maya 2018 error opening large mb files over 2GB

[amaurer]

Hi,

Maya 2018 wont open maya binary files that are larger than around 2,1 GB. You can easily test this, just make a file with polyspheres and duplicate them until you reach 2,1 GB and maya tells you:

file -f -options "v=0;" -ignoreVersion -typ "mayaBinary" -o "E:/test_2018.mb";addRecentFile("E:/test_2018.mb", "mayaBinary");
// File read in 0.033 seconds. // 
// File read in 0.033 seconds. // 
// Error: line 0: Error reading file. // 
// Error: line 0: Error reading file. //

Maya 2017 opens them fine.

Since most of our project files 4-5 GB mb files mayaAscii is no solution as this files would then be around 10 GB each even in compressed format.

So Maya 2018 is nearly unusable at the moment!

Maya2018. update 1 on Windows10

Any ideas ?

Thanks,

Andy

[amaurer]

Hi,

Maya 2018 wont open maya binary files that are larger than around 2,1 GB. You can easily test this, just make a file with polyspheres and duplicate them until you reach 2,1 GB and maya tells you:

file -f -options "v=0;" -ignoreVersion -typ "mayaBinary" -o "E:/test_2018.mb";addRecentFile("E:/test_2018.mb", "mayaBinary");
// File read in 0.033 seconds. //
// File read in 0.033 seconds. //
// Error: line 0: Error reading file. //
// Error: line 0: Error reading file. //

Maya 2017 opens them fine.

Since most of our project files 4-5 GB mb files mayaAscii is no solution as this files would then be around 10 GB each even in compressed format.

So Maya 2018 is nearly unusable at the moment!

Maya2018. update 1 on Windows10

Any ideas ?

Thanks,

Andy

[john.paul.giancarlo]

Hello , I have not been able to replicate, working on mac os, Maya 2018, will try in windows later on but honestly I dont think this is a bug.

can you please share a bit more information about your system with me !

Thank you

[amaurer]

Hi John Paul,

this occures on different systems in our office, attached are specs of two of them.

Another user reported this 2GB problem alreade here:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/maya-forum/error-opening-maya-2017-mb-file-in-2018/td-p/7307360

"Another thing I would like to point out: if the file is smaller thant 2 GB Maya 2018 can read it. If it is bigger than 2 GB it just can't."

"So, I tested the issue again: saved from Maya 2016.5 in .ma. Opened in Maya 2018 with no problems at all (apart from it taking ages of course). Saved from Maya 2018 in .mb.

I have then quit Maya. Opened the software again (2018), tried to open the .mb file (previously saved with Maya 2018 itself), and nothing. Maya 2018 definitely has problems with .mb files over 2 GB.

This is serious."

I agree with him.

Thanks,

Andy

[john.paul.giancarlo]

I will investigate further but again I have not been able to replicate !   already asking about this to our Maya dev team.

I will get back as soon as I hear back from them.  Sorry !

[amaurer]

Thanks.

One more thing to mention, maya even doesn´t try to open the file. If the file is over 2GB it immediately throws the error after 0.03 seconds. For comparison a 1,9  GB file takes about 12 seconds to read!. So for me it looks like this:

"oh the file is over 2GB, too big for me, i better skip" 

1.9 GB log:

file -f -options "v=0;" -ignoreVersion -typ "mayaBinary" -o "E:/test.mb";addRecentFile("E:/test.mb", "mayaBinary");
requires "stereoCamera" "10.0";
// Warning: line 1213: The default image may not be modified. Use the -i/image flag instead. //
// Warning: line 0: This file is from an older version of Maya. If saved, it will not be readable by previous versions. //
// File read in 12.6 seconds. //
// File read in 12.6 seconds. //

2.1 GB log:

file -f -options "v=0;" -ignoreVersion -typ "mayaBinary" -o "E:/test_2018.mb";addRecentFile("E:/test_2018.mb", "mayaBinary");
// File read in 0.036 seconds. //
// File read in 0.036 seconds. //
// Error: line 0: Error reading file. //
// Error: line 0: Error reading file. //

[sschierwater]

we have the exact same problem here. that is a really big issue, makes maya 2018 unusable for us.

[sean.heasley]

Hi @amaurer

This is a known issue and we have informed our dev team about it. Unfortunately the only workaround at the moment is to save in ASCII format. I realize that is not ideal for you and my apologies that there isn't a better workaround.

