Emergency! File "can't save" anymore!

[DanilBor]

Hello everybody,

I started a very long process for 7 chunks, which now contain dense clouds with 0.8 - 1 billion points each! Today, the process finished, I have beautiful dense clouds and DEMs now, but when I try to save the project, it simply says "can't save file".

The respective .files folder is in the same directory as the .psx. I have tried to create a new .psx and it will work for like a minute, but then abort with the same error.

Could this be, because my project is too large now? Is there any solution to save my project?

Thank you very much!

EDIT: also one of the chunks won't even allow me to export the DEM! It says "Can't write image: C:/Users/...." .. This must be because of the size right? Is there a solution?

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello DanilBor,

Do you have sufficient disk space on the target drive?

[DanilBor]

Hello Alexey,

The hard drive still has 700 GB of available space. Could it be that this is not enough?

In addition: It is also not possible to build orthomosaics! When starting the batch process, it fails all of them, eventhough dense point clouds and DEMs were already succesfully generated. Do you have any suggestions?

EDIT: when I try to manually create each orthomosaic at a time, I get an error saying "can't write pyramid data". Certainly, a single orthomosaic out of 366 images with 460 Million points cant be over 700 GB large right?

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello DanilBor,

Can you please specify, how much space is occupied by the actual .files folder related to the project that you are working with?

Do you keep depth maps and key points in the project? If so, you can free the disk space by removing them from any or every chunk. Also you can remove the orthorectified images for each orthomosaic you have in the project (orthophotos in the interface), as they are created during the orthomosaic generation procedure, which means that for each image there will be additional orthorectified image generated in the given resolution.

[DanilBor]

Hello Alexey,

I tried to fix the problem, but I still couldn't come up with a solution.

So, the .files folder is 32 GB. Related to this, another issue has occured. I re-ran the process with lower specifications, was able to save the project (still without the orthomosaics!) on my harddrive, but now when I want to move the project to my computer, it simply won't react.

I don't even get an error message or anything. I tried  copy&paste and cut&paste but there is simply no reaction. Every single other file on that harddrive is moveable, but not my project, so the issue is definitely not related to the computer or harddrive. All I need are those orthomosaics now, so I would be happy if I could somehow just create them from my harddrive or move them to my computer first.

You said I might remove the orthorectified images. Will this not mess with any of the data, such as sparse cloud, dense point cloud, or DEM? If not, how can I remove the orthorectified images from the .files folder? I have never done this before, so I want to be sure, before I delete something wrong and destroy everything.

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello DanilBor,

Removing orthorectified images wouldn't affect anything in your project, you only wouldn't be able to perform the manual orthomosaic patching via Assign Image tool.
These images are stored in the images0.zip, images1.zip and etc. in the bottom level /orthomosaic/ directory in the project.files folder. (make sure you DO NOT accidentally remove the orthomosaic.zip from the same folder).

Can you provide a complete log related to any failed orthomosaic generation run?

As for the moving/copying issue, which OS you are using? Are you trying to move the project files directory, while the project is opened or closed? The only file that you wouldn't be able to move while the project is opened is lock file directly in project.files directory. But it wouldn't prevent from copying the folder.

[DanilBor]

There is no images0.zip folder unfortunately.

My .files folder consists of 8 folders (0, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, project).. folders 3-10 have nothing but chunk, dense_cloud, elevation, point_cloud, thumbnails, and frame folders..

folder 0 has a orthomosaic folder, but its empty and when I try to open it, I get an error that the file or directory is damaged and not readable. I tried to delete the folder, but it doesn't work.

About the copying issue: I am using Windows 10 and the project is closed while I am trying to move it. I don't even have PhotoScan open when trying to move the files. Could it be, that it doesnt move, because the orthomosaic folder is corrupted?

Thanks for your help, Alexey

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello DanilBor,

Yes, it seems that something happened to the /orthomosaic/ folder that cannot be opened. It affects both project open and copying the folder.

If you wish to be able to open everything except the corrupted folder, you can manually create .files directory with the same name on another computer/drive, copy all other chunks' directory (except "0") to the new location automatically, and for the first chunk (with "0" index) manually recreate the inner structure for everything else.
After that modify the contents of the doc.xml file in the frame.zip archive (in your project.files/0/0 subdirectory) and remove the line related to the orthomosaic in the end of the file. It would allow to open the project in the new location, providing that there are no other folders corrupted.

Probably the corrupted directory also occupies some space on the drive, even though Windows shows this space as free.

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Some recommendations related to "The File or Directory is Corrupted and Unreadable" can be found by just searching the Internet. Unfortunately, cannot recommend which solution is better, since haven't faced a similar issue before.