Maya 2018 crashing on startup

[Anonymous]

Heyo!

I've encountered a problem with a student licensed version of Maya 2018 (and 2017 I guess) now where it won't even let me open Maya, it just starts to load and then crashes. It worked fine for the few weeks I've been on 2018 from 2017 and then one day it decided to not open and right then Maya 2017 also got the same issue. Then weird thing is that I am able to make it work when I launch it as administrator but not just normally launching Maya.

I have tried to delete prefs multiple times, I am now just removing the whole Maya folder in my documents. I have tried to do a repair of Maya aswell as a normal "soft" reinstall just through the app options.

If anyone has experienced something similar and found a solution I'd love to hear about it! I'm not working from my own work station so I don't have permanent admin access for every time I need to launch Maya.

I've also included a .zip of all the error logs Maya spat out on the latest refusal to open if anyone can get anything from those.

Thank you so much for your time!

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

This may be a problem with user permissions on your machine. Are you an admin on your machine? If not then that may be why running as admin manages to fix this issue.

If you are an admin, you may want to try performing a clean uninstall/reinstall of Maya.

Please let me know if this helps or if you need any more assistance!

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]

I do have admin access to the machine, but I just found it weird that Maya 2017 and 2018 worked fine and then they both crapped out suddenly one day, as well as Maya on another of our machines have the same issue where it just won't start. I can try to do a clean uninstall but I'd really like to ask if there were other options/tips I could try as I'd rather not have to wipe both Maya 2018 and 2017, then reinstall both along with their multiple plugins like RenderMan, redshift, Arnold license etc. all on multiple machines.

Thanks for your time and response @sean.heasley!

[Anonymous]

Over the last day or so, three more of the machines here have started having this problem. Crashes when you try to launch them and deleting prefs does nothing to help it seems.

Is there a known issue with Maya 2018.2 or is this new?

All of the machines here have worked just fine for about a month or alittle more now since we updated to 2018 but now all of a sudden there are now 6 machines within a few days to encounter this problem.

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

I haven't heard of anything like this where it's chronically affecting machines.

Have there been any recent major software updates or OS updates that may have been installed on the machines and causing this issue?

I understand a clean uninstall isn't desirable but it may be necessary. That said, you could simply try it on one machine and on one version of Maya that way if it doesn't work for whatever reason you don't have to waste time on the other machines.

Let me know if anything changes!

[Anonymous]

The only software update that has been run on these machines in the last few weeks are getting them all on deadline 10.0.11.1 however I would think that if that was the issue all the machines or at least some more would be affected than just 4-5/30.

I'll have a look at trying a clean uninstall of maya on one of the machines like you suggested I just suspect that the answer I'll find will be bittersweet. It'll probably fix the problem but that means lots of uninstall and reinstall work.

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

Ok let me know how it goes for you!

If it doesn't work we can see what the best steps to take next!

[Anonymous]

Alright @sean.heasley

Tried a clean uninstall, removed 2018 and 2018, and cleaned up all files from the diffrent directories and I am still getting the same issue. Cant launch maya without launching it as an administrator.

What do you suggest doing now?

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

What you could try, is setting up Maya to always run as an admin to test if this crash still occurs.

Steps to do so can be found here!

Let me know if anything changes!

[Anonymous]

Hello again!

This does work yes and it does seem to let me boot Maya however this is not a viable permanent option for me since while I have admin access as a technician the normal user of these machines does not and when I do this it will ask for the admin user and log in every time since it is effectively like right clicking and launching the program as admin.

[Anonymous]

Hello again @sean.heasley

It seems the problem has in some way escalated to the point where launching as administrator no longer works and still results in the fatal error on launch. I'll try another clean uninstall but this is getting really difficult to work around.

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

So now Maya gets a fatal error every time it launches?

Does this happen when the Maya splash art appears or does it happen as soon as the UI loads up?

When you get a chance, can you possible make a video of the crash happening so I can get a better idea of what's happening?

If you need a video capturing program, Screencast is a great option that we use here at Autodesk

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

Just wanted to check in to see how things were going. Are you still having this issue?

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

[Anonymous]

Hey hey @sean.heasley

Sorry for the late reply, long days and for the remainder of the day of your last post as I went to record the startup screen both Maya 2017 and 2018 worked flawlessly on all machines again as if by magic. Sadly did not last very long and its back, on the bright side here's a video of the startup and how it just fatal errors that you asked for.

Best regards

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

Thanks for posting the video! This is definitely unusual as there shouldn't be a crash that early into loading Maya.

I did notice that a CER error report popped up both times. The next time the crash occurs, can you please fill out that form and submit it so I can look it up in our error log?

Also, another step you can try is navigating to your Maya folder and opening the Maya.env file in notepad.

In that file, paste "MAYA_DISABLE_CIP=1" then save it out and try to launch Maya.

Let me know how that goes for you!

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]

Hey again @sean.heasley

I'm starting to have the kind of inconvenient problem that on occasion, Maya beginning to function properly again. So I'm not really able to test out the solutions you have provided.

I'll have a look tomorrow too to see how the situation is then.

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

Just wanted to check in to see how things were going. Are you still having this issue?

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

[Anonymous]

Hello again @sean.heasley

So we recently tried to use maya again after having it working fine for a week and the error is back. 

I tried your suggestion about adding the line to the maya.env file. It did not work however.

I also submitted the CER report and took a copy of the cer number: CER_166953093

So the problem is as lastly described, launching as normal user does not work and launching as admin does not work. This is also a machine where I did a clean reinstall of maya 1 or 2 weeks ago and the problem came back.

Thank you for your time and help!

[Anifex09]

It could be related to a firewall or virus protection software conflicting.  But it may also be a hardware driver issue.  If you get maya to run long enough try going into Settings - Animation - set evaluation to DG.  This will prevent multithreading and GPU override.  

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

Thanks for the update!

@Anifex09 made a few solid suggestions, have you had a chance to try them?