Hi,
One possibility, is that your graphic driver needs updating,
It Can be something else but lets try this:
1- Go to Customize menu, Preferences, Viewports Tab
2- Click Choose driver, a dialog box will open
3- If it's set to the topmost option(recommended), try choosing the one below it
4- Restart 3DS Max
5- In case it didn't work try the third one, and always restart Max. You can keep trying downward.
Note: when you open this Driver Selection dialog, and in Case you're not using already the topmost option(recommended),
Then choose it and restart.
Now if all of these options didn't work, then choose the default, recommended one, restart max.
the problem might be elsewhere.
What is the work around for this problem?
It still exists in max 2019.
The amount of bugs we have to deal with on a daily basis is becoming annoying.
So I've discovered the main cause of this .The issue largely stems if you have objects whose pivots are arbitrarily "too far" from origin (0,0,0). The trick can be to either move your object back to origin for working on it, or if that isn't possible to create a cube or other primitive at origin to force the grid to (temporarily) reappear in all viewports.
I managed to fix an issue with the perspective viewport's grid disappearing in Max 2016. I did:
Tools -> Grid and Snaps -> Grid and Snap Settings -> Home Grid -> and unchecked "Inhibit perspective view grid resize"
2020 this bug still here. Max is a very stable in its bugs)))
I found 2 ways to fix this
1 - Merging model in new clean scene (I always modelling assets in separate temp scenes and only then finish import models to main project scene)
2 - Drawing simple shape in viewport with missing grid
Max 2023 and still extremely annoying. I have no words for you Autodesk. They just dont care. Awful company, just awful.
2024 checking in. Bug still exists lmao. I literally just want the grid to still be visible when I zoom out, despite having no objects in the scene.
Probably never - they just don't care. I think the only way to fix it is to finally switch to blender. And to kinda fix it, you guys just need to keep your models as close to the 0 origin as possible.