topic Re: Not responding! in 3ds Max Forum

Not responding!

whitebirchstudios — Wed, 01 Feb 2023 21:31:02 GMT

My biggest issue with MAX is the dreaded Not responding! There is no rhyme or reason to it. I can pick things, nothing out of the ordinary, and then BAM! Not responding. Here, I pick a vertex, and now I am in a waiting loop before I simply kill MAX. Again, daily, and for no reason. What is MAX actually doing to not respond? No over heating, no RAM issue, no video issue; a MAX issue.

Re: Not responding!

Diffus3d — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 06:59:41 GMT

Did you submit the CER report? You can submit a support case with the CER number and find out which module is crashing 3dsmax.

Best Regards,

Re: Not responding!

whitebirchstudios — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 15:49:08 GMT

I have to kill MAX, so there isn't a report. This has been the same case on any machine, it is just what happens while using MAX.

Re: Not responding!

Diffus3d — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 19:32:27 GMT

My guess is a plugin you are using is causing the problem. Do your logs show anything? (Event viewer or max logs?)

Usually it's a plugin incompatibility issue. Did you install a new plugin recently?

Best Regards,

Re: Not responding!

whitebirchstudios — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 22:25:17 GMT

I purposely only install the major plugins. V-Ray, Railclone, Forest Pro, and the SINI Tools. That’s it!. It isn’t like it is anything new; it has kind of always been like this with MAX. Face it, you can hardly function with vanilla MAX today.

Re: Not responding!

Diffus3d — Fri, 03 Feb 2023 00:44:11 GMT

I get maybe 1 crash a week. Not sure what to tell you, Birch. I have experienced very few of the problems you post about. I'm still on Windows 10 (and will be until it's end of life.) I have all the plugins you listed except Sini.

What about your logs? There's clues to be found... your event viewer logs definitely show something if your system is crashing a program. Take a look, what does it say? Do you have an IT person that could help?

Best Regards,

Re: Not responding!

whitebirchstudios — Fri, 03 Feb 2023 03:11:43 GMT

I peaked in to my MAX log and I am seeing hundreds of - Loaded script: C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2023\scripts\DesignToolbox\common\dstlbxInitUI.mse, which is this script. Maybe this is the issue?

https://youtu.be/zskGfiWOeyo

Re: Not responding!

whitebirchstudios — Fri, 03 Feb 2023 05:22:22 GMT

I also see this - 2023/02/02 19:53:21 DBG: [09904] [35432] WARNING: The Populate data is missing on your system.

This is what I think is always causing issues, which is a MAX thing. From what I read, it is a corrupted user. Almost every solution to every problem is to delete the user and create a new one, which will again go bad; it is a loop that never ends. I loose my customization each time. What is currupting the user?

Re: Not responding!

Diffus3d — Fri, 03 Feb 2023 08:39:11 GMT

These are all good questions. Isn't populate a separate download? The textures or something? Maybe you just need to install those if some function is trying to peek at populate data and it doesn't exist. That would be nice if it was that easy to fix. If it's a corrupted windows user, that's a bummer. But it might not be, it might just be a case of something looking for some of those textures from Populate and not finding them.

Maybe the design toolbox is a script from a while back that gets copied into new max installations but is no longer stable. I know I'm guilty of copy/pasting my plugins folders onto a new version. Otherwise, does it sound like something you can live without? (Doesn't select and place kind of do a lot of this now?) I didn't watch the full video so I could be off there. But an old function on a old script can wreak all kinds of havoc on occasion.

As far as corrupted user, that's an interesting case. (I assume you mean windows user profile and not 3dsmax user data. I haven't had a corrupted 3dsmax config file in a very long time, since 2018 or so.) My guess is that if a Windows machine is powered off without using the windows interface then perhaps it doesn't properly write to a config or data file that it would normally, and things get out of whack from there. Someone in that link suggested something similar and given your expertise it's got to be related to either that or power. (Also, not using things like CCleaner which seem good but over time mess things up.)

Now I think we both know the life of a render artist is such that "whoops, I accidentally set the light cache samples too high and now my machine is locked up, better rerestart manually" is a thing. (or maybe it was subdivs, bad forest pack density settings, too low a noise threshold on a bucket render, you know the game.) Maybe doing a hard reboot like this often enough will corrupt the profile over time. I can't say for sure, but as a former full time render guy like yourself, that was common scenario for me and I have had my windows profile corrupt about 10 or so times in my life. (4 were from Avast, never again.)

There is a relatively easy workaround though. We both know how long it takes to install all software, plugins, activations, etc. It takes forever on a new machine. If you use something like Macrium reflect, once you get everything perfect you can image your machine back to the latest stable working state on a whim. If you have a separate drive for project files and install your programs on your fast SSD drive (C:), then it's pretty easy to get back into the game from your last image. I do a macrium backup once a month. Only downside is having to redownload all my emails again and that they are marked as unread on my local email client.

Best Regards,

Re: Not responding!

whitebirchstudios — Fri, 03 Feb 2023 16:09:36 GMT

The MAX workspace was reset after I created a local account last night. I am pretty sure it is Windows 11 thing, but who knows. I'll tell you now, the toolbar I created last night is gone this morning. It is something with Windows security, BitLocker, or something.

Re: Not responding!

Diffus3d — Mon, 06 Feb 2023 09:05:20 GMT

Windows 10 (and onward) has a security feature where if you have to run as admin to set your UI. (At least, I do.) It's a pain but once I run as admin, set it, and then restart I'm good to go. Bitlocker adds some complexity here.

You always have weird issues when there is a new OS, but maybe you need to disable bitlocker when you set your UI. I don't have that but I worked at some places that did have it and there was sometimes issues like that.

Best regards,

Re: Not responding!

whitebirchstudios — Mon, 06 Feb 2023 20:16:18 GMT

Yes, I disabled BitLocker, and it had no effect. I created a local admin, which is a bit of a trick in Windows 11, and I am now up and running; we'll see. I am having MAX auto-start, which is keeping me from installing V-Ray, and I can't figure out why it is doing that. I kill it and it pops right back up.