Max refuses to load

[g_i_joe]

Sorry guys, hope its ok to post this here.
something very strange is happening. i installed
zonealarm suite and now Max 6 wont load, it stops at
loading plugin Mentalray.dlz it tells me its cant access the internet.

i thought it was Max so i uninstalled max, deleted the cdilla folder
and unistalled zone alarm. Reinstalled max, and Vray without
having to reauthorize. thought that was kind of wierd that i
did not have to reauthorize also strange the cdilla was no were to
be found. but when i reinstalled zonealarm again

Max refuses to load stops again at (loading plugin Mentalray.dlz)
does anyone know what the setting needs to be set in zone alarm
short of abanding zonealrm. I Max gave it every permision i know of

[natty]

to be honest ive never liked Zone alarm .... try Panda or Norton, my Panda works great and its chaep

[losbellos]

its natural behavior since, I guess tha license checkout goes over the network, the only thing to do is, let 3dsmax to do whatever want over the network. This means give it a rule, filter whatever zonelarm has, that shouldn't block the 3dsmax network activity.

[egz]

I ran into something similar the other day. After installing Norman Virus Control, max 5.1 now gives me the following error on start:

DLL <C:Program Files3dsmax5StdPlugsmentalray.dlz> failed to initialize

I can just press OK, and max continues starting fine. Renaming the .dlz fixes the problem (I don't need it).

I still wonder why this happens though. I installed new AV software, not a new firewall. I will report it to Norman (they are a client of mine), and see what they say.

Also, why is mentalray.dlz in StdPlugs for max5?

[losbellos]

i think it will only use if mental ray installed for max. But probably max5 on startup tries to check wheater mental ray lisener (or whatever)is on, or not. (over the network)

[lordshaitan]

I have had the same problem w/ Maya. Hell i once had Maya completely refuse to start when i uninstalled my NIC; uninstalled due to lack of internet.

[Syclone1]

Im running max6 and zone alarm, if you intend to work with the mentalray engine then in ZA set 3dsmax.exe to have local access and no to internet access. you can also rename the mentalray dir and mentalray.dlz and mentalray2.dlz in the stdplugs dir if you have no intention on using Mentalray.

I have been using ZA for a few years now and love it so if you need further help I will do what I can to give you a hand.


-dave

[g_i_joe]

Thanks guys for your help.
i am running max 6 and i will try Syclone1's sugjestion

[jacksc02]

egz - max has been using the mentalray raytracing algoritim for a few releases now. Kinda sneaky of them, but it was also a way to introduce mentalray into the 3dsmax core.

Chris Jackson
cj@arcad.co.nz
www.arcad.co.nz

[Da_elf]

i use zone alarm however ive never had any trouble once i setup my permissions

[Syclone1]

Also I forgot to mention that 3dsmax6 does NOT use c-dilla any more, discreet has gone with macrovision to manage its licences thats why you couldn't find the c-dilla folder.

-dave

[mikael]

Why not trying Sygate as your firewall, I haven't had any single problem with it and my experience, and others, tell me it has good security. ZA on the other hand gave me lots of problems. But of course, we all have different configurations in hard- and software so what works for me might be hell for you, but it's worth a try though. Syclone is right, your cdilla is probably a remain from a previous max version, max 6 uses the safecast licensing system from Macrovision. You shouldn't have to touch it if you don't have any problem concerning licensing. And I also think that you should try to solve the problem without having to rename the mental ray files, that is rather self defeating I think.