Persistent modeling crashes with 2017

[Anonymous]

I've been giving Max 2017 another go since installing SP3. Unfortunately, I'm still seeing lots of random modeling crashes. Mostly when using snapping in subobject mode in orthographic view. Max will freeze for a few seconds and crash, but it allows me to save a recovery file, so no work gets lost.

Still, it is deadly for the workflow.

I've been sending reports every time and making sure these are marked with my email address. Can someone at the Autodesk end look into them and let me know what they think?

[alexnode]

I have some serious crashes today , after the update. I am trying dx9 now to see if it's better. .

[pokoy]

Same here. The good thing is we've been contacted by a developer directly and are providing him with more info, repro steps and screencasts and it looks like they now have an idea on how to fix it.

One thing, can you confirm that the crashes occur only with snapping enabled or is this not the case for you?

Also, always make sure to send the CERs (Error reports) after a crash occurs. One of my employers was hunting bugs yesterday and we sent 30-40 CERs, each of them may contain valuable data for them to track down the cause, the more the better.

[alexnode]

Yes all crashes are sent. And yes snapping was enabled in all three crashes. I wasn't editing anything at that point. One time i exited from isolation and the other i was moving the cursor. So i think it is related with snapping. To be honest i have snapping on most of the times, so it will be difficult to see if it happens without it. I will try figure out if snapping is the case. 

[pokoy]

Thanks. We had a crash exactly like yours, while exiting Isolation Mode, and some while hovering over a mesh or clicking in the viewport; snapping was enabled in all cases. With snapping disabled everything worked fine. Chances are it's the only area that needs fixing.

[Anonymous]

Just chiming in here. I haven't tried the update yet (back in 2016 for my current project), but this definitely matches my experience. Most of my crashes happened in sub-object mode when moving vertices with snapping on. So it very much looks like this particular issue hasn't been fixed. 

New scenes generally start fine, but then crashes happen more and more frequently until it becomes virtually pointless to work on it.

[alexnode]

Hi Bertrand, 

I have to say that after the update (3 crashes so far) they happen out of sub-object level; I think there were a few more bugs before, now it seems more consistent. I will keep you updated with my next crash ( hope it is not in sub-object level with snapping off !)  

[alexnode]

Unfortunately,

I need to move back to 2016 , Max is problematic with 2017 , i have random crashes,

and Vray has some problems too. 

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @alexnode, @pokoy, @Anonymous,

It appears that Pokoy's crash log revealed an issue which the developers are following up on.  (As evidenced by the phone call.)  I had linked this thread in the report and it is being followed by members of the development team and internally in support.  Thank you for listing your symptoms and submitting your logs.   

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

Hey Alfred. So, I started a new project today in 2017. Clean scene from scratched, modeled in sub-object mode on an edit poly and, sure enough, had my first crash after 30 minutes. I sent a log if you mind looking at it. This is the latest version of 2017 with all updates installed.

EDIT: I meant to write I sent a CER report. Not a log.

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @Anonymous,

This is a crash in the ogsdevices module.  This is the biggest issue now after update1, it's had a bunch of comments today by the developers and they are working on it right now.  (I have this thread linked in the comments.)  This crash is the one I had mentioned wasn't fixed yet, and currently does affect quite a few customers.  Were you in isolation mode when you crashed?  

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

Hey @Alfred.DeFlaminis,

Another crash this morning, after just 15 minutes of modeling. This one was a little different. It happened when opening the materials editor (nodes).

Sent a CER for this one too.

Re your question, yes, past crashes have tended to happen in isolation mode. However this scene here is really simple so far, just a few hundred polys, so it's quite surprising to me that it crashes so much. In the past, the serial crashes have only tended to begin once the scene had become quite busy. These latest few seem to be happening a lot sooner and more frequently since the update.

EDIT: Actually, now this scene crashes every time I open the materials editor. Ha! Back into 2016 for this one I'm afraid. God knows I tried!

