"Processing Failed for an Unknown Reason" - error message

Yesterday was Halloween in the USA, a holiday where people dress up in strange costumes. Having worked at taking special landscape photos mostly, I decided to walk around with my Nikon D750 for an hour or so, and take photos of the goings-on. I took around two dozen photos, narrowed it to half of that, and then down to five images that I enjoyed. When editing was finished, I wanted to export them to a folder in a reduced size, for emailing.

The end result was that three photos were exported as usual.

The other two generated errors:

Screen Shot 2021-11-01 at 19.27.50

Screen Shot 2021-11-01 at 19.28.16

Screen Shot 2021-11-01 at 19.43.49

I will upload one of the two files, along with the .dop file - not sure if I did something “wrong”, or PL5 has a bug. The only unusual thing I did, was select all five images at first, and try to export them, and that started my chain of errors. Now I’m stuck, but I don’t want to change anything yet from what I’ve got now.

I doubt the original files have a problem, as the D750 has been working normally. I didn’t do anything really strange in editing - just basic stuff. I could delete the “.dop” file and start over again, but maybe one of you can figure out what is wrong with the .dop file, if indeed that’s where the error is coming from.

_MJM9431 | 2021-10-31.nef (29.2 MB)

_MJM9431 | 2021-10-31.nef.dop (11.9 KB)

If it’s something I did, I need to avoid doing so in the future, but if it’s a bug in the software, DxO needs to check it out.

I should add, this is on a Mac mini (2018) with 3.2 GHz 6-core Intel Core i7, 32 GB ram, Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB, and the big change from last week even, it’s now running macOS Monterey Version 12.0.1 for the OS. If the .dop file works for the rest of you, maybe it has something to do with my having upgraded to Monterey. If need be, I have another computer, an iMac, upgraded to Monterey - I can test with PL4 (what’s on it now), then upgrade it to PL5, and test it again.

problem with your dop.file (your processing), shown here in PL 5

Screen Shot 11-02-21 at 10.15 AM

That’s good to know, that it is repeatable on your computer. I was thinking of trying PL4, which is still on my computer, and see if PL4 has the same problem.

If there is a problem with the .dop file, then the question is how did this happen. Is there a “debugging” mode I can turn on, or can the DxO technicians track it down, so it won’t happen to anyone else?

I now have two separate images that both have the same issue. Again, the only thing I did differently last night from what I usually do, was to select all five images and try to “export” all of them simultaneously.

If it is a problem with the .dop file, how can we find out what the specific problem is, so DxO can prevent it from happening to other people?

Since you get the same result as I do, a problem processing the .dop file, I think the next thing I should do is to open PL4 and see if it also generates the same error.

Another thing I (or anyone) can do, is to take the history for processing this image, go back to the previous step, and try again. If that fails, go back another step in history, and try. At some point the problem ought to go away, which would tell us which step “broke” the processing.

Or, if the .dop file has an issue, which I think you’ve proved it does, DxO could review the code, and figure out why this happened, and how to modify PL5 so it is no longer an issue.

It’s 6am here now, and I woke up wondering what people might have found. Time to go back to bed for one more hour’s worth of sleep. I think my next step will be to try using PL4 and see if it works with this .dop file or not. If so, then it’s most likely a bug in PL5.

(I can upload the other file that doesn’t work, along with that .dop file if it would be helpful.)

Mike, I downloaded your files and put them in a directory, reachable from PL5.
I started PL5 (version 5.0.1.41) and opened your NEF-file.
Then I made an export to jpeg and all went well. No error messages at all and the jpeg looked good.
My OS is Big Sur (11.6.1) on an iMac 2017 with 16 GB RAM and I7 processor 4.2 GHz.
So, maybe it is a problem associated with Monterey, I do not know.
I also tried an export with PL4 and the result was the same.

Thanks, and we are running the same version of PL5.
Monterey might well be the problem, but if so, DxO needs to sort this out.

I can do several things:

  • Try PL4 which is still on my computer, and see if that gets the same error message.
  • Re-start the computer, and try again with PL5
  • Install PL5 on my iMac (also running Monterey) and test it
  • Creat a VC and see if that generates the same error
  • Un-do all my changes to the image, and see if I can then export it.

If it is Monterey, DxO needs to figure out which correction tool causes the error.

