Maya 2018 Crashing during animation

[Anonymous]

Hey,
I'm using Maya 2018 student version. Doing a 3D animation, really simple (combat animation) and small size .mb file (8mb), and out of nowhere Maya just freezes and stucks...
I go to the "Task Manager" to kill it, since it is the only way to work again on my project, and I see that suddenly Maya is using like 50% of my CPU.
When I'm working it's not in those values.
Tried to check for some fix to this but didn't find any. Any help?

Hi @Anonymous your title 'Maya 2018 Crashing out of nowhere' was edited for clarity by @sean.heasley

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous and welcome to the community!

When you get a chance, can you please zip and attach the scene file here or via dropbox/google drive or another file sharing program so I can take a look at it?

Let me know if anything changes!

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

I'm just checking in to see if you're still experiencing these crashes. I understand you may be busy but when you get a chance can you please post the scene file here so I can see if I can recreate the issue on my machine?

If your issue is solved, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

[Anonymous]

For a while this crashes didn't happen. And today there they go again... 
Sorry for the delay on the file, attached it now 🙂 

[Anonymous]

Hey Sean, I can confirm this happens not only on that file but also on every file I open. The crashes come without warning and don't seem to have a trigger warning.
My version as I said before is the 2018 Student.

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

Thank you for attaching the scene file! Unfortunately I was able to open it and run the animation fine with no crashes so it looks like the issue may be with your machine and/or Maya itself.

When you get a chance, would you mind posting your machines hardware specs so I can see if there may be any issues?

Steps to find your pc specs can be found here!

You also may want to check your drivers to make sure they are up to date. 

Steps to update your drivers can be found here!

Please let me know if anything changes!

If one or more of these posts helped answer your question, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

Kudos are greatly appreciated. Everyone likes a thumbs up!

[Anonymous]

Yeah the problem wasn't happening for a while, then it happened 3x times in a row. Then stopped.
The only software I had on at the same time was VLC.

My computer specifications are:
- Intel i7-700HQ CPU 2,80GHz
- 16gb RAM
- Intel HD 630 / Nvidia GTX 1050
- 512 SSD
- 4k Monitor.
- Windows 10 x64-bit

I had it installed before on this computer and nothing ever happened, then I had to reset/format it because of some hardware fails by Dell, it was all fixed and now it supposely works fine. All is up to date.
I only have this bugs on maya.
Also, I have installed some plugins and mental ray. 

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

Ah ok, are you using Mental Ray as your renderer when you playback the animation in the viewport?

I switched to Mental Ray and tried to navigate the scene and Maya immediately froze up. Is this what is causing the issue to happen to you as well?

[Anonymous]

Hm, I doubt it since I'm always on Viewport 2.0 (Default settings).
The only option I have is "Mental Ray" but I never choose it, didn't even noticed it was there until now that you mentioned it haha
I tried to change now into that "Mental Ray" renderer in viewport, and it's all okay here. 

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

So changing to Mental Ray in the viewport solved the crash?

[Anonymous]

Nop... It still randomnly crashes. 
However I tried some things which I hope might do the trick:
1 - Import the scene to a new file, and start working from there;
2 - Changing in "Preferences" from OpenGL (Compatibility) to Directx11.

There's some weird bugs that already happen, like the eyes and head from the character for some reason get stuck in a frame and don't move. However the rest of the body is animated and controllable. Any fix for that btw? 

And what what does OpenGL (compatibility) means, or how it differs from other choices?

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

The difference for DirectX and Open GL varies by GPU and what you are trying to do in Maya. You can read about it here but I'll post a simple blurb below.

Selecting DirectX 11 as your rendering engine lets you render DX11 hardware shaders in real-time in the viewport.

Selecting OpenGL- Core Profile (Compatibility) or OpenGL - Core Profile (Strict) as your rendering engine lets you create custom GLSL (OpenGL Shading Language) shaders which support lighting, textures, shadows, and tessellation.

As for your animation, changing the renderer shouldn't affect the animation as drastically as it is on your machine. There may be an issue with your rig or keys so you may want to double check through your timeline and see if there's any noticeable issues.

Let me know if anything changes!

If one or more of these posts helped answer your question, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

Kudos are greatly appreciated. Everyone likes a thumbs up!

[Anonymous]

Hm okay, and is there any change in the quality of the viewport by changing to Directx11, from OpenGL (compat)?
I really think it's the rig itself, however it didn't happen to other people using the same rig. Not the same Maya version tho.
I checked my keyframes and it's all okay 😕 
thanks for the explanation by the way! Kudos to you haha 

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

I don't believe there is a quality difference. However I haven't done too much research into it so I can't say for sure. With your work though there shouldn't be any noticeable differences.

Also I have to agree that it may be a problem with the rig and or with how 2018 is handling it. Like I said before, I was able to launch it on my machine fine and only ever experienced the crash when I had mental ray as the renderer so its a bit difficult for me to do more testing when I can't recreate your current issues 

If you manage to find different reproduce able steps I could follow then I could potentially troubleshoot further with you!

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

Just checking in to see if you're still having this crash with your animation? Did you get a chance to see if your rig was causing the issue and/or if you could create any reproduce able steps for me?

If your answer is resolved, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately it was still the same so I've installed Maya 2017. Still haven't tried tho, as soon as I can I'll tell you something 🙂 thank you for your help so far.

[Anonymous]

Tried opening any file I had in Maya 2017 and just can't... .mb or .ma, with "ignore version" selected on both Maya 2017 and 2018...
What now?

[Anonymous]

I'm also experiencing these freezes which is becoming really annoying. Last month I was animating fine in 2018 with no crashes, then I did a windows update and downloaded the lasted version of Nvidia drivers, now I'm experiencing freezes every hour. I'm going to first install the Maya 2018.1 update, if that doesn't fix anything then I'll roll back my Nvidia drivers, and then maybe also the Windows update. 

My PC spec is:

Windows 10 Pro Version 1709 (OS Build 16299.19)

Nvidia Quadro M2000 Driver Version 385.69

Dell Precision Tower 5810

Intel Xeon 3.5 CPU

32 Gb ram

SSD 256Gb

1Tb HDD

Hope this gets fixed in future releases. May have to go back to older version of Maya. 

Thanks,

Craig

[Anonymous]

I installed Maya 2017 so I could roll back to a previous version, and couldn't open any maya file in any way.
Had to go back and install 2018 lol Which seems to break not only this file but others aswell. Checked on multiple files, with animation and only modeling, always the same thing.
Going to try it today, to see if reinstalling it did anything to help this problem.

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous and @Anonymous

Regarding your freezes @Anonymous, does it occur even with a fresh scene of Maya? Some recent Windows updates have been causing issues with Maya and you may need to roll back those updates in order to work normally again.

@Anonymous as for your scene not opening in Maya 2017, did you try to open an ASCII file? If you saved the scene in Maya Binary format then you will have issues trying to open it in an older version of Maya. When you get a chance, can you try saving in ASCII format and see if you are able to open it in Maya 2017?

Let me know if anything changes!