"Not enough VRAM" error using Keynote 4.0.4 and Leopard w/external display

I'm having the same issues with a Macbook running iWork 09', When the slideshow is played in full screen the same error occurs. The only solution was to reboot the computer with the projector connected. Needless to say this is a really lame solution so someone with brains get on it!

have 2 x MacBook Pro's both have the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M and 9600M GT option in both.

one gives the Not enough VRAM error,
the second locks the screen/mouse up regardless of Keynote

rather frustrating as they are shiny and new and should be the bees knees of laptops 😟

Profmathers wrote:
Has anyone seen this issue? When starting a slideshow on a Leopard MacBook (10.5.6, 2.16 GHz C2D, 2GB RAM) while connected to an external VGA projector, the following error is displayed:

"Your computer may not have enough video random-access memory (VRAM) to play the slideshow at the current screen resolution."

Hi...

I think I just solved the problem you are reporting here!

To start with, I think I need to share how the problem began in my case:

1- I bought this new MBP 15.4" 3.06GHz, 8GHz memory, two NVidia cards (GeForce 9400M 256MB and GeForce 9600M-GT 512MB), SSD 256G, running Snow Leopard 10.6.1

2- Using the Migration Assistant app, I moved everything from my Intel iMac, which has iWork 08 installed and running Snow Leopard as well. I now actually think this is the reason I had the problem (see below).

3- When opening iWork 08 files using iWork 09, none of the iWork 09 apps worked properly. Keynote gave me the error you mentioned: "Your computer may not have enough video random-access memory (VRAM) to play the slideshow at the current screen resolution." However, this only happens when I open the file by choosing File -> Open. If, instead, I double click the file in Finder, Keynote simply immediately crashes. In addition, I wasn't getting editable slides in the main view, only their thumbnail previews could be seen in the navigation pane on the left. Even starting a blank presentation did that. Pages wasn't allowing me to type, and Numbers didn't give me any spreadsheet to work with.

4- So, because all 3 apps didn't work, I wondered whether this was something to do with my imported user-specific preferences, versus a non-user-specific iWork installation problem. I didn't think anymore that it was a compatibility issue (my initial guess). So I created a test account with administrative privileges, and logged out of my account and logged into the test account. Within that new account, iWork seemed to work normally!

5- So as a result of finding that out, I logged back into my regular account, and did the following:
a- Made sure I backed up my system (I have Time Machine running)
b- Dragged the Caches folder from /Users/"me"/Library/ to the Trash
c- Dragged the following files, found in/Users/"me"/Library/Preferences, to the Trash:
com.apple.iWork.Numbers.plist
com.apple.iWork.Pages.plist
com.apple.iWork.Keynote.plist
d- Shutdown
e- Safe boot (boot while holding down the shift key). This takes a couple of minutes.
f- As soon as I booted up, and it said "Safe Boot" in red font on top of the login window, I hit restart, and allowed it to boot normally. What this does is allow the system to safely regenerate a new caches folder.
g- I then logged in normally. Then tried running Keynote, and it ran perfectly, except you get that annoying "Welcome to Keynote" screen as if it was the absolute first time you opened the app. Everything worked normally from there on.
h- So I removed the test account and voila!

I think this is likely due to importing old preferences and cashes from the other machine. If that is the reason, then this must be happening to many others, and Apple should find a fix to this bug.

Hope this is helpful.

Exact same issue here. This happened three times at a conference last week, ironically right after we made the case to allow Keynote presentations. Very embarrassing when we couldn't start the presentations, and had no fix for it other than restarting the computer.

Setup:
2.4 Ghz MacBook Pro (non-unibody) / 4GB RAM / GeForce 8800M GT with 256MB
10.6.1 Snow Leopard
Parallels, running Win 7 RC1
Keynote 4.0.4 (iWork 09 version)
1024x768 Projector connected via DVI->VGA adapter

We preserved one of the computers that had that problem, here were our troubleshooting steps:
1. Shut any other presentations that were open (no effect)
2. Close and re-open Keynote (no effect)
3. Shut down Parallels/Windows (no effect)
4. Close every other application (no effect)
5. Trash Keynote cache folder (no effect)
6. Trash Keynote preference file**

**This seemed to remedy the problem and the presentation opened up fine. However, there is no way of knowing whether it was that or something else that happened in the elapsed time since the error. Also, we took it off of the projector as soon as it happened, but this was without immediate effect.

