topic Re: Fusion 360 does not launch in Fusion Support Forum

Fusion 360 does not launch

canadianrich — Wed, 15 Jan 2020 20:37:49 GMT

I have Fusion 360 installed on both my home desktop and my laptop. The laptop version previously worked, but I tried it recently, and it gets to showing the screen that just says "Autodesk Fusion 360" and it hangs there.

I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling Fusion (including running the cleanup tool after uninstalling). I've also ensured that the networking is working (I've connected the laptop to the same network as the desktop, and the desktop is able to start Fusion). I've confirmed I have Internet connectivity on the laptop (email and web browsing work). I've confirmed that there is no firewall blocking network connectivity. I've gone through all of the minimum system requirements and confirmed that my laptop meets all them all.

I'm not sure what to try next.

Re: Fusion 360 does not launch

karina.harper — Wed, 15 Jan 2020 23:12:04 GMT

Hi @canadianrich

Can you manually collect your log files and attach them here? Instructions to find them are in this article.

Cheers,

Karina

Re: Fusion 360 does not launch

Phil.E — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 00:27:11 GMT

Does your laptop happen to have Autodesk Screencast installed? Very old versions of that application can cause problems like this.

Re: Fusion 360 does not launch

canadianrich — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 00:35:18 GMT

I've attached the Installation Log File and the Web Services file. There are no Application Log files - the C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Autodesk\Autodesk Fusion 360 doesn't contain a folder with an alphanumeric name (although I remember seeing that dir there before I uninstalled everything and deleted all Fusion folders before a reinstall). The only folder in that dir is "UnknownUser", which doesn't contain any log files.

Thanks!

Re: Fusion 360 does not launch

canadianrich — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 00:49:01 GMT

I do not have Autodesk Screencast installed (and I've never had it).

Re: Fusion 360 does not launch

karina.harper — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 01:02:15 GMT

@canadianrich

In this case, the app log files will probably tell us more. If you can try opening it a few times, that should trigger them being created. Once you have those we will know more about why this is happening.

Cheers,

Karina

Re: Fusion 360 does not launch

lance.carocci — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 20:04:55 GMT

@canadianrich is the problem device perchance enrolled in the Windows Insider Preview program?

Re: Fusion 360 does not launch

canadianrich — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 22:37:54 GMT

Hi Karina,

I've tried to restart Fusion many times, but it has not produced the log files. I've also tried running Fusion as Administrator, and that hasn't helped, either. A couple of times, I got an Autodesk crash report window, and I sent the crash report (CER_212416279). I also tried creating a new Windows User Profile and installing it there (in case there was something messed up in my windows profile), but that didn't help. is there any other way to force the application log files to be created?

Re: Fusion 360 does not launch

canadianrich — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 22:39:21 GMT

Hi Lance,

It is possible that my laptop was part of the Windows Insider Program (I remember playing with that a while ago, but I can't remember which computer I did it on). I just checked the laptop, and it is not currently on the Insider program.

Re: Fusion 360 does not launch

lance.carocci — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 23:24:48 GMT

Based on CER 212416279, it looks like we might be looking at a graphics driver issue.

I can see your device has an i5-2520M processor, which should report Intel HD 3000 graphics. This is a chipset circa 2011, so we might be looking at old or unsupported drivers. Indeed, the version reported here is from May 2016 - I'm guessing that's the latest available from Lenovo/Intel for HD 3000 graphics.

We might want to try forcing Fusion 360 to launch with an older graphics API. Since Fusion cannot currently render the GUI, we need to dig into the files and set this manually.

With Fusion 360 closed, open the RUN command from the Start menu (or press Windows Key + R)
Enter the string %AppData%\Autodesk\Neutron Platform\Options\NMachineSpecificOptions.xml
- If you are asked what program to open the file with, you can use a text or code editor like Notepad, Sublime, or Visual Studio Code

We are looking for a line similar to

<driverOptionId ToolTip="The driver used to display the graphics" UserName="Graphics driver" Value="VirtualDeviceDx9"/>

The default for Fusion 360 is to Auto Detect, so this line might not exist. Is it safe to copy from above and paste it into the document, so long as it is within this section, ideally right before the closing tag
```
<BootstrapOptionsGroup SchemaVersion="2" ToolTip="Special preferences that require the application to be restarted after a change." UserName="Bootstrap">
.
.
.
</BootstrapOptionsGroup>
```

You will probably now see your document containing a section looking something like

    <WantToShowActivityFeed ToolTip="Should the activity feed be shown" UserName="Show activity feed" Value="0"/>
    
    <driverOptionId ToolTip="The driver used to display the graphics" UserName="Graphics driver" Value="VirtualDeviceDx9"/></BootstrapOptionsGroup>
  <NetworkOptionGroup SchemaVersion="2" ToolTip="These are a set of options that are used for network access." UserName="Network">

Save the XML document, and relaunch Fusion 360

This should force Fusion to launch using DirectX 9, which should provide better support for your graphics.