EDIT2: OK, it gets weirder. Now all versions of Max I have crash whenever I open the material editor. Even without a scene. Looking at my apps under the Windows 10 system settings, I notice Max 2015, 2016 and 2017 were reinstalled on Nov. 30 (this seems to have happened automatically, since I didn't reinstall them myself). How did this happen? Could this be related to the crashes? Material editor was working fine before Nov. 30.

[Anonymous]

Hey, I think you can forget about this one. It seems to be a V-Ray issue.

[Anonymous]

BUT: Now Max 2017 was left hanging with the hourglass when duplicating a large object. I had to force-shutdown. 30 minutes of modeling lost. Back in 2016 again for this scene.

[alexnode]

If you backsave for 2016 just make sure you use the 'removemissingplugin01.ms' from script spot to get rid of your art renderer references.I think that the nigthly builds of vray are also quite unstable in 2017, but i was forced to use them to see if they fixed any of the problems. It ended up being even more beta than it is.

   For me 2016 sp4  with 3.40.03 vray works like a charm. I will give 2017 another go when the next update is out but the problem is that i can't do it for a live project.   

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @Anonymous,

Could you try switching renderers to see if it crashes with say, scanline when you open the mat editor? 

The first thing I would suggest is to uninstall Vray and see if the problem is gone.  I know you need Vray (and so do I) but the biggest problem with this is we need to eliminate plugins as a possible source of the problems.  It may be that W10 is blocking some of those .dll's.  The best way I know how to diagnose problems is to remove plugins and test, install a plugin and test, etc.  It's a pain but it's necessary.    The problem is that Vray is such a huge installation that even disabling it doesn't fully remove it.

I don't think Vray is the cause, but maybe windows blocking some of the .dlls.  This is totally a guess, I admit that openly.  It was working before but now crashes on 2015, 2016, and 2017 then we know there is a configuration, system, security, or hardware problem of some kind.  With any luck, getting to the bottom of it may also help with some of your other issues.  

How many monitors are plugged into your graphics card?  Does the problem persist with fewer monitors?  If it does not, does the monitor you unplugged have it's own driver or is it using a generic Windows driver?  Any kind of extra information would help a lot here.  Thank you!  

Last but not least... those lovely event viewer logs.  Anything new?  Hardware failing perhaps?  Your crash logs say 'ntdll' which can be generic term for "Windows" or 'plugins' as the cause of your crash.  (As well as a few logs with the ogdevices.)  

EDIT:  Max 2015, 2016, and 2017 were reinstalled, it wasn't by you or your IT department?  I don't see how the software could reinstall itself automatically.  It's not even possible, so what happened in Windows?  Was there a Windows update?   Maybe you got a new image from your IT department?  

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

Hey Alfred. These crashes with the mat editor were definitely a V-Ray problem (a problem with the license server in fact). You can ignore those. 

That leaves the ogdevices crashes, of which I had a few today before switching back to 2016.

and yes, Win10 is weird. In my application settings, it marked Max 2015, 2016 and 2017 as having been reinstalled two days ago. No idea where that comes from. 

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

That is weird @Anonymous, but thanks for the update.  I appreciate it.  the OGLDevices issue is logged and being worked on, so I expect it to be fixed in a future update.

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

im also having this crashing problem - i always have snaps on and it seems to occur when i enter sub-object mode. lost lots of work due to this glitch. a fix cannot come soon enough 

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Thank you for the information @Anonymous, I appreciate it.  I do want to see that fixed asap as well. 

Best Regards,

[pokoy]

Coming back to this now that the holiday break is over - hope you all had a great time!

Please can we have this escalated again? It really makes 2017 the most unstable version to date and while there were efforts from the dev team there's still no fix available.

Please note that while some users can go back to an earlier version (subscription/perpetual license), those who rent Max are forced to use the latest version - which is 2017 for now. The sad irony here is that those who did not upgrade can still work with a stable version while those who rent Max pay more and have the least stable Max version ever as their only alternative. For me - and others who need to make their business decisions based on how Autodesk handles similar situations - this will be a red flag for any decision regarding purchasing of Autodesk software in the future.

With the rental model being the only purchase option now, Autodesk needs to provide fixes to critical bugs faster than ever before.