How to fix "Unable to locate valid MAYA_APP_DIR. Please specify...."

[Anonymous]

Hello 
 I need somebody help me to fix this problem.  I Used MAYA 2017 student license in windows 10 . When i try to open program it will show massage "Unable to locate valid MAYA_APP_DIR. Please specify a writable directory where Maya can store user data"

  

[Mark.Lancaster]

@Anonymous

Welcome to the community...

Did you google this message?

If you did you would've found a solution >>here<<.

[natasha.l]

Hello @Anonymous,

Have you resolved the issue by using the suggested article solution?  If so, please "Accept As Solution" to the reply to help other customers in the future. 

Thank you. 

[Anonymous]

I am sorry but how exactly did you solve this problem?

[natasha.l]

Hello @Anonymous, 

It seems this was resolved for this member by setting full control Windows permissions. 

• Sign in as Administrator or Create a New User Account (Full Control user)

Let us know if you have any questions. 

Please “Accept As Solution” if a reply or replies have helped resolve the issue or answered your question, to help others in the community.

[shiri.blumenthal]

Hello 

I've installed Maya 2015 and Maya 2018  student licence single user on a fresh installation of Windows 10 pro.

I have the same problem "Unable to locate valid MAYA_APP_DIR"

I'm an administrator and Logged in to Microsoft- It  didn't solve that issue.

My windows is up to date.

I tried all the options in maya.exe  - troubleshoot compatibility - didn't solve the issue.

Please advice.

thanks,

Shiri

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Thank you for your advice. It's true that it can be opened when I was in my new-created windows account. But when I go back to my account (Admin), it pops out the same problem window. Is there an actual solution that let me use maya in my own account?  

---

@natasha.l wrote:

Hello @Anonymous, 

It seems this was resolved for this member by setting full control Windows permissions. 

• Sign in as Administrator or Create a New User Account (Full Control user)

Let us know if you have any questions. 

Please “Accept As Solution” if a reply or replies have helped resolve the issue or answered your question, to help others in the community.

---

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Here are the steps I took to solve it in Windows 10, which I ironically could only find on a Japanese site here.

For those who don't read Japanese:

1.Press the Windows key and search for "Env" as in "Environment Variables."

2. Open the result "Edit the system environment variables."

3. This will open the System Properties dialogue; here, click the "Environment Variables..." button in the lower right-hand corner of the window.

4. In the section "User environment variables for <username>", click the "New..." button.

5. In the "New User Variable" dialogue, type MAYA_APP_DIR in the "Variable Name" field and

6. In the "Variable value" field, type in a directory path to which you have full write access.

7. Click the "OK" button in the dialogue to save your new environment variable.

8. Click the "OK" button in the Environment Variables window to save changes.

9. Restart your machine, just in case.

10. Try and launch Maya again.

This worked for me with Maya LT 2019.

Just a bit on community etiquette: might I suggest to avoid marking responses with nothing but a link as the accepted solution? The link that the provided by the Accepted Solution as of this posting no longer works.

Answering parties may also want to reconsider replying "Google it" as a suggested solution, too.

[Anonymous]

hey

just one thing  i don't get it, what is "directory path to which you have full write access"???  where is that?? 

Edit: it worked like charm thanks so much

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Sorry for the late reply. I should have been more clear.

I believe it can be ANY directory as long as you have full write access to it. (Meaning, not a Read-Only directory, etc.)

In the Japanese example which I linked, the author appoints a folder named D:\maya_projects\defaults -- I am assuming this is where they wanted to store any Maya-related projects. 

Hope that helps.

[Anonymous]

THANKS A LOT!

[Anonymous]

it worked, thank you very much !!!

[Anonymous]

The link is broken.

[Anonymous]

This approach is unfortunately not working in my case.  With Maya 2019.  Tried setting the Env variable, also selected a few different folders when it asks to select a folder.  Maya will launch then crash when I click "import".

[armin.emu · Accepted solution]

Does your user account contain non-latin letters?

I created a new account, the error was gone. Maya 2020 wasn't even installing, but 2019 was fine. Except that it was showing the "Unable to locate valid Maya_APP_DIR...." 

each time I had to browse to a public folder. So I had 2019 running after I reinstalled my Windows from Insider 20H1 to a build from September 2018 😞  coz someone said "it is safe to say 1903 is the culprit". then I searched that may be OneDrive folder protection is causing the error. I had no OneDrive! Then I thought if Maya can't see a folder, may be it's because my user account is a Chinese character 😄 

yep, I created a user account with all latin letters, not only the 2019 error message was gone, 2020 also installed flawlessly. I don't want to get back to Windows 2020 coz it will kill my SSD life span. 

An I  had 2020 running on an Insider's preview OS, no problem because my account folder had all English letters.

NOTE: Changing your account name doesn't help, you must create a user account with type admin. it makes folders that Maya can access without a glitch. 

[Anonymous]

Thank you! it seems that non-latin characters were also what caused my problem; the auto-generated folder "Documents" is not in English, but in my native language. Now I set my path as "D:\Autodesk Maya" and it works like a charm...

[donitachipitaLK4T5]

Thank you so much! It works with Maya 2022 as well

[ariasiao]

Thank you! it also works for 2023!

[tyson.cross]

This is the most common Google result.

[quangvu90nct]

For someone who doesn't know where the path to which you have full write access is. This path is located in C:/Users/<user-name>/Documents/Maya/Project. All you need to do is type in a directory path to Project. If you access Documents but do not see any folders, just create a new folder named Maya, then create a new folder named Project inside.