3ds max 2022 Crash empty scene

[1equals2studio]

Hi everyone,

The system which is causing issues have been rather stable with 3ds max 2020 and a dozen of plugins/scripts. Since beginning of this year decided to  migrate to 3ds max 2022.3 and can only  say it is far from stable, not to mention rather slow.

Windows 10  has been recently reinstalled  a week ago. So everything else. The system is dual Xeon v4, with 128 GB ECC Reg RAM, and GTX 1070 Ti. RAM has been  memory diagnosed and it is working fine.

The user experience has been fine until today faced an issue which initially linked to the file/project currently working on.

The very same files were working fine on the very same machine with very same 3ds max 2022 and plugins.

The only difference since yesterday is  moving to Indie license.

The situation - if open a file with data inside and start working on it soon it reaches 20 + GB of RAM consumption even though I am doing nothing but plain spline  editing. After the 3rd-4th crash decided to start a new scene and to my amusement 3ds max started with 2 GB RAM consumption and in a matter of 7-10 minutes it reached 20 GB and crashed again. The same procedure were repeated couple of time - new scene - empty - do nothing -crash.

I have deleted stored user setting, trying to reset 3ds max  2022. It reset the settings but the  very same crash experience.  The file  has been checked for viruses  and appears OK.

The machine has another hard disk, which has  another windows 10 installed, which was used prior to the migration. It is still kept intact due to the fact, windows 10 is currently installed onto NVME disk which is used via adaptor plugged into PCI Express slot.  Until today used the other disk occasionally but since faced the crash issue today  decided to give it a try as well.  The very same things happen with the other disk, with the other windows 10 with the same 3ds max 2022 and plugins - crash with empty file after  gradually reaching 20GB of RAM.

Looking for a solution which does not involve downgrading!

[Diffus3d]

I suppose the only thing you haven't covered is if the problem happens without those plugins/scripts.  If not, then you know where to look.  Can't really begin to diagnose a problem like this while they are installed.  You'd have to test 1 by 1 or few by few until you find the offending plugin or script.  You've tried everything else it seems, so there's no real alternative here.  

Best Regards,

[1equals2studio · Accepted solution]

Thank You for suggesting!

The past 24 hrs have been rather intense here.

Due to the  memory crashed I have managed successfully to set on fire tiny part of the the motherboard, by mistake - put the memory stick onto slot which is not supposed to be used  with certain number of memory sticks.

Miraculously , in the morning after resetting the bios, the Motherboard ran, and system managed to run.

After managed to run  windows and consequently 3ds max, tried uninstalling the major plugins installed. All of them were installed more than two weeks, and personally did not expect any of them to be the culprit.

As I am using Corona Renderer and have Vray Next license, was offered  an unofficial Vray Next for 3ds max 2022 version. This was caused by  the need to convert materials between both plugins. Have licenses for both Chaos'es products.

So right after uninstalling Vray , 3ds max  returned to normal behaviour - no crash. Tested several new empty files - the RAM consumption did not increased as it did the day before. Decided to install back Vray and try to replicate the issue  but i in vane . With the same plugins installed , same  unofficial Vray Next for 3ds max 2022, can not replicate the crash issue anymore.

My only guess still remains licenses  - Autodesk or Chaos one , or something related to them, as find no reason to run all plugins for two weeks and have the crashes only when  moved to Indie license.

Regards,

[Diffus3d]

A fire on a motherboard is some scary stuff, but if it's working now that is great news.  I remember filling my computer with ram chips before only to read my motherboard white paper and find out that only certain sticks are supported in certain configurations.  It was an eye opener for me.  

I'm glad though that you are back to normal, albeit with a small smokey flavor to the motherboard in one area.  Wishing you the best.

Best Regards,

[1equals2studio]

OK, the same issue occurs again.

This time with different computer.

Uninstalling Vray does not solve the issue.

Resetting 3ds max settings, does not solve anything.

Computer was shut down properly yesterday. All was fine.

There was electricity outage  for several hours.

A file was sent to me which uses Vray as render engine.  Initially I thought it is something with the file as it kept crashing.

Then decided with new, empty file - again as soon as it reaches 20 GB RAM use, 3ds max crashes.

Looking for a solution as this happens, as mentioned earlier on a second, different machine.

[Diffus3d]

My advice in my first post stands then.  Seems like one of your scripts or plugins has a memory leak so the only move is to figure out which one it is.  (or combination of plugins or scripts which creates the problem.)  

I re-read an earlier post again and you mention an unofficial version of Vray.  With that plus motherboard fires or w/e is happening, I think there's a lot of things to be concerned about here.    

Best Regards,

[1equals2studio]

Maybe You have not read my response carefully.

New computer -new platform, new software, not the one with the fire issue.

I have unistaled Vray and most of the plugins as well, consider the experience back then.

The issue with the same version of 3ds max - 2022  is exactly the same - empty new 3ds max file crashes, as soon as it reaches 20 GB of RAM use.

[Diffus3d]

It's not that I didn't read it carefully, you just left out a bunch of important details.  You mentioned you uninstalled vray but nothing about all those other plugins and scripts.  Is it a clean 3dsmax installation with no plugins and scripts?  Are you using any files that carry over from another location like user settings or maxstart.max files?

I can't reproduce your issue here, so you have to do some sleuthing to dig to the bottom of this.  Maybe this article can help you.  I am not perfect but my experience is that this sort of thing is a result of a poorly written script that is likely loading at startup.  

Best Regards,

[1equals2studio · Accepted solution]

Thanks for replying! Really appreciate it!

So crash issue was resolved. I did uninstall almost all of the plugins which use on daily basis.

One of the tools was a render manager client/server -  Pulze. The plugin is not directly visible in 3ds max but communicates with it. After unistaling the plugin, 3ds max stopped crashing.

What is more interesting that  installing the plugin back did not provoke  further issues. It was the same experience with Vray back then. Like occasionally some plugins which use online username verification, as these two via their client manager services, just break for no obvious reason.

I am wondering where the culprit is as it  could completely break someone's work, schedule, etc.

Is it windows, is it Autodesk 3ds max or it is the plugin itself, not doing things properly?!

[Diffus3d]

Happy to try to help!  That is weird.  Maybe it needed to create some temp files and couldn't?  Was it running as admin at any point to get them installed?  It is a mystery.   Maybe some kind of firewall blocked the installation of a key script or prevented writing to it?  

I am very glad it's working for you now!

Best Regards