Hi Everyone,
This will be a little long but need to provide context for the issue. I have been using education license on Maya 2019 but have tried a clean reinstall with 2016, 2018 and 2019 (running Windows 10 Education). I have viewed at least 25 pages of similar (but not specifically the same issues) forum questions here and tried most, if not all of them and still haven't figured out how this can be fixed.
A few days ago, I was modelling something and wanted to view in Arnold render viewport. It kept showing up blue even in maya software and was outputting that it could not write the .jpg file, even temporarily for the viewport. So, I attempted to repair, reinstall, and uninstall many, many times for the 2019 version and 2018 version. The problem I run into now is even when I open the application, it will open the output window for a short second (sometimes showing no text) - but upon first run, says "Maya could not create the necessary startup directories. Please check for sufficient disk space and necessary write permissions."). I have made sure that I am admin on my PC, and that I have read/write access for all Autodesk folders. I have also cleared out temp folder and any other folders that Maya writes to before reinstalling, and used Microsoft's un/install program to make sure it detects/fixes any registry issues.
I have done a Windows system restore to a few weeks ago, I was able to render an animation even in late January and have not made any considerable updates to my PC since then. What are my options now? Before, I could at least 3D model but now cannot even open the program. A reinstall of windows is the last option but of course would not be the first thing that I would like to do.
