Max 2024 and 2025 stuck at 73% loading

[briareos_kerensky]

Good day everyone,

I've ran into a peculiar problem.

I need to render complex aircraft models, and I'm doing it with the various parts separated into their own Xref files. These are then loaded as Xref Objects as I need to animate them. This has worked for the past 10+ years, so I used the same project structure when starting with a new plane.

However, with a scene using all "external" components (fuselage, wings, landing gear, control surfaces, cockpit, seats), 3ds Max 2024 gets stuck at 73% when reloading the scene.

The sequence goes (from a freshly started 3ds Max):

1. scene loads local things (camera, lights, paths)
2. scene loads Xref objects. If there are errors in the Xref (like missing textures or geometry), I get the normal error dialog, I accept it, and loading continues
3. loading reaches 73% and viewports turn black
4. 3ds Max sits there. Task manager shows CPU activity, but I can leave it there for 30minutes and nothing will change.

The same thing happens with 3ds Max 2025 and if I load the scene through a rendering manager (Deadline in my case).

The previous aircraft doesn't have this problem, I successfully loaded animations with almost 70 million polygons.

Out of curiosity I saved all files as 3ds Max 2023 files, and Max 2023 is able to load eveything without a hitch. It might hang for a few seconds at 73%, but then goes past it, hangs a few seconds at 82%, and then the scene magically appears on screen.

I've tried to load a scene done in 2023 (and loaded multiple times there) in 2024, but this "73% loading problem" still persists.

All aircraft parts load without problems on their own and they also load as Xrefs in scenes when they are alone.
I tried to link an Xref part, save, close, open the scene, add another Xref, save, close, and so on, but that doesn't change the end result, there's always a point where the scene breaks and won't load anymore: at times it happens with just a couple of Xrefs linked, it's unpredictable.

I can merge the 2024 scene in a new file keeping Xrefs and render settings without problems, but then if I try to load this new scene, I'm back to the loading problem.

This new aircraft doesn't use anything new compared to the previous plane: V-Ray as rendering engine, helpers, bones, various constraints (look at, orientation), IK chains...all things I used successfully with 3ds Max 2024 on previous projects, but this new one for some reason this new project just doesn't want to load.

This happens on Win10 and Win11. I already tried to collapse all unneeded modifiers (boolean, edit poly, material, unwrap) and convert splines into poly, and I delete all unneeded objects.

Can I just continue to use 2023? No, because for the love of me I was never able to have Deadline work with it, while it works with 2024.

Any pointers I could try to solve this problem?

[Diffus3d]

I'm guessing, but if you turn off "Compress on Save" on the XRef scenes, does it work?

Best Regards,

[briareos_kerensky]

Tried to save Xref objects and the scenes they're loaded in without compression but the problem still persists.

[Diffus3d]

After some googling, I found this thread.  It suggests that something is corrupted, though in your case merging seems to solve the problem. I wonder if you have two objects with the same name or using the same name of a material submap or something along those lines. 

I suspect your problem is unique and somehow related to two xrefs competing for a resource, name, or something.  If you have 4 xrefs, try linking only 3 and test opening until you narrow down which xref causes the problem.  Then, try Xrefing only half of that problem scene to see if you can narrow down the object which is causing the problem.  I know, not very scientific, but my experience is that 'this is the way'.  

Alternatively, it may be the result of different versions of a modifier.  For example, if you were working on one of the XRef scenes using 20XX.1 and updated to 20XX.2 for your main scene, perhaps there was an update to say the chamfer modifier.  In that case, maybe it could cause a problem like this.  It may be that merging or importing instead of xrefing has some kind of subroutine to update the modifiers, but xref does not.  (Guessing.)  There's a material or modifier which is likely at the heart of this problem.  

Best Regards,

[briareos_kerensky]

Found that thread as well before posting, but merging doesn't solve my problem: I can merge just fine, save, open the scene and I'm still at that 73% loading.

In the meantime I tried to Xref Scene a file I know won't load into a new file and it seems to load constantly...only that it breaks all look at constraints.

