Xref Scene problems

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone!

I really need help using xref, its really frustating every single time i need to use it. Basically i cant add a xref scene to any project, even an empty max, i always get a crash. But if i try to add it a second time i can without problems. Then if i need to update this xref again a crash. But if i open max again to add this updated xref it works, how is this possible?

Im using max 2020 with all updates, i already tried to add just a single box as xref but i get this same crash. 😞

I already tried to reinstall 3ds max, i even switched pcs but no luck.

PS: All those files are inside a NAS that our office use, we have 50 pcs with the network drives mapped, so everything we use is inside the storage, we never copy a file to our pc, always opening and using directly from the server (using cat6 cables, gigabit switch and adaptive load balance aggregation mode), we never had any issue with speed or access, always using internal lan to work, never external (vpn or so). 

I attached a gif showing the problem, new scene, i load the xref - ok, then i just hit update and i got a crash, i didnt even made any change to the original scene, i just hit update to the same version, its impossible to work like that.

[Diffus3d]

Hello @Anonymous ,

My experience with crashes like these is that they are usually tied to plugins.  Does the problem happen when you try to XRef a scene that doesn't use any plugins or plugin materials?  

Is there a backup service targeting files on that drive that works automatically?  (Like Onedrive, DropBox, etc?)  Permissions or network connection settings would be my 2nd look.  

Does your windows event viewer show any info for the crash?  

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the answer!

Yes 90% of the times the scenes are using plugins like Floor Generator (even after convert to editable poly), Corona materials, Corona scatter or Forest pack, Multitexture.... But on that scene from my post there wasn`t any plugin, just a clean scene with merged objects (all 3ds max, no skp import). 

Permissions i dont think is the problem because i tried to move the entire scene to my desktop, but i got a crash again.

I checked windows log right after the crash but theres nothing helpful there.

One thing i notice is that looks like is related to my scene textures. All maps that we have are inside a 10tb hdd on the server, and we have 8tb filled with all kinds of maps. With smaller scenes or a low number of proxies i can use xref without problems, but if the scene is very big it crashes. Maybe theres some kind of time limit inside max to get all textures when loading a xref? Because i can add it just fine, even if is a large scene, but i cant do anything else, like ignore shapes, cameras, etc... Maybe max is trying to update the scene too fast but is struggling to load all maps? 

I will try to make an archive from a big scene and move to my desktop to check this case. 

EDIT: Same error even with everything on my desktop (m.2 ssd). 😞

[Diffus3d]

Interesting.   If the crash log didn't show a max related fault then it's probably tied to connectivity as you suggested.  I wonder if you could get around this by applying the materials in the master scene instead.  If the textures lived on a network share it should remove the bottleneck if that is indeed the cause. 

The idea that it's a timeout of some kind isn't out of the question.  At the bottom of this article is a brief sentence which sort of alludes to that.  

One last thing to check is that both machines are using the exact same versions of all those plugins.  

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

Ok, i made a new test:

Opened the file inside server - applied a standard grey material to everything in the scene (using ctrl A) - made an archive do my desktop - extracted - added as xref inside a blank scene - not a single crash - ignored lights and cameras - not a single crash 

So the problem are the textures inside server right? But i dont think theres something wrong with the speeds, i can copy to and from the server at good speeds:

Maybe there`s some tweak to make 3ds max wait the amount of time needed not to crash while loading the xref?