PP Viewer 2003 doesn't advance to next slide

[PG]

I am having a problem with PP Viewer 2003 failing to advance to the next
slide. The problem doesn't occur until well into the presentation, which
means the 2003 version is doing significantly better than the '97 version,
but not as well as running PPT 2000. The 356-slide presentation was
created in PP 2000. It has .wav and .mid files that play for sets of
slides. Because of the sound-playing bug in the 2003 viewer, I have opened
the presentation in PPT 2002 and saved it with a new name - which resolved
the problem of the sounds not playing.

The problem is that now when it gets to slide 216, the music for that
section plays, but the slides stop advancing on their scheduled intervals.
[Note - the problem is not that particular slide - I can dynamically jump to
it from earlier in the show and everything works fine.] Also, at the same
time the slides stop advancing, the viewer stops acknowledging keyboard
input to go to the next slide (right arrow, space, etc). Curiously enough,
the viewer still acknowledges the right mouse button to advance a slide. It
seems a task scheduler of some sort has gone to sleep.

[I am using the 2003 viewer because of problems in the 97 viewer. The '97
viewer stops advancing much earlier in the presentation, but at random
locations on repeated executions. Also the '97 viewer sporadically doesn't
display some photos on the slides while the sound files are playing - it
just seems to run out of gas or get forgetful.]

Has some sort of capacity limit been reached? This seems to be a bug. The
presentation plays all the way through with the regular PP 2000.

 

[John Langhans [MSFT]]

Hi Paul,

You are probably running into some kind of system resouce problem. Short of
actually sending us your presentation on CD for examination in our testing
labs, I would try the following to see whether you can overcome these
possible resource limitations.

1) Empty your systems temp folder(s) to make it easier for Windows to cache
the temporary files created when viewing a presentation which contains lots
of objects (especially pictures) such as the folders listed in the
Environment Variables on the System Properties dialog:
a) Click on "Start"
b) Right+Click on "My Computer" and choose "Properties" from the context
menu
c) Select "Advanced" tab in the System Properties dialog
d) Click on "Environment Variables" button
e) Note which folders are listed for the variables "TEMP" and "TMP"
f) Cancel out of Environment Variables and System Properties dialogs
g) Go to Windows Explorer and remove as many files/folders as possible
from within the TEMP and TMP locations listed in step (e) above (do not
delete the actual TEMP and TMP folders themselves).

2) Optimize the pictures in your presentation so that fewer system
resources are required to expand and display them during slide show:
a) Open presentation in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2002 or 2003
b) Display the Pictures toolbar (View -> Toolbars -> Picture)
c) Click "Compress Pictures" tool and choose:
i) Apply to: All pictures in document
ii) Change resolution: Web/Screen
iii) Options: Compres pictures and Delete cropped areas of pictures
d) Click OK
e) Save As... under new filename
f) Compare size of new file to size of original file, if it's
significantly smaller try displaying this presentation in PowerPoint Viewer
2003.

As usual, it would be great if you would let us know if these suggestions
were helpful in resolving your problem.

John Langhans

Supportability Program Manager
Microsoft Office PowerPoint for Windows
Microsoft Office Picture Manager for Windows

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Use of any included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm

 

[John O]

That's a great set of instructions, John.

I might clean out IE's cache and add a defrag after cleaning out the temp
stuff, too.

I'm also curious about system resources, since this is obviously a very
large presentation. (how big, Paul?) A system running this kind of pres
needs some breathing room...*at least* 512M of RAM and a few gigs of free
HDD space. Whatcha got in there, Paul?

 

[PG]

Here's what I found out so far:

Looking at \temp folder I found 5,340 files named PPVxxxx.TMP, all of size
0. After doing an experiment I concluded that PPV 2003 creates a temporary
folder for each non-hidden slide in the presentation. [Rest of \tmp was 299
files in 38 folders for a total of 81MB.]

I deleted all 5,340 files and started the presentation over. The
presentation got further before failing to advance (slide 268 instead of
216), but the extra 48 slides came up rather slowly and at uneven intervals.
So this isn't a complete solution. Looking at \temp after halting the
presentation, I found another 356 temporary files (one per page), with the
naming picking up after the previous series ended (was ppv22-ppv14F2 with
occasional missing; now ppv1598-ppv16fb).

I will try some further experiments tonight or tomrrow when I have time, and
report back then.

Things to note: presentation is only about 1.5 - 2.0 MB. All of the 350+
photos and 10+ sounds are external to the ppt file - they are in the same
directory and linked via pathless filenames. So whatever I do will likely
not change the size of the ppt file significantly.

I dont' have ready access to PPT 2002 or 03 at this time (I will in a week
or so), so I can't try option suggested in part 2 of reply to delete cropped
areas and compress pictures. Based on other postings, I gather smaller
files would reduce loading time and make for more predictability/stability
of intervals, but photos in first part of presentation are about same as
those after slide 200 - and first part works fine.

Any further suggestions?

Hi Paul,

You are probably running into some kind of system resouce problem. Short of
actually sending us your presentation on CD for examination in our testing
labs, I would try the following to see whether you can overcome these
possible resource limitations.