I also tried to link all aircraft components as a scene and that seems to work, but I cannot animate anything.

Before posting I also tried merging aircraft components in a new file thinking there was something leftovers, but that didn't solve anything. While moving file from 2024 to 2023 I did get some errors about unsupported modifiers (boolean) but I solved that.

I already tried to go one aircraft component at a time, and the loading problem pops up at almost random...at times it might be with just two components, sometimes I can go as far as queuing up the render in Deadline.

I double-checking object and material names I something I do by default, and there are no conflicts.

And again, this is not a new process, I've used it for years. I guess there's something somewhere but I can't seem to get a constant feedback.

For example: I tried the compress on save suggestion, and it worked for all the files I've done up till now. I reloaded a scene that loaded after removing the compress on save, and...73%. Killed 3ds Max, opened other scenes that worked, and got stuck again. I thought it was due to Deadline, but no, that doesn't seem to influence the loading.

It's puzzling scenes load perfectly in 2023 but not in 2024 or 2025, and 2024 can load heavier files from previous projects without any problem.

[Diffus3d]

Yeah, that is weird.  Each of the xref scenes opens ok individually? 

[Diffus3d]

Silly question perhaps, but is your 3dsmax version fully updated?

Best Regards,

[briareos_kerensky]

Yes, both Max 2023 and 2024 are fully updated. V-Ray is at the latest version.

The base objects load fine.
If linked as Xref Objects in a file alone, they are fine.

[Diffus3d]

I wonder if windows event viewer shows any errors in system or applications for these freezes.  Could be worth a hail mary.  If nothing shows in the system, then the problem must come from the scene.  It's just a matter of narrowing it down and finding the offending object.  I've had to go through this process maybe 4 or 5 times in my career and it's not fun.  

Maybe you could submit a support ticket and see if this is something that someone internal knows something about.  

Best Regards,

[briareos_kerensky]

It has been some time, so I guess I'll update the situation.

The problem has been resolved, sort of. THe only workable solution I found is to used an external plugin (SmartRefs). For those interested in what I did, read on...

I contacted Autodesk support and started troubleshooting the issue. In the meantime, I asked my boss if I could share files with support.

First attempt: merge every aircraft component in a single file and XRef that. The resulting file was almost 2GB in size and made changes/updates difficult, but...it worked. Everything loaded fine when XReffing this "megamerge" (that's the actual name I used).

So I split the components back to their single files, and the problem reappeared.

Back to the drawing board, while me and support were exchanging other possible solutions.

I then created a separate project where I could test freely. I isolated four aircraft parts that were representative of the rest of the model (bones, IK chains, helpers, materials, controllers, etc.) and then derived five variants:

• with everything
• no V-Ray Decals
• no geometry (only bones and such)
• no hierarchy (just geometry, no skin modfiers, etc.)
• no materials.

And from these five variants, the only one not working was the "eveything". So, there I think there's a skin modifier or similar creating a problem, but after going through all objects, I couldn't find anything that solved the problem. I did find a couple of springs (dynamic objects) with inverted normals (probalby due to a botched cloning) but it didn't solve the problem.

At this point Autodesk support couldn't offer more help without getting the files, but unfortunately my boss shot down the idea even if we'd make Autodesk sign an NDA (and support specified they are under implicit NDA).

At this point I turned to SmartRefs. I already knew about the plug-in and tested it on an older project. Downloaded the trial, and everything worked like magic. SmartRefs did highlight a couple of aircraft parts with the same name, but correcting that didn't make the file work with standard XRef Objects.

After some more testing involving animations, reaction managers, a variety of V-Ray textures and materials, and other stuff, we bought the plug-in in late April and have been working with it happily since then.

I don't know why 3ds Max 2024 and 2025 don't like the files Iìm using while 2023 does, but at least a solution has been found.

[406021091]

I've found some interesting settings that can cause you to have problems and suggest you check them out。

You should check the display performance setting，check “baked procedural map”，The value should not exceed 1000

This parameter bakes all procedural textures in the scene into textures every time the scene is opened, which is  time-consuming operation