Shape merge Horror

[whitebirchstudios]

A new computer, the best money can buy, and I still can't cut a shape out of a plane. A simple plane, with a simple rectangle spline. I pick shape merge, select my spline, and MAX freezes. I have been trying for an hour. I have to crash MAX, try again, just to see MAX lock up. Really Autodesk, what is the problem? it is a rhetorical question since I have been having this issue for at least two years, and nobody has the answer.

[spacefrog_]

Post the prepared scene here. Right before you pick the spline to shape merge

Its a bit hard to target your problem if there are so many unknowns 

[whitebirchstudios]

I had to isolate (detach) the area around where I was trying to carve in a small sidewalk, detach (using shapemerge), the sidewalk, and then I attached the area back.