From what you just wrote, I think Monterey is the most likely cause of the problem. Thanks! I wonder if anyone else on the forum also has Monterey, and if they get the same problem I get…

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Update - I made a VC.

Here’s the history:
Screen Shot 2021-11-02 at 07.11.54

I then cleared out everything above “Applied Default Preset”

I tried to export again, and it exported properly:

So one of those changes shown in “history” is the likely problem.

I worked my way up the “history” list, and as soon as I selected "Noise Reduction Method: DeepPRIME the export failed.

Thank you Bjoran - I think this narrows it down to DeepPRIME, and maybe that’s because of Monterey.

I then went back to the VC, with all of history turned on, and changed from DeepPRIME to PRIME. With that change, the image exported with no errors.

(It’s not a great image, just a snapshot, but that’s irrelevant. I suspect it will work find on Big Sur, but I have no way right now to test that… but you did test it, and it worked for you with Big Sur.)

Getting closer…

You are welcome Mike, I hope now that DxO will help you with this.

No wonder you got a fault, when contracting with the ‘devil’ :slight_smile:


Ok, more seriously

  • Did you crop off your watermark ?
    → I can’t see that (always have to undo), but then your history shows that you cropped first.
  • Is it a memory (RAM) problem ?
    → Is it the first time you exported that number of pics at once?
    The problem could have been there already with PL 4.
  • And then, there were pics you could export w/o problem.

The screenshot from your pic w/ dop-file showed me, that there was a problem with your processing.
– but it’s not ‘repeatable’ on my side.

  • I had the watermark undone, made a VC and could export from it – without problem.
  • To countercheck I deleted everything in PL5, closed the program, then only copied the raw-file to my test folder and exported in PL5 as before – without problem.

I’ll go with this answer!!! :slight_smile:

I never added a watermark to some images, as I was just trying to figure out what is/was broken.

Yes, it was the first time I exported that number of images at once, but that is not the problem, as it happened today on exporting just one image.

It may not be repeatable on your side, because you’re not using Apple Monterey?

Many hours later, I downloaded some new photos taken of an iguana again. Out of all the images, one was good enough for me to keep. I edited it, and tried to export it, using DeepPrime. I get the error again. I also got it on another one of my Halloween images - again, turning off DeepPrime and switching to Prime fixed the issue. I should add that the DeepPrime processing of my exported images takes a long time. Maybe some “buffer” is running out of space?

I turned off DeepPrime, and selected the old Prime. Everything worked fine. Here’s the exported image:

Most of the time DeepPrime works. Maybe three out of ten tries it “crashes”. Every time it “crashes”, if I switch to Prime, it exports fine. The only real change I made to my computer was to upgrade to Monterey.

I have two utilities that monitor “diagnostic” information. Next time I will leave those running, and process an image that always crashes in DeepPrime, and see if there are any obvious signs of something being wrong.

I read that DxO turned off some features in the macOS release because of compatibility issues with Monterey. Maybe this is something similar.

Well, I can’t help you with Monterey – or can you go back to the former OS version?
Didn’t run it properly?


nice Iguana shot!

Yes, the previous OS, Big Sur, ran fine, but Apple is constantly upgrading their OS to provide new features and correct bugs. macOS Monterey is going to allow my Mac compute to work better with my iPad, and supposedly my keyboard and mouse will also control the iPad, along with allowing the compute to use the iPad as “another screen”.

What I don’t know how to do is run a “log file” for diagnostics, which I could send to the tech people at DxO who would identify the error and fix it (if the error is Monterey causing PL5 to fail).

As for the iguana, I saw it, and walked past it, and stopped. It looked at me for a while, then it moved forwards several feet. So, I looked away, moving past it, but getting closer. We both played this game until I thought I was close enough, when I raised my camera, and turned to aim the camera at the iguana, with my face hidden by the camera. The iguana stared at me while I took photos of it, getting lower and a little closer. Eventually I stood up, lowered my camera, and stared at it, as it stared back at me. We did this for a while, until it got bored with me I guess, turned, and walked away. So I moved away too, and went food shopping. Oh, I was NOT as close as the photo makes it look, probably four feet away. For me, and I guess for the iguana, that was close enough.

