Empty shelves and prefs folder missing after Maya2018 installation

[Anonymous]

Hello, i'm on a student version of Maya2018.

For the last few days, i had several issues with the viewport and some tools so i tried to reset the preferences, unsuccesfully.

I decided to uninstall and install Maya again. Now the problem is that almost all the shelves are empty and that my prefs folder in Maya2018's folders is gone. 

So here i am, totally lost haha !

[patrick.schock · Accepted solution]

Hello @Anonymous,

thanks for your post! I would recommend to perform the following steps:

1. Make sure that Maya is not running.
2. Please check if the Maya Preferences folder is at it's default location: C:\Users\<YourUserName>\Documents\maya\2020\prefs.
3. If there is no prefs folder but the version folder -in your case "2018"- please rename the versions folder to something like 2018_old.
4. Start Maya.
5. Explore if a new version folder has been created and if it contains the prefs folder. This should work automatically.
6. Maya might also ask at the first start, if existing preferences or new preferences should be used. In this case choose "new preferences".

More information regarding the Maya Preferences can be found here: Save preferences and here How to reset the Maya Preferences to Default.

Do you have any System Variables set, regarding the preferences path (MAYA_APP_DIR)? In this case I would recommend to delete the System Variable and start with the default settings first.

Could you please try these suggestions and come back if you had success or if there are still issues? I'm happy to assist with the next steps if necessary.

Best regards,

Patrick