1) Empty your systems temp folder(s) to make it easier for Windows to cache
the temporary files created when viewing a presentation which contains lots
of objects (especially pictures) such as the folders listed in the
Environment Variables on the System Properties dialog:
a) Click on "Start"
b) Right+Click on "My Computer" and choose "Properties" from the context
menu
c) Select "Advanced" tab in the System Properties dialog
d) Click on "Environment Variables" button
e) Note which folders are listed for the variables "TEMP" and "TMP"
f) Cancel out of Environment Variables and System Properties dialogs
g) Go to Windows Explorer and remove as many files/folders as possible
from within the TEMP and TMP locations listed in step (e) above (do not
delete the actual TEMP and TMP folders themselves).

2) Optimize the pictures in your presentation so that fewer system
resources are required to expand and display them during slide show:
a) Open presentation in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2002 or 2003
b) Display the Pictures toolbar (View -> Toolbars -> Picture)
c) Click "Compress Pictures" tool and choose:
i) Apply to: All pictures in document
ii) Change resolution: Web/Screen
iii) Options: Compres pictures and Delete cropped areas of pictures
d) Click OK
e) Save As... under new filename
f) Compare size of new file to size of original file, if it's
significantly smaller try displaying this presentation in PowerPoint Viewer
2003.

As usual, it would be great if you would let us know if these suggestions
were helpful in resolving your problem.

John Langhans

Supportability Program Manager
Microsoft Office PowerPoint for Windows
Microsoft Office Picture Manager for Windows

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Use of any included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm

 

[John Langhans [MSFT]]

Hi Paul,

Please provide some details about the images:

1) What size (pixel width x height)
2) What image file format(s)
3) What average file size

Thanks,

John Langhans

Supportability Program Manager
Microsoft Office PowerPoint for Windows
Microsoft Office Picture Manager for Windows

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Use of any included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm

 

[John Langhans [MSFT]]

Hi Paul,

Please provide some details about the images:

1) What size (pixel width x height)
2) What image file format(s)
3) What average file size

Thanks,

John Langhans

Supportability Program Manager
Microsoft Office PowerPoint for Windows
Microsoft Office Picture Manager for Windows

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Use of any included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm

 

[John O]

Things to note: presentation is only about 1.5 - 2.0 MB. All of the 350+

photos and 10+ sounds are external to the ppt file - they are in the same
directory and linked via pathless filenames. So whatever I do will likely
not change the size of the ppt file significantly.

The large number of linked files probably has something to do with this.
Check out this item from the FAQ, in particular the excerpt from a MS
article. You may be hitting the resource ceiling.

http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00401.htm

-John O

 

[PG]

Here's the info on the images, but I think this is going in the wrong
direction:
345 jpg files, total of 123 MB, varies in size from 150 KB to 800 KB.

Why do I say this is going in wrong direction? Because PP handles the
presentation fine - It's PPV 03 that stops working. PP 2000 just chugs
through the whole thing in slide show without hesitating.

Here's some more info that makes me suspicious about PPV 03:

I ran the presentation with PPV 2003 while keeping the Task Manager's
performance tab open. I notice a gradual decline in both physical memory
availability (dropping from 222 MB to 147 MB when it was in the problem
area) and System Cache (dropping from 283KB to 217KB) as the show
progressed.

For more accurate recording, I reran PPV this time recording memory
statistics to a file using Windows' Perf Monitor. I got the same behavior -
and I also could attribute the reduction in memory availability to PPV since
I tracked the size of PPV's working set - which went from 42,000,000 to
129,945,000 bytes. This figure went up and down from sample to sample, but
the general trend over time was gradually upward. This aproximately 80 MB
increase corresponds to the approximately 80 MB decrease in memory
availability.

There's things I don't understand:
1) Despite the decrease in memory availability, there still seems to be
plenty of memory available ( system has 512 MB installed) - so is memory a
problem or just a symptom of an underlying problem? I'd guess it is an
indication that some task is not functionning as it should.
2) There would still seem to a problem with PPV not releasing or re-using
some chunks of dynamically allocated memory. PPV has all the basic
information about the presentation available when it opens it - that's the
2MB ppt file. It knows there are 356 slides (and allocates a temporary file
for each. Going from slide to slide would not seem to be adding any more
memory requirements - the contents of all slides are fairly equal:
generally a picture and a title. The space used for earlier pictures
could be later reused for later pictures - unless PPV knows there is memory
available and is trying to take advantage of this.
3) Why doesn't PPV clean up after itself and release the temporary files it
has created for each slide when the presentation has ended? This can
clutter up the /tmp directory over time, even if the size is 0 KB. Also
since the names keep going sequentially across multiple executions of PPV,
you may run out of digits/characters for the name.

Othre things to note:
1) # processes held constant at 40 throughout
2) # threads had minor variations (probably reflecting different activities
associated w/ different slides) started at 475, went as low as 467, finished
at 470
3) # sections started at 415, went up and down for a while, then settled
into a pattern of gradual steady growth - growing from 415 to 419 in
increments of 1 every minute or two (20 -40 slides).