Back to the discussion, maybe Monday some tech person at DxO will ask me to run some tests to try to figure this out, or maybe they already know about it?

I ran “Activity Monitor” while Exporting.

I have no idea what “XPCCor1” is or does, but when I’m not using PL5, its CPU is 0 %

While Exporting I got this:

I thought I saw it up to over 600. And when Exporting finished:

I have no idea if this is a useful clue. However, this link mentioned it for an earlier version of macOS:

https://forum.dxo.com/t/dxo-photolab-2-3-1-b43-export-doesnt-work/9420

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Hey sir I’m still operating on PL4 and I have had pretty much nonstop issues and problems with respect to processing and exporting files ever since I updated the software on my MacBook Air… I’ve encountered similar problems throughout my time that I found this photo editing program, it gets quite annoying and I’m terrible at troubleshooting tech issues… In addition to getting the same exact notification that you did with respect to the file not exporting, now I’m getting an even larger problem with Photo out for only allowing me to now use the prime option as when I try to select the deep time there is a grade out area where the preview window is for the noise reduction of the deep prime and it says it will be offered soon by Apple’s new software… So the only thing I can do is run it through the prime which isn’t nearly as good for some of my high ISO images and try to do it like that which sucks because I paid all this money specifically for the one thing that’s not working

That’s the fun part for early birds.

Hello,

Could you please try to collect logs either by copy-paste it from Console or using diagnostics script you can find here https://download-center.dxo.com/PhotoLab/diagnostics/DxODiagnostic.command.zip ?
If you need any help about how to use this script just ping me.

Best regards, Alex

Hello,

There is a known issue with macOS Monterey and DeepPRIME. We expected this to happen mostly only with the loupe, which is why loupe is disabled in this case. This was one important reason for DxO PhotoLab 5.0.1 release. In the meantime, export with DeepPRIME remains enabled.

We’ll see with the logs that @akarlovsky asked if the issue that you and @mikemyers noticed are the same issue as what we already know for the loupe.

Regarding the issue with loupe, here is the information we have so far:

  • when the issues happens, the application crashes. Exports are done in a separate XPCCor process as @mikemyers already saw. XPCCor crashes are one of the possible reasons for the failure with “unknown reason”
  • it happens randomly but is much much more likely to happen with the loupe than an export, which is why DeepPRIME export are still allowed
  • it is specific to macOS 12 when processing DeepPRIME on CPU, it does not happen with Apple Neural Engine or an AMD GPU, or with macOS 11
  • Apple was made aware of this issue a few weeks before macOS Monterey was officially released, and at the moment the issue remains

Best regards,
Lucas

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Certainly!! Will do, later today. I think this is exactly the right tool, so DxO will understand where the real problem is. Thank you!!!

I should add that for me, while this is an annoying issue, I can, and still, use PL5 exactly the same as before. The program has never yet “crashed”. When the EXPORT fails, I just switch to PRIME instead of DeepPRIME and that always works.

Also, an image that breaks DeepPRIME does so no matter how many times I try. The next image in my photo sequence usually works fine. I can post two very similar images here, taken within minutes of each other, and you can use my .dop file and probably get consistent results as to breaking the process, or not.

When I get home this morning, I will take an image that “breaks” DeepPRIME and un-do all the changes I have made, so I’m back to the original image, and ONLY select DeepPRIME and test if it works. If it does work, then something else I have done is what causes DeepPRIME to break. This will be an interesting test.

Lucas, if you look over my Halloween photos, the ones that I used DeepPRIME for are the ones that processed correctly. The very similar images that you’ll find where I only used PRIME were the images with the problem.

When I tracked it down to DeepPRIME, I thought I was finished with what I was able to do or test, but thinking about it now, it might be because of DeepPRIME, and ALSO one of my other corrections. I’ll see if I can figure this out.

In the meantime though, I’m now able to do just about everything I want, and if DeepPRIME doesn’t work, I just use PRIME. For me, it’s not that big a deal - sort of like getting a piece of cake that came without the icing on top. The cake still tastes great!! …and I am still happy. I’ve been doing computes since I started out with IBM punch cards, and I’'m always surprisingly happy when things DO work as they should. I’ve learned to always expect problems, and then try to figure them out. I used to work in the Quality Control Dept. at a software company, because I was so good at getting software to break. :slight_smile: