My video won't render & It's stuck at 0%

Help/How To
1

System

I know my computer is below the minimal system requirements but during a four day span from Thursday, June 7, 2018 to Sunday June 10, 2018, I worked hard on a video.

I spent over 10 hours making it and then Sunday evening happened.

So, I finish the video and I started the rendering process (I use H.264 high profile, 29.970 Frames per second, and I change the quality from 60%-70%)

While rendering, it goes until 4% with an estimate of 6 hours to be finished.

Then, my little brother (who’s 10, if your curious), asked for the laptop.

Mind you: the HP laptop is a family laptop and it has to stay charged.

If the charger falls out, the computer shuts down!

But that’s besides the point, I lend him to laptop carefully.

Then, five minutes later, he accidentally made the charger let lose.

First time, no problem, just render again.

Then, I repeat the process, until I was told the laptop was let loose again.

Second time, I take the laptop from my brother and I started the process in a private room.

I started rendering again until I accidentally kicked the charger out from the laptop!

Third time, I render the laptop again and I went to sleep.

Mind you: I turned sleep mode off so the rendering process won’t fail.

The next day, the process was stuck at 0% from 12AM-7AM.

Are you serious!

I know my laptop is horrible but I’ve never had this issue.

Maybe because the process was ruined by turning off the laptop three times while rendering, i don’t know

I need an answer as soon as possible because I need to upload the video today Monday June 11, 2018.

Thank You for your consideration,

James Voufo Safor

2

Before starting your last attempt, did you restart/reboot Windows? If you have not, I recommend that you save your project to an mlt file, reboot Windows, then start Shotcut, open project, then export.

3

Replace your battery!

4

Wow, this reads like a story from https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/

[sarcasm]Why not just buy a better computer?[/sarcasm] I hope this can be taken in a friendly way: I think the section about “Support Burnout” in https://freenode.net/changuide is a good read.

Restarting indeed sounds like a good step (you know how to save the project file, right? (if not, here’s a video). (note to pros: I’m just covering this topic in case the laptop is good enough to create a recovery state before shutting down)

You should disable/close/quit any other applications that you can disable while it is rendering/exporting. This includes antivirus programs, torrent software, music/video player, skype, web browser - everything you can turn off will allow shotcut to use more resources.

Out of curiosity: How long does it take to reach 1%?

1 Like
5

It is quite likely the project is too memory heavy for the RAM on this computer especially if you are working in HD, which most people do now. I agree with the suggestion by @qubodup

6

Well it’s pretty obvious that if the laptop shuts down when AC adapter/charge is pulled out that the battery isn’t holding any charge. A new battery will prevent this shutdown.

This isn’t necessary if the laptop has shut down due to loss of power, the machine will be restarted in any case.

At the end of the day, a low specc’ed family shared laptop with a failed battery is probably not the best device to attempt rather lengthy video editing on.

7

I meant the original post with all the backstory, family involvement and information not related to the issue but still interesting to read.

As for suggesting hardware repairs: sure it would solve the adventure of siblings and your own feet ejecting cables but the “stuck at 0% for 7 hours” is the issue that OP asks help for.

8

OK, but the fact that the laptop is being incorrectly shutdown so often in the middle of processes likely also means the system has corrupted files and so is very likely contributing to [his] problem.
The OP thought it necessary to include mention of these numerous unwanted sudden shutdowns in his post and rightly so.
An under powered laptop in poor health is not going to be a reliable device for a four day edit project.

9

Whenever I’m having Shotcut issues that I can’t explain I try re-installing Shotcut (using the installer) and selecting the option to erase Registry files. It might be worth a shot.

Regarding the power cable falling out, can you permanently/semipermanently attach it? Glue it? Ziptie it to a security loop on the laptop? Tie it in place with twine? I have a laptop that needs to stay plugged in all the time too, and even though I replaced the battery it doesn’t charge the new battery correctly, so I understand your plight to some extent, though I’m lucky to be able to just leave mine immobile – it’s not really a “laptop” anymore, more of a “foldable tabletop computer.”