batch process just stops

CO
Posted By
Chuck_O_Toole
Nov 25, 2003
Views
396
Replies
4
Status
Closed
Does anyone know why PS can’t batch process more than 310 images? Every time I create an action and run it as a batch, it craps out after 280 to 310 images every time.
I’ve seen numerous posts here about this (with no solution) and am just wondering what the problem is.
I now use Paint Shop Pro for batch processing and PS for everything else.
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M
MarkATS
Nov 25, 2003
What does your action do? I just processed 384 items using the Save As Photoshop PDF action without ‘crapping out’
CO
Chuck_O_Toole
Nov 25, 2003
My script:

opens PNG file
converts to RGB
resizes image/canvas
save as to PNG/GIF or whatever other format I choose.

I created it using the actions palette. I just opened an image, hit record, did the actions I wanted, closed the image and chose not to save it. Then I run the automation on the folder containing about 1000 images and it just can’t get past about 280 to 310 everytime. I have about 20 actions I’ve created that export the images to whatever format I want and they all just stop after 280-310. It never process the same number of images each time, it just seems to randomly stop between those number of images processed.
Nov 29, 2003
I am currently experiencing this same problem with Photoshop 6.0.1.

I have around 1,300 images I am resizing, cropping, resizing again, adding text to, and exporting as JPEG format. I notice that I will also get around 280-310 images processed before Photoshop gives me an error:

The command "Image Size" is not currently available.

My first batch action after opening the image is an "Image Size", so it appears that Photoshop failed to open the next file in the folder and gave the error above. If I tell it to continue, it will give the same error on the next image it tries to process. In fact, if I try to start another batch process without shutting down Photoshop, I will get the same error immediately. I have to shut down Photoshop and then restart it in order to resume batch processing (from the beginning).

I have not been able to find a reasonable workaround for this annoying bug. Right now I am forced to separate my images into folders in groups of 250 or less and batch process each folder individually–shutting down Photoshop in between each batch process. I’ve noticed that even though I process less than 250, if I start up another batch process without first shutting down Photoshop, then I will get an error early on in the batch processing.

It seems that there is some bug in the batch processor that either doesn’t clear a variable properly or overflows some variable after a certain number of batch iterations.
CO
Chuck_O_Toole
Nov 29, 2003
TTCOM, I thought I had the solution, but it still stops after the same number of images. If you’re using Windows XP, the windows file system will cache thumbnails and create an invisible file called "thumbs.db" in the directory. Go here for the fix <http://www.fcs.iastate.edu/computer/tips/thumbs/default.htm>

I had hoped that would fix it, but now it still fails and the log file that gets created for the batch just shows "start batch end batch" with no errors but it never gets through all the images.

It’s frustrating as hell. I suggest trying Jasc’s Paint Shop Pro 8. I downloaded the demo and it is WAY faster than PS and the scripting is way better as well. Batch processing is much easier in Jasc’s although I really hate having to use 2 graphic programs.

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