Custom Maya 2016 plugin doesn't want to load

[Anonymous]

Hi, I have a problem with not being able to load a custom Maya plugin. All my other teammates were able to download the plugin and load it. But for my laptop it just refuses to work. I am pretty sure I am putting the files in the correct folder.(C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2016\plug-ins &  C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2016\modules ). And the file is there but Maya keeps saying it cannot find the file inside of the C: drive.

I would really appreciate some help as I have been wrapping my head around this problem for a while now, all help is appreciated. Thanks in advance!

The error that I received

/ Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2016/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: Unable to dynamically load : C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2016/plug-ins/VoodooExt/plug-ins/VoodooMayaExt.mll
The specified module could not be found.
 // 
// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2016/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: The specified module could not be found.
 (VoodooMayaExt) // 
updateRendererUI;
// Error: line 1: Unable to dynamically load : C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2016/plug-ins/VoodooExt/plug-ins/VoodooMayaExt.mll
The specified module could not be found.
 // 
// Error: line 1: The specified module could not be found.
 (VoodooMayaExt) // 
// Error: line 1: Unable to dynamically load : C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2016/plug-ins/VoodooExt/plug-ins/VoodooMayaExt.mll
The specified module could not be found.
 // 

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous and welcome to the community!

    Are you and your team members all on Maya 2016 and was the plug-in made for Maya 2016? Also is everyone running 32 bit or 64 bit Maya?

[Anonymous]

Yes, that is correctly. All my team members are using Maya 2016 and the plugin is indeed made for Maya 2016.

I tried to re-install Maya but with no success.

[Anonymous]

If I am correctly, Maya 2016 is only available in 64bit.

[sean.heasley]

Have you tried deleting your settings/preferences?

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Reset-May...

[Anonymous]

I have tried to delete the prefs folder multiple times but it doesn't fix it. 

I have also tried to set the path in the Maya Environment but with no success.

MAYA_PLUG_IN_PATH = C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2016\plug-ins\VoodooExt\plug-ins

To my understanding, Maya does find the plugin file (as it is obviously in the plug-in manager), but is unable to load it for some kind of reason. My biggest guess is that the link between the path file has been broken. Although that should had been fixed by re-downloading Maya.

Some of my teammates are using the same laptop as me but they don't encounter the problem. I also tried to install the plugin on my desktop but it would display the same error for me. If it isn't the plugin or Maya that is acting weird. Could it be that my license is constraining me from using custom plugins? (Just a wild guess).

[sheasley17]

I dont think its a licensing issue especially if your team is able to load the plug in without any issues. Is all your hardware identical or similair? Also could there be any other 3rd party plug ins you have installed that may be interfering with this one?

[sean.heasley]

Replied on my old personal account by mistake 😛 

"I dont think its a licensing issue especially if your team is able to load the plug in without any issues. Is all your hardware identical or similair? Also could there be any other 3rd party plug ins you have installed that may be interfering with this one?"

[Anonymous]

Our hardware is similar, the brand is the same and the laptop name is also the same but I have customized my laptop by replacing the HDD with a SSD. The only other plugin that I have installed is the Bonus Tools, that were provided by Maya.

My laptop is a Lenovo Y50-70, it has a 500GB SSD, 16GB of ram, Quad core I7 (mobile) and a GTX860M.

My Desktop on the other hand has a 500GB and an additional 1TB backup storage, 24GB of ram, Quad core I7-4770k and a GTX770

[sean.heasley]

Is it possible you can either attach the plug-in here or private message me a link to download it?

[Anonymous]

If I am correctly, I have send you a private message.

Otherwise here is a link to the files: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1QDw9wMXF7hR0VsZFZBY194WTg/view?usp=sharing

It is a plugin that lets me add extra attributes to an object (I can select different kind of enums and select booleans). The plugin should also allows me to clean up the Maya file before I export it to a custom engine.

[sean.heasley]

Yes I have it thank you! I'm currently playing around with it now trying to see what the issue is however a coworker suggested a possible fix you can try while I troubleshoot things on my end.

He suspects that there may be a runtime library version conflict that is not being resolved.

using dependency walker to load in the plugin to see what version of the Microsoft or other libraries are expected. It's Possible that the machine doesn’t have the required runtime versions and the other machines do.

Also what compiler and version was used to build the plugin?

[Anonymous]

We used: Visual Studio 2015 - Visual C++ 19.0 (aka Visual C++ 14.0) to build the plugin.

[sean.heasley]

Hmmm that could be part of the problem.

    Maya 2016 is built with Visual Studio 2012 we don’t ship the newer runtime libraries as we don’t use them. Mixing VC11 and VC14 runtime libraries can be finicky as they are not 100% compatible.

If you don't have Visual Studio 2015 installed on your machine you will need to find the version of the microsoft runtime libraries.
    This link should help.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=53587

[Anonymous]

I do have all versions of Visual Studios installed. The link you gave me doesn't let me download it again as I have the latest version.

I was wondering if you were able to download the plugin without problems?

I am also getting these question mark when dragging the mll. file from the plugin folder into the Dependency Walker program. I guess this means that I am missing a lot of DLL files.

(ps: Het gegeven bestand kan niet gevonden worden means -> The selected file could not be found.)

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hey! I have finally fixed the problem with the Custom Maya plugin!

It turns out that my version of Visual Studio was outdated, because of that I would miss some DLL files that were necessary to load the plugin.

If anyone else have this problem, I would recommend updating your Visual Studios to the latest version.

Thanks for the help!

[Anonymous]

Nevermind, It hasn't been solved completely. It is now fixed on my desktop but not on my laptop. But I only updated Visual Studio without deleting anything and it magically fixed it for me. Not sure why it doesn't work. Also the Dependency Walker gives me weird results, on both system it gives a few question marks and the results are the same but the plugin works on the desktop but not on the laptop. Quite strange. 

[warnold2 · Accepted solution]

did you install the Windows 7 update for the Win10 Universal runtime on both machines ?

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2999226/update-for-universal-c-runtime-in-windows

dependencyWalker will use the PATH for locating DLL files.    you can add paths to search from the menu to include them if needed.

the system ucrtbased.dll is a Windows dll that would appear to be missing.   this is a debug version which would not be updated by the consumer updates

similar issue:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33743493/why-visual-studio-2015-cant-run-exe-file-ucrtbased-dll

note: you are mixing  debug plugin with a release build of Maya,  the memory allocation of the 2 runtimes are not 100% compatible.   may lead to assertions if memory allocation and deallocation are done in different modules

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your response Wayne!

That might clarify it! I am here to tell that I have narrowed down the problem and it was indeed a problem related to Visual Studio.

I now have fixed it for both of my devices by re-downloading and repairing VS2015 files. I also installed VS2017 and deleted it multiple times, which after a moment fixed it. (Or atleast, I think it got fixed that way. Otherwise my pc magically fixed itself)

Thanks again for helping me Sean and Wayne!

[sean.heasley]

Hey @Anonymous glad you/Wayne figured it out!