7. On another machine, completely rebooting solved the problem.

I hope Apple reads these threads, because they definitely lost a lot of face at this conference, with thousands of people seeing Keynote's instability.

Same thing happened to me today. *VERY EMBARRASSING*. At a technology conference, as an IT consultant and Mac evangelist *I was UNABLE to run my Keynote presentation*.

Macbook Air (late 2008) with Snow Leopard 10.6.1 and Keynote 5.0.3. Connected to a projector via a mini-displayport to VGA adapter.

All the steps above were taken, mirroring, changing screen res, deleting media-intensive slides. Nothing solved the problem. Except a re-boot (after the 'presentation')

Outrageous that this should be such a prevalent and visible error. Its this sort of thing that reduces Apple's credibility in an instant.

I'd be interested in a fix, if someone can find one, and steps to reproduce - It would be good to know what to do differently. Other than have a PowerPoint version ready to run on a Windoze machine 😟

I just build a super-spanky Keynote presentation for an important client, who went out and bought a brand new 17" Macbook Pro to give this presentation on Monday.

We set up and installed iWork today and I connected the Macbook to our VGA projector via the miniport. Problems started.... sometimes the presentation would work, sometimes not. I did not get the "RAM error" message, but just a "There was an error" when trying to run.

Doing a bit of digging....

If I changed the Display Preferences so that I was mirroring the display, the presentation runs all the time. Except now we can't see notes. At least this is a fail-safe position!

Sometimes, changing slide content, resaving and running let's it fire up??? ***??

reboot works 50/50

Man.... this is EMBARRASSING....you Apple guys hear me?? Many thousands of dollars spend here to get a PREMIUM experience for my client... and I can't get a basic VGA projector to work with all the new fancy equipment!!!

This was from a completely vanilla, literally out-the-box install.

come on guys... can we have a solution please??

I am going to add myself to this list. This happened to me today and I came here looking for a solution: sort of glad to find others in the same boat. The same computer, same account worked fine last week, but today, with an Epson projector (again which I had used last week) I had this report of lack of VRAM and suggesting I switch to thousands of colours rather than millions -- for the life of me I could not find how to do that.

A couple of things cured this: turning on mirroring, so both displays were the same resolution (I presume), and like others, a restart. With the restart I was able to turn off mirroring and use a higher resolution. As I have a big presentation next week, I will be restarting before the conference -- never had to do that before.

While I had installed the OS X 10.6.2 update before last week's presentations, the only thing installed from Apple since was the 4.0.4 Safari Update. As a note, if others feel there is a problem, it would be useful for all of us (and others) to send feedback to Apple as they do not usually monitor these forums.

Does anybody have an update on this issue?

Yesterday, I had the problem on a projector I had used a few days earlier. I tried rebooting the projector, my Mac, Keynote and every other quick-fix solution I could think of. The company suggested that I transfer my files to a PC and use that because "it must be a problem with Apple".

Embarrassing for certain but I am afraid of this happening again.

Hi,

I had this happen to me today with a relatively small presentation on a projector that I have used twice a week since the start of the year. Changing the display resolution and/or number of colors made no difference. Mirroring with the lowest possible display resolution also made no difference. Any attempt to put Keynote into the presentation mode (both directly and also via ProfCast) generated the error. I have 512 MB of VRAM.

I've filled in the Apple feedback form and hope that they will read it. In the meantime I'll trash my preferences and restart - a voodoo solution at best.

Cheers, Roy

I have experienced this twice. Second time today...on a monitor I often use, and with a presentation I have given before with this monitor! Seems very strange. System: MacBook dual core 2.4 GhZ MacOS 10.5.8 4 GB of RAM and a SSD.

My solution in front of the audience: export to powerpoint format and show the presentation in powerpoint...it worked, but didn't give all the nice things.