Hi Paul,

Please provide some details about the images:

1) What size (pixel width x height)
2) What image file format(s)
3) What average file size

Thanks,

John Langhans

Supportability Program Manager
Microsoft Office PowerPoint for Windows
Microsoft Office Picture Manager for Windows

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Use of any included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm

 

[PG]

Thanks for reference to the tool. I ran it and it says "Approx link
storage: 229"

I am not sure what the units are. # links? # bytes? # words?
There are 360+ linked sounds and photos, + 12 hyperlinks within the
presentation to seperate sections.

As noted in my recent posting, for various reasons I don't think this is the
problem, but it's interesting info.

 

[John O]

A couple thoughts here...the old viewer was a derivative of Ppt 97, which
didn't play well with links. That might be an explanation for its behavior.

The new viewer is better, but you still have a wall (per the article), and
you're hitting that wall pretty hard.

I'm curious what happens if you start at slide 50...can you reach slide 266
(50 + 216 noted earlier) or somewhere in that range? If so, then IMO you're
hitting the limits of the application's ability to deal with links.
Personally, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to be fixed unless
John L [MSFT] pops back in with more info.

BTW, you're testing with the viewer....do you plan to distribute this
presentation? If you do, and the linked files are located somewhere other
than the same folder as the pres file...you've got bigger problems. Lots of
info here: http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00155.htm

 

[PG]

In response to your curiosity, I started the presentation, interrupted it w/
right-click on slide 9 and skipped to slide 104. When it got to slide 216,
it just breezed right through. In fact it also went right through slide 311
(=216+(104-9)) and went all the wy though the end at slide 356 w/o problem.
Go figure.

I also tried hiding slide 216 - got problem on 217. This problem is
repeatable. Wish it could be fixed.

In response to the last question, I am planning on distributing this to
20-or-so folks on CD. I looked at the reference you suggested. I think I'm
fine (assuming I can get the viewer to work correctly). I've been doing
this for a couple of years with photos from school sports teams, but never
near as many photos as this. Sometime back I wrote some VBA macros to load
the photos into a presentation and create pathless links. That was before I
was aware of the newsgroup and the various ppt websites. My macros seem to
do the same thing as the commerical tools.

A couple thoughts here...the old viewer was a derivative of Ppt 97, which
didn't play well with links. That might be an explanation for its behavior.

The new viewer is better, but you still have a wall (per the article), and
you're hitting that wall pretty hard.

I'm curious what happens if you start at slide 50...can you reach slide 266
(50 + 216 noted earlier) or somewhere in that range? If so, then IMO you're
hitting the limits of the application's ability to deal with links.
Personally, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to be fixed unless
John L [MSFT] pops back in with more info.

BTW, you're testing with the viewer....do you plan to distribute this
presentation? If you do, and the linked files are located somewhere other
than the same folder as the pres file...you've got bigger problems. Lots of
info here: http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00155.htm

--
John O
reply email is anti-spammed
--

Thanks for reference to the tool. I ran it and it says "Approx link
storage: 229"

I am not sure what the units are. # links? # bytes? # words?
There are 360+ linked sounds and photos, + 12 hyperlinks within the
presentation to seperate sections.

As noted in my recent posting, for various reasons I don't think this is the
problem, but it's interesting info.


the
350+

 

[John O]

In response to your curiosity, I started the presentation, interrupted it
w/

right-click on slide 9 and skipped to slide 104. When it got to slide 216,
it just breezed right through. In fact it also went right through slide 311
(=216+(104-9)) and went all the wy though the end at slide 356 w/o problem.
Go figure.

Well, that clears up nothing.

In response to the last question, I am planning on distributing this to
20-or-so folks on CD. I looked at the reference you suggested. I think I'm
fine (assuming I can get the viewer to work correctly). I've been doing
this for a couple of years with photos from school sports teams, but never
near as many photos as this. Sometime back I wrote some VBA macros to load
the photos into a presentation and create pathless links. That was before I
was aware of the newsgroup and the various ppt websites. My macros seem to
do the same thing as the commerical tools.

Ok, I just started thinking about why you were using the viewer, knowing
that links and distribution don't go well together, but you've BTDT. What do
links give you that you can't get from inserting the images?

John O

 

[PG]

I use links so I can manage the photos and the show seperately. Generally I
get the set of all photos put together first (700 to start with in this
case) - and probaby copy them to a CD for backup. Then I generate the PPT
file with pathless links and spend a lot of time manipulating that - moving
photos around in the show, cropping them, deleting them from the show,
adding sound + graphics, playing with timing, etc. But during that period
I'm only working with a 1 to 2 MB file, not a 150 to 500 MB file. It's a
lot easier/quicker to load and save the file and to create multiple backup
versions (on disk or CD) of the smaller file. When I'm through I can either
put all the original photos on the CD for somone else to browse or just copy
out the ones that are referenced by the presentation.

Another advantage is that you could have multiple presentations sharing the
same set of photos without duplicating the storage. Custom shows
accomplishes this if the shows are subsets of the main show - but if you
want a non-overlapping set of photos or a diferent look for the 2nd
presentation you can achieve this with links.

"> Ok, I just started thinking about why you were using the viewer, knowing