Interesting Problem

[Dave Melvin]

I work for a group of physicians who do a lot of presentations nationally
and internationally. One of them showed me something today I've never seen
before:

He opens up a presentation on his laptop (WinXP Pro, Office 2003). The
presentation has several avi and mpeg movies on various slides. We run
through it, everything works fine. We then connect his laptop to a projector
via VGA cable to display the slideshow to the as-yet-to-arrive audience. We
go through the presentation once again and some of the media files do not
work! Somehow the links have been broken by simply connecting the laptop to
an external display. Fortunately, he has a copy of Fix Links so a few
seconds later everything is working again.

The presentation and media files are all in the same folder - my
understanding was that PowerPoint would look for the location that the file
was originally linked from, if it didn't exist, it would then look in the
folder that holds the presentation. If the media files were there, they
would play.

I have never seen the simple act of connecting to an external display break
the links in a presentation before. He told me this had been happening to
him and frankly, I didn't believe him until I saw it with my own eyes today.

Anyone experience anything like this before?

Dave

 

[TDunn]

Sounds strange indeed. Can you provide more detail regarding "some of the
media files do not work!" What does happen...error messages, blank, black,
white screen or boxes where the media should show? When is the projector
being connected.....system off, on, PowerPoint open or not? Content folder on
desktop, root of system drive, external drive?

..................TD

 

[HeartMan]

Sequence of events:

1. Laptop is booted up, connected to power. Content folder (presentation and
media) in the user's "My Documents" folder.
2. PowerPoint opened by double-clicking presetation, slides with media play
as expected in slide show mode, back to edit mode.
3. VGA cable is connected (PowerPoint is still open in edit mode, laptop is
still powered on, etc)
4. Slides with media don't play - a still frame of the movie is presented as
usual, when clicked to run, nothing happens, no error messages as I recall.

A total of maybe 60 seconds have elapsed from the time they worked to the
time they don't work. The only things that have changed are - PowerPoint was
taken back into edit mode from slide show mode and the VCA cable was
connected. The laptop was already in dual display mode (no need for
function-f8). PowerPoint was take back to slide show mode after the cable was
connected, slides advanced as normal but media did not play. PowerPoint taken
back to edit mode, the FixLinks add-on was used to reset the links.
Presentation works as it should, media files play as they should.

Thanks,

Dave

 

[HeartMan]

Steve,

Thanks for clearing up my misconceptions about media files being in the same
folder with the presentation and how links are resolved.

That is interesting about the MRU list, but in our circumstance the file was
not closed and reopened - it was open the entire time.
Prior to connecting the VGA cable, the links worked. After connecting the
cable, the links were broken. Running FixLinks successfully repaired the
links and everything worked.

He swears by FixLinks, it has saved his bacon on numerous occasions.

Thanks, again,

Dave