Exporting a still frame from Motion 5

Doug,

Maybe I don't quite understand the issue. From Motion 5 "share" menu I select "Save Current Frame", give it a name and pick a format such as JPG, and off it goes. i don't try to do this by exporting to compressor. It works fine for me. The catch-all fix for most of these is to delete your user preference file for Motion and try again. Seems to reset most 'bugs" Hope this helps.

Hmmm. I can suggest a few other things that have worked for me if nobody responds with a better idea. I have had random failures like this that just seem puzzling at first, but turn out to be a permissions issue. I had a Photoshop file that refused to save until I fixed permissions on my hard drive. Why they get off from time to time is a mystery to me. Launch your Disk Utility in Applications:Utilities and verify your disk permissions. If that's ok, make sure your codecs are up to date or haven't become corrupted. Perian codecs for Quicktime works perfectly for me - which is at Perian org.

I don't know how you installed Motion 5 in relation to Final Cut Studio from before. I haven't had issues with both M5 and M4 on the same boot partitian but I followed the recommended installations. If you didn't follow recommended installation steps then review them and see if something clicks there. And, I had a menu item in Photoshop called "magic extractor" that just didn't exist despite what the web was telling me. Uninstalled Photoshop, reinstalled and voila it appeared.

And as a really desperate workaround, I have expanded the frame to full screen and then hit Command Shift 3 to take a screen shot of the image. Hope this helps.

Doug,

I'll ask around and keep trying to help you. It's the "domain error" that makes me think it's file permissions problem. In addition to permissions, there's a verify disk button on the right. if your file is trying to save to a spot on the hard drive that is corrupted, it will keep trying about ten times then give up. There will be no indication you have a bad spot on the drive. Be sure to check that as well and please let me know how it's going. thanks.

I have the same problem. I have loaded Motion 5 on three different dual quad machines trying to figure out the issue and the problem exists on all machines. I want to purchaces Motion for a large group of machines, but this issues makes it a no go. I hope Apple gets their act together because this feature used to work flawlessly in all other versions of Motion. What a drag.

This won't help anyone I'm sure but for the record I had major issues with that Mac and ended up getting it replaced. Totally fresh re-install and now all is working well.

I'm still flying along no problems. A friend of mine developed the problem, and by updating his codecs it seemed to fix it. He went to Perian and installed the latest version of their Swiss knife. Can't hurt to try. Good luck.

Now 4 years later, and Apple STILL hasn't fixed this problem - so frustrating.

All that permissions advice solves nothing for me, still get the hanging/spinning wheel while Motion tries to (unsuccessfully) export a single still frame from the Motion project - it exports a full ProRes 4444 project in less time than it takes to prepare to save a single frame! Ridulous.

If Apple spent more time fixing these bugs than they did releasing "exciting" new versions of Motion 5 with not-very-useful new features like a Manga line generator (which I will likely never use) the dwindling community of Motion users would be so much happier - I know.

The only work around I've found for this problem is to export "video" of the frame or frames wanted. Import to FCP, (FCP 7 in my case) and export using Quicktime Conversion, which allows a single frame to be exported... that gives me what I need, but with a silly round tripping via FCP...

Hope that helps.

J

This is certainly not a widespread problem.

Most people have no trouble with "Save Current Frame", so you should not assume it is a general bug.

It is more likely a local issue that may be more or less difficult to troubleshoot.

Let's start with specific information, like Motion version, OS version, Mac model; possible conflict-inducing plug-ins or extensions (the OP mentioned he had Perian installed, which has been abandoned years ago and is not recommended on recent OS versions - I'd look at that as a possible cause).

Did you delete the application preferences? In the current version of Motion, this is easy to do (hold down command and option while starting the application and confirm). For older versions you should use the Preference Manager application.

Thanks Luis,

Perhaps so. But I have heard of many others experiencing this problem beyond this particular thread.

I have deleted the prefs, with the technique you describe, and the problem persists.

I am on the latest verision of Motion (5.2.1) and on Yosemite (10.10.2) am on a new (cylinder) Mac Pro (Late 2013).

Graphics card: AMD FirePro D700.

I do have several plug-ins running with Motion (Reel Smart Motion Blur, Twixtor, Red Giant Looks and few others) but figuring out which one may be conflicting with this seemingly simple task of saving a current frame, is a bit of a needle in a hay stack. I actually get an error message from Motion when trying the save current frame.

Or if it's a Permissions problem, I don't know how to solve that... why are Permissions in their default state, often a culprit with Mac problems?!

What error message do you get, exactly? It may provide important clues as to where the issue lies. Can you post a screenshot of the error alert?

Permissions in their default state don't cause problems; only (sometimes) when they are wrongly set. Usually that happens because some installer messed up.

But unless the error message suggests that is the problem, I don't see permissions playing a role here (I could be wrong, of course).

Well, not an error exactly, just a message that says "SHARE FAILED"

Screen shot of that message here:

Any other suggestions Luis, would be much appreciated.