Dynamic Linking Issues

[Smizzlez23]

Is it possible for a document thats corrupted in any way, and dynamically linked from illustrator into CH, end up crashing or glitching the CH program? Or even AE?

[alank99101739]

Yes. Not sure how likely, but definitely possible.

[Smizzlez23]

Thanks for the response. Very important that I understand for multiple reasons. 

My adobe programs began acting up and running slow. Thought it was space, so I bought an external drive and held my files there. I honestly didn't even have that many programs on my pc. That is due to my own ignorance on how computer hardware/software actually works.

The problem persists and even worsens to the point of multiple crashes on AE and DM, followed by an error message claiming graphics failure in CH. I soon got the same error message in AI after my final crash there. A crash that happened soon after I finished a piece on my AI project. 

Ok after updating my graphics drivers and getting no results, I uninstall and reinstall my drivers, to get no results even more. I eventually decide to factory reset my system, feeling an good cleaning would do some justice. No such luck. The error message was gone, but the problem kept continuing. The main problem being my programs ran extremely slow, but also the lines on my drawing were choppy, and when I finally did get to move a piece of my illustration, adobe only showed the outline in blurred lines with no fill. It was terrible. 

So i find myself buying a new hardrive, under the belief that it was a faulty drive system that was the culprit of all my problems. Again, nothing. Even with a new hard drive the problem kept happening. 

So with a stroke of dumb genius I open a different AI file and it works 100% fine like normal. I had clean lines, a fill when I moved objects, and it processed everything at top speed once again. 

So now the next thing I did was download and open a bunch of my back up project files and compare preferences and functionality. Yet though all the preferences were exactly the same on all of my files, including the 1 that caused me so much pain, the pain-causing document still acted up.

Upon the download/open process I would run my CH program to see how things would fare. All things were tip top, until that 1 document that was linked into CH tried to process. So I deleted the adobe file that the artwork linked from. And VIOLA!!!

Everything was 100% workable again.

So that's why I am here wanting to know with certainty from more learned people, Could 1 corrupted document dynamically linked into other programs mess up those other programs. 

Thanks for listening, and thanks for your response.

[alank99101739]

I am not sure, but dynamic linking involves different programs communicating with each other "very closely". E.g. different version numbers cause things to drop dead ungracefully. So a corrupted Ch project if loaded via dynamic linking into another program could make it go crazy - but I would think only if it was loaded. If you are opening a different AE project that does not use dynamic linking to the corrupted Ch project then I would not expect any problems.

To be clear, dynamic linking is where you drag a Ch project into Prem Pro or AE - it is *not* when you load an Illustrator or Photoshop file in Ch. AI/Photoshop do not support dynamic linking. Dynamic linking refers to an output video stream from Ch and linking the Ch project into a video editing tool (After Effects or Prem Pro). If you update the Ch project, AE/PP gets the changes immediately - no need to export a video clip file to disk and import into the other tools. 

Ch reads from AI/PSD files on disk - but to my knowledge that is all. It just watches for file changes on disk, and if a change is made, it re-reads the file from disk. They are just two separate programs otherwise (no magic, just a shared file on disk). Ch never talks to AI in any clever ways (except "Edit Original" that tells the OS to start Illustrator on *.ai files - that is the only connection between them. That should never cause crashes.)

Now, due to a bug in Ch, a corrupt or overly complex AI file might crash Ch. I would not expect that to make AI also go crazy however - they are just separate programs. What *might* happen is the computer runs out of memory having multiple big programs running at the same time... maybe!

So i am not sure I answered your question, but hopefully the relationship between programs is a big clearer. "Dynamic linking" is including Ch output as a video input to AE/Prem Pro. The programs talk very closely to make that work. AI/Photoshop artwork to Ch is just a file on disk - the two programs do not talk closely. Ch just reads the .ai or .psd file off disk when updated. Dynamic Linking from Ch into AE/PP could cause problems if the Ch project is corrupt. Ch should never make Illustrator or Photoshop go crazy - they are separate programs with no API talking directly (to my knowledge).