Maya 2015 and 2017 take up to 10 minutes to start up

[Anonymous]

I am running a relatively new computer using Windows 10 Pro (64-bit) and have been using Maya for some time, however at some point Maya 2015 started taking upwards of 10 minutes to start up (the blank Output Window opens, but it takes ~10 minutes for the Maya loading screen to appear after which it takes a seconds to finish). I have tried various fixes for this and looked throughout the forums for solutions (change the env file, reinstall, complete clean reinstall, try a different drive (am currently using a Samsung 850 EVO 250 SSD, the other was an HDD, which, if anything, took longer to load), etc.), and, lastly, trying all of the same on a newer version of Maya (2017, and all updates individually), but the problem remains. Throughout this period there have been absolutely no hardware changes and no attempts to reorganize Maya's file hierarchy.

I am now at a loss as to how to proceed to fix this problem. Does anyone have any suggestions?

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous and welcome!

Can you post your full pc hardware specs?

[Anonymous]

Windows 10 Pro (64-bit), 16 GB of DDR4 RAM, i7-6700K CPU, RX470 Graphics card (4 GB), Samsung 850 EVO 240 GB SSD (and backup 1TB HDD with a separate Windows 7 (64-bit) OS installed on it), and Z170A SLI PLUS motherboard. Currently nothing is being overclocked except the RAM, which is actually/technically just running at its rated speed.

[sean.heasley]

Hmmm all your hardware looks good.

Is your Maya 17 on Update 4? If not try updating and see if that helps with the launch time.

If you are on update 4, when you launch Maya, can you open task manager and see how much of your RAM and CPU is being used?

[Anonymous]

I am running update 4.

RAM and CPU usage is about what I'd expect (CPU has a small hike when the actual final launch happens; from ~10-15% to ~25-35% before going back to normal) and a slow increase in RAM usage by about 0.6-1.1 GB until it finishes opening. Just FYI, normal RAM usage while idle/using-internet-only on my computer is about 3.2-3.4 GB. My disk usage is weird though.

It took me a minute to figure out what was happening in detail, but it looks like when I start up Maya it starts a program called FNPLicensingService64.exe that seems to be trying to run on my 2TB (I mistakenly said it was 1TB before) backup drive rather than my SSD primary drive (I assume this is the problem and what is happening based on the drive usage and the accessing programs during the start up time). It takes up 100% disk access on that secondary HDD drive until the moment Maya finally opens (then returns to 0%). Disk access on my primary disk is pretty normal (random, sparse, up and down spikes, but not one big 100% block like on my secondary drive) throughout the whole process.

[sean.heasley]

Ah ok, I found some steps here to manually force an uninstall of the Licensing Service.

Let me know if that helps!

Please hit the Accept as Solution button if my post fully solves your issue, or reply with additional details if the problem persists.

Kudos are greatly appreciated. Everyone likes a thumbs up!

[Anonymous]

I did it, but it did not work, in fact, now Maya will not even open; which makes me wonder if you entirely read that post? It literally says doing this will make Autodesk products that use it not work. I am now planning to attempt a Maya install repair now to see if that does anything.

Edit: in addition I had to search the term "licens" in my computer to find that the version number for my version was actually 4.1, not 3.1 as it is in the instructions. You may want to add that step to your "solution."

[sean.heasley]

Sorry I should've explained better! The article explains how it will force the most recent version of Maya to uninstall, that way it should hopefully clear up any issues with Maya trying to pull files from the wrong drive once your repair has finished.

Let me know if anything changes!

[Anonymous]

I don't think you are looking at the right article/link? The one you posted only has information about uninstalling the licensing service module. I don't see anything at all about uninstalling Maya. Anyway, reinstalling failed, so I am trying a clean uninstall and install.

[sean.heasley]

Sorry again I should've explained more. 

While it does only uninstall the Licensing service module, without that Maya wont launch therefore forcing an uninstall and reinstall.

The hope behind this is that by manually uninstalling the module it should prevent it from winding up on the wrong drive when your reinstall and therefore hopefully help with the launch times.

Hope this helps and let me know if anything changes!

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

I tried manually reinstalling the license software, but nothing changed, when I clicked on Maya it flickered a window and closed and left no processes running afterwards. I did a complete (deleted everything Maya outside of My Documents) reinstall and that did not work so I went through all of the stuff on my backup drive and moved/deleted every Maya related file/folder I could find to my SSD and did a complete reinstall again and somehow that worked. If I had to guess there was a Maya file somewhere in that drive that was getting accessed for some weird reason that was causing this, maybe an old licensing file that was conflicting with the one I was trying to use? I have no idea, all I know is that that seems to have resolved the problem. It might be some weird quirk with my setup but I have no idea what could have caused something like that to happen. But, in any case, Maya now loads in under 30 seconds. Thanks anyway for your help.

[sean.heasley]

Yup that's what I thought it was! 

It is a little tough to figure out exactly how it happened in the first place but you hit the nail on the head, most likely a file wound up on a different drive which caused the slow down.

Its always an important thing to watch out for especially with .dll files cause this can happen to any program, games etc.

Still glad it worked out!

[mdegar]

Hello I am having the exact same situation as the original poster. How would I go about looking for the files on the other drives

[Anonymous]

I just went through both My Documents and Program Files in my older drive and deleted or migrated everything (I only migrated my .stl, .ma, and .mb files since that was all I was working on at the time). I also looked through my appdata folders and deleted everything regarding Autodesk or Maya. I don't run the OS on that drive so it was fine, if you still use your drive you should uninstall Maya/Autodesk while running it and then try and clean up My Documents and appdata afterwards.

[mdegar]

I completely reinstalled my operating system. Did not hook up external at all during process, no association to external drive or any other drive. Installed maya. Still having problem. Maya takes 10 minutes to start during initial launch of the program. Fresh OS fresh Maya install. I am not sure what else to do here.  Edit: Windows 10 home edition, Maya 2018 student edition. Autodesk please help me!