Huge file sizes? (Is there a "rebuild project" feature?)

[decon]

Hi all. I was working on a project and autosaving suddenly got slowish. I checked and my file size had ballooned from 3MB (where it had been for weeks of revisions) to 350MB. Twenty minutes later, it was 700MB.

The files seem to work okay, but what on earth is happening? I don't have the disk space to withstand this!

Is there an easy "rebuild" command, where DP can create your project anew using the same soundbites, MIDI, and plugins? (That would solve both this problem and another where one or two projects are especially crash-prone for no apparent reason.)

[mikehalloran]

Do you have Spotify?

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Ongoin ... -p/1476745

[decon]

Nope. I don't use Spotify. But I *do* chronically bump up against my HD running out of space (which this problem is exacerbating, obviously).

Is there a way to open the project file up and see what all that 700MB of garbage is?

[mikehalloran]

Nope. I don't use Spotify. But I *do* chronically bump up against my HD running out of space (which this problem is exacerbating, obviously).

Is there a way to open the project file up and see what all that 700MB of garbage is?

Yes, of course. View the files as a list and you'll see how big each component is. You may have to open a few folders to see it.

If you can't find it, make hidden files visible in Terminal and check them. Copy and paste each line, then hit the Return or Enter key.

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

killall Finder

To re-hide:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles NO

killall Finder

[Guitar Gaz]

I turned autosave off as it was causing huge files - presumably you have checked the autosave folder in the project folder?

[decon]

I am not able to get any more detail than this. The .dpdoc file itself can't be opened as a folder (to the best of my knowledge; I've tried option-clicking and all sorts of stuff), and I'm a little nervous about resource/data-fork surgery on it. As you can see the two versions I've got occupy over a GB between them—and that's *not* including audio files, autosaves, or undos; it's the actual .dpdoc files.



I really wish there were a rebuild script: duplicate the project, but fresh, without the baggage of its history.

[bayswater]

I really wish there were a rebuild script: duplicate the project, but fresh, without the baggage of its history.

You can start a new project, and use the Load command to read in parts of the original project. Try that, and see how big the new project file is after each step.

[Phil O]

Also, don't forget the Compact Project command.

[philbrown]

This doesn't directly answer your question, but I have found as I keep re-saving a project it gets bigger and bigger (more gradual than yours though!), so I occasionally swap out the latest autosave which pretty much seems to stay the same size.

[doodles]

what's in the file? Any VI's? VE Pro?

[TinenTech]

If you're doing a lot of editing on your project, maybe your Undo History is ballooning? You might save your existing project, then:

Select Edit/Undo History
Open the mini-menu, and select Flush Undo Entries Prior to Current Point...
Do a Save As...; the resulting DP project file will be noticeably smaller. And if you need to recover to an earlier point, you can open the previous version.

You could also go to your Undo Pruning preferences and make changes there so the problem doesn't persist...there are good options there.

[David Polich]

Also check your Soundbytes folder for unused
soundbites and delete those. I routinely merge
all non-contiguous audio tracks and tracks
with lots of punches or overdubs and then
delete all unused soundbites before closing the
session for the day.