When I set a hotspot in a panorama and save the file it will no longer open up in RealViz. I get an error that says this "Error during file load. Hotspot files created in Panorama Conversion are not compatible. Reverting to an empty document." Is this a bug or a feature? Help... i have to rebuild pretty much every pano i've completed because of this.

Hi Carl!
 
You came across an interesting bug I believe... but the good news is it does not relate to the hotspots themselves.
 
If I understand you correctly:
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1) You load a previously rendered pano (referred to now as the "Pano" ) via the Pano Conversion tool.
2) You create hotspots in this Pano.
3) Then you are saving the Pano using the "Save As" command in the "File" menu.
4) When you attempt to re-open this saved file (i.e. a Stitcher project file) you get the error message.
 
Is this an accurate summation to this point?
 
If so the bug is actually in Step 3 - Stitcher should not allow you to do a "Save As". Even if you do not create hotspots and do a "Save As" Stitcher will open up a blank stitching window instead of the pano, i.e. the "Save As" command, when working with a pano conversion, never saves a valid file. The "Save As" command should either be disabled ("greyed out" ) in this circumstance - or Stitcher should open up the pano conversion file. Currently it does neither - the bug.
 
The good news is you can save your hotspots when working on a pano conversion using the "Save Hotspots" command (available when the "Hotspot" tool is active) either from the "Tools" menu or via a "contextual" menu (right clicking w/ a 2-button mouse, or holding down the ControlKey and clicking with a one button mouse). Page 108 in the printed manual has the details.
 
 
So the following procedure should work (at least it does on my Mac):
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1) Load the previously rendered pano.
2) Activate the Hotspot tool and draw your hotspots.
3) Save the hotspots as described in the paragraph just above.
4) Assuming your are not converting the pano to yet another format, close the window.
 
Now do what ever extra corrections, if any, you might require on your pano in an image editor.
 
Perhaps you wish to adjust the hotspots again? Then:
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5) "Load Panorama" in Stitcher for this rendered pano file.
6) Activate the "Hotspot" tool.
7) Invoke the "Load Hotspots" command using the same procedure as when saving hotspots.
8) Select & Open the hotspots file you previously saved corresponding to this pano.
 
You can now edit the hotspots for the pano.