However as soon as I have more information on this issue I'll be sure to let you know!

Please let me know if you need any more information or 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!

[amaurer]

I really wonder how autodesk manages it to break such fundamental functionality. If this is not resulting in a absolut top urgent hotfix i wonder even more.

[Anonymous]

Hi Sean,

any news when this bug will be fixed with an update?

Thanks,

Lars

[joss13]

Probably int limitation, someone have used long int for unsigned long:

long int: Long signed integer type. Capable of containing at least the [−2,147,483,647, +2,147,483,647] range; thus, it is at least 32 bits in size.

unsigned long: Long unsigned integer type. Capable of containing at least the [0, 4,294,967,295] range;

[seandunderdaleBAKA7]

Yeh this is pretty dreadful....Ive got a scene that I imported some objects to test render in my scene. I wont be using them all but I need to see which fits the lighting best...

As Ive worked a few hours Ive hit save and its written out an mb file that 2.05gb and now my scene is lost! This is totally not ok. If it cant read the mb file it should not write the mb file. This problem seems to have been around for a few months now without any real updates.

Im praying that I can open it in 2017 and get my work back.

[Anonymous]

This was broken in 2015 or 2016 and then it was fixed. And then they broke it again. Working in Maya every day is like stepping in dog crap every day.

I expect Maya to force you to save on floppies soon.

Have you deleted your preferences folder today?

[Anonymous]

We just hit this mid-production with Maya 2018.1 as we use Maya binary file saving in our pipeline.

From these forums, it seems this was acknowledged as a known issue on Oct 17 which is now almost exactly one month ago. How is it possible that a hotfix has not yet been issued?

This is a major, critical, showstopping bug.

[Anonymous]

Hello Autodesk, 

can someone from AD at least give us an update on the issue? Last post from Sean is 4 weeks ago. 

We need switch to 2018 for several jobs now, so we need to know if we are forced to begin from scratch in 2017 again.

Lars

[Anonymous]

This, and many other critical bugs, appear, are fixed at some point, and reappear in Maya over the years. The developers behind Maya and the Autodesk management apparently do not consider this important enough. "So what?" if you can't save your scenes? "So what?" if you think they are saved and then when you try to open them nothing is there? And what are you going to do? Downgrade? There's more critical bugs in previous versions. And more coming in the future. Have you tried referencing some chunks of your scenes? That is what I had to do to solve this problem when I got slammed with this nice bug half a day before my deadline. Had to rewrite a crapload of custom scripts to do it. So it is possible to get through this but it is pretty painful, costly and unproductive. But that is what the real slogan behind Maya is: "Painful, Costly and Unproductive".

I think this is as good time as any to direct you to this posting about Maya and how much they say they care. They do it once every 7 or 8 years. But never do enough for long enough to make the slightest difference.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/maya-forum/help-us-make-maya-faster-the-maya-design-team-needs-your-i...

What do they mean when they say #yourMaya?

"It's yours. You fix it."?

[hsource]

Has anyone opened up "Windows task manager" and watched what is happening in the "Performance" tab ? I find it useful to see if the system has some issues.

[seandunderdaleBAKA7]

There is no performance feedback as it instantly errors and fails to open the file. It doesn't hang while opening or freeze Maya. It simply ****s the bed and isn't interested if the mb file is over 2GB.

[Anonymous]

And AD seems not to be able to fix it. 

So we will need to step back to 2017. That is really staggering!

[Anonymous]

Well I wouldn't say they are not "able to". They have fixed it before. So they could fix it again. They could... At some point... If they have nothing else to do...

Aren't you looking forward to working in 2017 again? It was such a great version wasn't it?  It's kind of funny. 2017 was considered the worst of the worst versions ever released. And now people are considering reverting to it because of "new" reheated showstoppers.

That's the thing with Maya. You get used to bugs for a long time. Then they fix them and you are pretty happy. And then they break them again. So there is no good version of Maya. Do you want to be knee deep in crap with your left foot? Use 2017. Do you want to be knee deep in crap with your right foot? Use 2018. Nose deep in crap? Use 2016. So you really can't win.  You need to have like 6 or 7 versions of Maya installed to have a somewhat completely working version of the bloody program. But then of course they are not exactly compatible with each other. Plugins and features etc...

What a wonderful package to "unleash your creativity" in bug hunting...