Cinema4D Consistently Crashing Upon Quitting App After Rendering With C4DtoA

[brianswarthout]

Hello,

I've been experiencing consistent crashes when I quit Cinema4D only within in projects in which I render with Arnold.

I have tried a number of behaviors to see if I can reduce the probability of a crash upon quit...

• Flushing Arnold caches before quitting
• Ensuring the Arnold IPR is not running during quit
• Simply waiting a bit after rendering (IPR and offline) before quitting
• Turning off auto-tx creation

None of these behaviors result in fewer crashes. It is worth noting that I don't experience these crashes as much on simple scenes with simple materials that are not loading textures from disk.

Which log/report files should I post to help get to the bottom of this issue?

OS: MacOS 13.5.1

Hardware: Mac Mini M2 Pro (32 GB Ram)

C4D: 2023.2

C4DtoA: 4.6.4.1

Thanks in advance for any help or advice.

- Brian

[peter_horvath]

Hi Brian, thanks for reporting the issue. Does the Autodesk Crash Report dialog pop up when the crash happens and have you sent in a crash report already? You can also check if there's a Cinema 4D crash report. You can find the preferences folder if you go to Edit > Preferences, then click Open Preferences Folder… at the bottom. Normally it's in ~/Library/Preferences/Maxon Cinema 4D 2023_XXXXXXXX. Look for _BugReport.txt in the _bugreports folder.

You can also check the macOS crash logs: Open the Console app from the Application > Utilities, you should see the log files.

[peter.fagerberg]

I have no idea if this will help, but I was also experiencing all sorts of strange behavior with C4D and Arnold, and I believe it started just after upgrading to C4D 2023.2. It turned out to be my old trusty default startup file (new.c4d) that suddenly wasn't up to date. The file worked fine, but I was experiencing all sorts of strange app behavior. Apparently, something changed in the default file's format along the way...

So try updating your new.c4d (if you're using one) by just overwriting it or creating a new one from scratch. Remember that these files can be stored either in the "/Maxon Cinema 4D 2023" app directory or in the preference folder.

[brianswarthout]

Thanks Peters!

I'm still gathering crash reports and logs related to this issue and will update this thread when I have more to share. Thanks for the tip regrading the startup file; I'll see if that helps.

[brianswarthout]

Hello Peter,

Thanks for the info. The Autodesk Crash Report dialog has popped up in the instance I speak of but it's uncommon. The MacOS crash report dialog does appear every time there is a crash when quitting Cinema4D (which occurs 9/10 time I quit after rendering using C4DtoA. Attached is the crash report I receive.

Let me know if more logs/info would help troubleshoot the issue.

Thanks,

- Brian

[peter_horvath]

Unfortunately I can not tell much from this report. When the Autodesk Crash Report dialog pops up next time, please send in the report and let me know the report number.

[peter_horvath]

By the way, does it also crash with a very basic scene, like a Sphere and a light?

[brianswarthout]

Hi Peter,

thanks for taking a look at the crash report. I’ll be sure to follow up with the Autodesk Crash Report if one does display.

Regarding scene size/complexity… while larger, more complex scenes consistently present this issue, simple scenes do as well, just not as frequently.

[brianswarthout]

Hi Peter,

I just fully reinstalled Cinema4D and C4DtoA, built a simple scene consisting of a sphere (w/ an Arnold Stand Surface applied) and quad light. After rendering the scene in the Arnold IPR, I quit Cinema4D and Cinema4D crashed while quitting. I've reached out to Maxon and since this issue only occurs when rendering with Arnold, they claim it's an issue I need to report to AutoDesk. Thought I'd share the latest.

Thanks,

- Brian

[brianswarthout]

Hello again,

After reinstalling Cinema4D and C4DtoA, I realized that Cinema4D is crashing upon quitting the app even if I do not render with C4DtoA. So, I reinstalled Cinema4D again and did not install C4DtoA this time and have not experienced any crashing when rendering in Cinema4D using Redshift or any of the other default renderers. So, it appears this issue is related to C4DtoA being installed on the system.

Thanks,

- Brian

[peter_horvath]

Unfortunately, I can not reproduce the crash. Cinema 4D 2023.2.2, C4DtoA 4.6.4.2, fresh install. Apple M1, macOS 13.5.1.  Loaded a scene with a Sphere, standard surface and quad light, started IPR, quit Cinema 4D. Tried a few times, but no crash. I'm wondering if it's maybe M2 specific.

[brianswarthout]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for continuing to investigate this issue. I also wonder if it’s M2 specific. Fingers crossed an update to MacOS, C4D or C4DtoA magically fixes the issue.