Let me know how it goes!

Re: Fusion 360 does not launch

canadianrich — Fri, 17 Jan 2020 06:35:18 GMT

Hi Lance,

I really appreciate all of the effort you, Karina, and Phil have put into this issue!

I went to %AppData%\Autodesk\Neutron Platform\Options, but there was no NMachineSpecificOptions.xml file there.

So I had an old laptop HDD kicking around. I threw it in the laptop, installed Windows, and installed Fusion, which worked. Then I took the NMachineSpecificOptions.xml from that installation, went back to my regular SSD, and copied that file in. I added the XML line you specified and restarted Fusion. Same result.

If I run Fusion as Administrator, it creates an error report: CER_212433847 (not sure if this will have anything different from the last one).

Thinking back, I changed the email address on my Autodesk account a little while ago, and I don't think I've run Fusion since that account change. Is there a chance my old account info is saved somewhere on my system, and that isn't getting deleted by the Fusion Cleanup program?

Re: Fusion 360 does not launch

Phil.E — Tue, 21 Jan 2020 19:06:00 GMT

Hi,

@canadianrich I looked at your CER history and you are crashing in a graphics bug related to launch. I've asked graphics team to take a look.

For now, I assume you have restarted your computer. If not, give that a try. After that, try updating your graphics drivers and try again.

If I find out anything I'll report back here.

Regards,

Re: Fusion 360 does not launch

canadianrich — Tue, 21 Jan 2020 21:20:50 GMT

Thank you, Phil. I'll try replacing my graphics drivers. I did a very basic install of Windows on an old HDD and installed Fusion, and it ran fan, so the computer itself can definitely run it. I could reinstall the whole OS and reconfigure everything, but that's a lot of work just to get one program running.

I'm looking forward to hearing from the graphics team.

Rich

Re: Fusion 360 does not launch

lance.carocci — Tue, 21 Jan 2020 22:24:42 GMT

@canadianrich wrote:

So I had an old laptop HDD kicking around. I threw it in the laptop, installed Windows, and installed Fusion, which worked. Then I took the NMachineSpecificOptions.xml from that installation, went back to my regular SSD, and copied that file in. I added the XML line you specified and restarted Fusion. Same result.

Let me unpack this one a bit more.

Same hardware (other than hard drive), but new OS?
Same version of Windows, or different?
Where were graphics drivers installed from on the newer, working install?
What antivirus/antimalware are installed (both old and new OS)? Perchance Malwarebytes on the old one, nothing on the new?

Re: Fusion 360 does not launch

canadianrich — Wed, 22 Jan 2020 04:27:45 GMT

Hi Lance,

Same hardware (other than hard drive), but new OS?

Yes, same hardware other than the new HDD, but new OS.

Same version of Windows, or different?

Same version (Windows 10)

Where were graphics drivers installed from on the newer, working install?

Windows update installed the drivers.

What antivirus/antimalware are installed (both old and new OS)? Perchance Malwarebytes on the old one, nothing on the new?

Only Windows Defender is on both the new and old system.

Re: Fusion 360 does not launch

lance.carocci — Wed, 22 Jan 2020 23:39:21 GMT

@canadianrich one more thing for you to try; we tried forcing the driver to use DirectX9, but the other fallback is software rendering: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/fusion-360/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Fusion-360-crashes-when-trying-to-launch.html (Solution 1)

Please let me know your results from this.

Current findings suggest there may be a quirk in the driver Microsoft provides for legacy graphics chipsets - I see a few threads about this in the context of gaming, but CAD utilizes many of the same rendering libraries. Have you tried any other graphics-intensive apps on this device to similar effect?

Re: Fusion 360 does not launch

canadianrich — Wed, 22 Jan 2020 23:49:35 GMT

Hi Lance,

That fixed it! Thank you, and all of your colleagues, for working on this until it was fixed. I really appreciate the amount of effort all of you put in!

Rich