into Clip A
  • Delete Clip B
  • Re apply Clip B (from Source) where it was deleted

blah text.mlt (6.1 KB)

shotcut_2019-12-23_22-29-03
shotcut_2019-12-23_22-29-03.png1162×553 26.6 KB

Easy fix though, just delete the transition and make a new transition.

12

OK, I see. There is no way to directly access the filters of the clips inside the transition once you have broken the relationship between the transition and one of its neighboring clips. I doubt that will change. Rather, if people are burned enough by this, then I will likely make a change that removing a clip next to a transition automatically removes the transition since people are also asking for better transition removal behavior. However, it seems others specifically want the current behavior:

You can’t please all of the people all of the time. So, yeah, here you need to use a workaround: delete the offending item and recreate it as you would like it.

13

So it’s a bug. But, I don’t want to be too hard. I installed Shotcut on the recommendation that it’s the best and most useful, but buggy. I still use and it’s worth it. Much more intuitive and I like it a lot more than Da Vinci resolve. So it’s hard to know what you guys should focus on.

I think if you had a list of all filters in the UI, then when this happens it can become obvious to you and others, since that master list of all filters would contain filters that aren’t anywhere. This would quickly lead to it being found and fixed when it happens, I think. Such a feature could also let people jump quickly between filters in different parts of the timeline. So I recommend a button to display all filters in the timeline.

Note: I wrote this at the same time as the previous comment :slight_smile:

14

Well, I consider it more of a limitation of which there are many.

I recommend a button to display all filters in the timeline.

More than likely there will be in the future a project explorer using a tree control with filters and/or search showing everything, not just filters.

15

That’s a fantastic idea and I think you could make it very intuitive.

Listen, you make a very good choice in your focus and I support your choices of where to focus on. I wouldn’t be here if you had spent the time you spent on new features, on fixing old bugs.

So I fully support you and you can keep this bug if you have bigger things to work on. The bigger things will be better for me!

I think moving clips around, adding and deleting them is normal user behavior, like copying and pasting or using the backspace button in a word processor. So this would be like a paragraph becoming bold after I paste some bold text and then use backspace to delete it. But I can’t remove the bold from the rest of the paragraph. And if I click that section the bold attribute isn’t checked.

Why do I say this: because there is text showing up that isn’t anywhere, I don’t have any ability to remove it from the UI (unless, in this analogy, I delete the whole original paragraph I copied some bold text into, which should be unaffected.)

So I would say it’s clearly a bug, same as if you paste a bold word into a sentence, delete the bold word, and the rest of the sentence turns bold - but isn’t shown bold if you click on it, the bold is unchecked even while it’s bold (I’m just making a word processor analogy). This “hidden” bold would be a bug.

You can keep it, but it’s a bug, not a limitation.

Note:

One thing I noticed in the video is that the guy says you can’t undo the action.

Since all project files are so small I suggest universal undo and redo should be possible with CTRL-Z and CTRL-Y even if it is not in the undo history: that would let people try things more safely.

Just save a scrap file before each action. This is video editing, text files must be tiny. Undo1, undo2, undo3, undo4, if someone works on it for ten hours have a thousand copies of the project. On occasion if you recover from a crash (rather than user initiated action) you can continue from the last saved undo file. On a clean exit you can erase the undo files.

The reason I suggest this is the very tiny project files, and the fact that many actions don’t have an undo. (Which I was surprised by.)

I don’t want to take more of your time, thank you for making great software :slight_smile:

16

I can’t find any real purpose nor reasoning behind this statement. But it doesn’t just apply to filters in how you edit so just be aware that when you make a transition. When you make a transition, you’re making an object, new code. Shotcut does not follow what you do before or after the transition. You call it a bug. I call it a limitation. Based upon your editing style you’ll have to keep that in mind when using Shotcut. I find the text filter in Shotcut very limiting, but if you don’t have the ability nor skill to make your text via a graphic editor, the text filter is a very easy tool to use.

I was able to recreate your issue again, with no filters.
Two different images, transition, deleted both images, then moved the transition to a new track.

shotcut_2019-12-24_10-11-03
shotcut_2019-12-24_10-11-03.png955×611 210 KB

If it’s really a bug, theoretically the transition should disappear once you move a clip away to another track. If the transition is tied to two clip and their filters, this should be the result you’re looking for.

Editing style & software limitations doesn’t always mean a bug.

I vote to keep transitions the way they are and don’t mess with any code pertaining to this.

17

Do the following:

  1. Open my project copy_of_broken_project_22.mlt in shotcut.
  2. Verify that in it you can see text “correction: blah” displayed briefly when you play or export the file.
  3. Find it and change this text from the placeholder test “correction: blah” to the final text “correction: model MX594W”.
  4. Make it appear for a little longer, since it flashes too briefly.
  5. Export the updated file and verify that the output displays “correction: model MX594W” for a longer duration.

The above steps are impossible to perform in Shotcut.

18

Show some of your abilities first before you post about other people’s skills and abilities. Haven’t seen you showing much skill and ability.

You can’t even properly center a dot.

19

You took his words out of context. Hudson555x only wrote that comment as part of a hypothetical. A conditional. It was not an appraisal of anyone’s skills.

20

Thank you @DRM. Yes that was my point. It’s clear in the future I may have to explain things a bit further.

@Salazar The dot wasn’t supposed to be centered. That’s the whole point of it. The point of the thread you quoted was to import an image keeping the same resolution without using filters. If you position the dot (or it could be a logo) where you wanted it, in a transparent PNG image, you can use that image every time without any filters.