Thanks,

- Brian

[brianswarthout]

Hello,

Posting the latest new regarding this issue. I have not experienced the Cinema4D crash upon quitting the app ever since updating to MacOS 13.5.2 this morning; even when rendering heavy scenes with C4dtoA. Will keep this thread posted if anything changes.

[peter_horvath]

---

@brianswarthout wrote:

Hello,

Posting the latest new regarding this issue. I have not experienced the Cinema4D crash upon quitting the app ever since updating to MacOS 13.5.2 this morning; even when rendering heavy scenes with C4dtoA. Will keep this thread posted if anything changes.

---

That's promising. Sure, please let me know if the crashes return.

[mat6R44J]

Hello,

I've been experiencing the same exact problem recently, right after updating to Arnold 7.3.1.0. I'm also on an M2 Mac, but mine is an M2 Ultra. My scene uses mograph cloners, which is the only thing that I can think would make it unique. This only seems to happen after I use the IPR; should I open the project, make changes, then save without ever using the IPR, the project saves without issue. On the other hand, if I do the same thing, but preview in the IPR, the scene will crash on save about 80% of the time. It's very frustrating. Luckily, and perhaps strangely, the autosave appears to work well enough, so I can rely on it to get me out of trouble as I work. I'm on macOS Sonoma 14.2.1 and running Cinema 4D 2024 3.2.

[peter_horvath]

---

@mat6R44J wrote:

I've been experiencing the same exact problem recently, right after updating to Arnold 7.3.1.0. I'm also on an M2 Mac, but mine is an M2 Ultra. My scene uses mograph cloners, which is the only thing that I can think would make it unique. This only seems to happen after I use the IPR; should I open the project, make changes, then save without ever using the IPR, the project saves without issue. On the other hand, if I do the same thing, but preview in the IPR, the scene will crash on save about 80% of the time. It's very frustrating. Luckily, and perhaps strangely, the autosave appears to work well enough, so I can rely on it to get me out of trouble as I work. I'm on macOS Sonoma 14.2.1 and running Cinema 4D 2024 3.2.

---

The original issue was about crashing when the application was closed. If I understand correctly you experience crashes when saving the project. Is that right? Sounds like a different issue then. Do you also have crashes when closing Cinema 4D?

Do you have this issue in every scene or just a specific one?

You mentioned updating to Arnold 7.3.1.0 (C4DtoA 4.7.1). Was the same scene working properly before with a previous version? If so, which version was it?

So crashes happen only after using the IPR. What about running a render to the Picture Viewer instead, does the scene crash as well?

Does the Autodesk crash report dialog show up? Or do you have a Cinema 4D / mac crash report maybe?

[mat6R44J]

Thanks for responding so quickly. Yes, you're correct, it crashes when saving. It only crashes after I've used the Arnold IPR and then try to save. If I open the same project, make changes, then save without ever using the IPR, the project saves properly. I can render frames with the Picture Viewer, however, and the save issue doesn't happen. It seems to only happen in projects with Mograph cloners, so far as I can tell. This may be irrelevant now because I've just updated to the latest version of C4D today, along with the latest version of C4DtoA 4.7.2, but I will return with comment if the problem persists.

One new and unrelated issue I found today is motion blur doesn't render with particles. When activated, the particles do not render in the IPR or Picture Viewer at all. I know it's completely unrelated, but figured I'd mention it in case it helps.

[peter_horvath]

Sure, let me know if it still happens with C4DtoA 4.7.2.

About the motion blur issue, are these the new 2024.4 particles or Thinking Particles or X-Particles?

[mat6R44J]

Hello again - yep, still happening with C4DtoA 4.7.2.

For the motion blur issue, it's with the new 2024.4 particles. Today I also discovered the same motion blur issue exists with Pyro. I was aware of an earlier workaround which allowed an adjustment of the velocity scale to account for a C4D inaccuracy when writing motion vectors in VDBs, but that didn't work this time. Perhaps all of it is related to the same problem?

[peter_horvath]

---

@mat6R44J wrote:

For the motion blur issue, it's with the new 2024.4 particles. Today I also discovered the same motion blur issue exists with Pyro. I was aware of an earlier workaround which allowed an adjustment of the velocity scale to account for a C4D inaccuracy when writing motion vectors in VDBs, but that didn't work this time. Perhaps all of it is related to the same problem?

---

There are some known issues/limitations with particle motion blur:

• Motion blur does not work in the IPR window, only when rendering to the Picture Viewer.
• No motion blur by default, you have to add an Arnold tag to the Particle Group to render motion blur. (This will be fixed in the next hotfix release, so motion blur will render without the tag by default.)
• If 'Use motion vector' is disabled, you have to cache the simulation to render motion blur properly.

Besides the above, motion blur renders fine for me. If you still have issues, could you please send me a basic scene to take a look at?