I can’t imagine working without Snagit but faced that horror last night.
How I broke it
I had CAD application publishing (digital print to DWF file) and was editing some captures while it was working. The computer was occasionally a bit slow as the publishing consumed chunks of processor time.
While adding a callout I clicked, maybe outside the editor, during a pause. It appeared the callout “tail” flew off to infinity (recreated right). Then Snagit Editor got very slow and appeared not to respond. After a lengthy wait I had to End Task my way out.
Snagit fine, Editor error
Snagit capture was still running so I tried another screenshot. As the Editor launched I got a C++ Runtime error (below) and launching it directly gave the same result.
By now the CAD publish was over so I restarted the whole machine. I hoped it was just some corrupt memory, temp file or whatever but no joy, the runtime error persisted.
A repair install, and another reboot, didn’t help so this was getting serious. Life without Snagit is a scary thought.
How I fixed it
I had a look at the TechSmith Support site but the only mention of this sort of error related to some old XP/Vista runtime library updates. Since I use Windows 7 64 I didn’t even try those fixes. A general web search didn’t point to any obvious solution so decided to backup my unsaved captures, remove and reinstall Snagit.
Unfortunately I discovered the backup function is done from the Editor, not the Snagit capture component, which presented a problem. However it was then I noticed behind the error dialog the Editor was still running. It didn’t actually terminate until you clicked “OK” on the error dialog.
I was able to launch the Editor, run the backup routine and save the file before OK’ing. When I launched the Editor there was still an error but restoring my unsaved captures seemed to work.
I suspected that mutant snag was the cause. Other actions seemed to work normally so attempted a fix before the full uninstall/reinstall.
Find it, kill it, problem solved
If I could get rid of that suspect capture things might work but where to look?
Right Click > Properties on this snag showed none of the normal details (right), just blank fields. Trying to open or delete it took forever and the Editor crashed before it completed the operation.
The backup is a single file so couldn’t see how to isolate and remove one capture. I guessed unsaved snags were stored somewhere in the user profile but where, what would it be called as hasn’t been saved yet?
Then I noticed the Right Click > Open With option (1,2 below) and that was the answer. I deliberately chose Paint knowing it wouldn’t know what to do with a .SNAG file. The resulting dialog (3) gave me the path and name of this troubled Snag. With the Editor closed I deleted the suspect file (4) in Explorer.
Snagit Editor then started up as normal and has done without error ever since. Best of all, my library (literally hundreds of SNAGS) survived all this!
