Max viewport tools blinks and Progressive IPR fails...Max displays license error and fails.

[RobH22]

I'm having an anomaly that is crippling me. I've attached a video. I have a scene, start an IPR render and if I click on a few meshes, the 'viewport tools' begin to flash, IPR stops progressing and Max generally just becomes unresponsive. I frequently have to "End Task" out of it.

The attached video shows what's happening. This time Max didn't become unresponsive but t usually does, and when I "End Task" out, I get an Autodesk license warning. However, this seems to be a VRay issue, not an Autodesk license server issue. Not sure about that. But I never get that license warning until the flashing and IPR failure.

I've started a new ENU, uninstalled and reinstalled VRay, NVidia, 3DConnexion and other drivers and reinstalled. No help.

One odd thing is that if I drag the IPR window around, Progressive rendering continues until I release it and then it just fails to progress. You can see that in the video towards the end.

Anyone else seeing this problem? It's crippling my ability to work.

[3d-laboratory]

I have exactly the same error with VRay5 and Max 2021 sometimes. But other than you I get no license warning. Only thing which helps is to restart MAX. BTW nice work, my firiend! Very good Idea to render the lighttrails of the cars!

[^Lele^]

Does it happen with that specific scene only?
Are there any non-factory scripts running in that Max? Callbacks forcing scene updates?
Des it happen with a standard mouse, without any 3dconnexion driver installed?

To answer to you, no, i have never personally seen it happen, to me or any other client before (besides your other report of it.).
You may want to talk to support, if this keeps happening, and have them check out if your PC doesn't have some specific issue with software configuration (i.e. something specific which is known to cause problems.), via f.e. remote connection with you.

[3d-laboratory]

In my case it is a CadMouse and the Space Mouse Enterprise, with latest drivers. It happens with active IPR and working a litte bit on the scene. I will watch wether this happens in all scenes. As I mostly working on modells which later fills the "Mother Scene" with XRef scenes I use IPR only on that mother scene. Indeed I have another issue with 3dxconnection, which is possibly linked. When I open models in perspective or orthographic mode the rotation of the model with the Space Mouse the viewport image jerks and is sometimes smeared (as if my graphics card is not strong enogh - its a Quadro P4000) . I found out that a change between the perspective view and the orthographic view mode and back solves the problem (until the next opening of that scene)

[^Lele^]

Super, we'll be waiting for some feedback.
I mentioned "your" other report of it, but it wasn't you.

It looks suspiciosuly similar.

[RobH22]

Does it happen with that specific scene only?
Are there any non-factory scripts running in that Max? Callbacks forcing scene updates?
Des it happen with a standard mouse, without any 3dconnexion driver installed?

To answer to you, no, i have never personally seen it happen, to me or any other client before (besides your other report of it.).
You may want to talk to support, if this keeps happening, and have them check out if your PC doesn't have some specific issue with software configuration (i.e. something specific which is known to cause problems.), via f.e. remote connection with you.

Sure, your concerns are worth exploring but I don't know anyone who runs Max out of the box without adding some level of 3rd party functionality. I did load a new ENU so the only other software was the 3d Space Pilot (and using a standard windows mouse). The scene failed and in fact 2 other scenes failed. It's not tied to one scene. It generally happens on heavier scenes but when it does, I still have about 60GB left in my 128GB so it's not a memory leak and running out of RAM. If something outside is contributing to this then I'd guess it's more likely to be the 3d Space Pilot. I hope not though because I can't even imagine driving Max without a 3d navigation device. The productivity boost of a 3d navigation device is significant.

[RobH22]

In my case it is a CadMouse and the Space Mouse Enterprise, with latest drivers. It happens with active IPR and working a litte bit on the scene. I will watch wether this happens in all scenes. As I mostly working on modells which later fills the "Mother Scene" with XRef scenes I use IPR only on that mother scene. Indeed I have another issue with 3dxconnection, which is possibly linked. When I open models in perspective or orthographic mode the rotation of the model with the Space Mouse the viewport image jerks and is sometimes smeared (as if my graphics card is not strong enogh - its a Quadro P4000) . I found out that a change between the perspective view and the orthographic view mode and back solves the problem (until the next opening of that scene)

Thanks for weighing in on this. Maybe it is a 3dconnexion conflict or something. I have a normal mouse. I only have the 3d Space Pilot for navigation. I'll go post there and see if anyone else is having problems.

My reason for posting was to see if I could find anyone else having the same issue and look for common factors. I don't think it's Forest Pack, that was my original thought as it first occurred on one with 5M polys of trees. But when it happened on the city scene that has no Forest Pack and is 3x as large, I knew it was something else. Maybe the Chaos Group team can point us to a LOG or something that might help spot the problem. It does only seem to occur with scenes that are heavy though. I've never had it happen on a scene with under 550K polys.

I do have one other anomaly. If I have a multi viewport display and one window is a camera view, it will flip between Perspective and Camera when I touch an object in the Camera view. If I then scrub the timeline, it will revert and stay on Camera. It doesn't happen 100% of the time but does happen over 75% of the time so it's difficult to work in Camera view. I just use it for reference and work in another view.

[^Lele^]

Thanks for weighing in on this. Maybe it is a 3dconnexion conflict or something. I have a normal mouse. I only have the 3d Space Pilot for navigation. I'll go post there and see if anyone else is having problems.

I see a pattern emerging.

My reason for posting was to see if I could find anyone else having the same issue and look for common factors. I don't think it's Forest Pack, that was my original thought as it first occurred on one with 5M polys of trees. But when it happened on the city scene that has no Forest Pack and is 3x as large, I knew it was something else. Maybe the Chaos Group team can point us to a LOG or something that might help spot the problem. It does only seem to occur with scenes that are heavy though. I've never had it happen on a scene with under 550K polys.

It's entirely possible this happens only when there is some specific delay somehwere, and some messaging gets hung out to dry, starting the oddities.

I do have one other anomaly. If I have a multi viewport display and one window is a camera view, it will flip between Perspective and Camera when I touch an object in the Camera view. If I then scrub the timeline, it will revert and stay on Camera. It doesn't happen 100% of the time but does happen over 75% of the time so it's difficult to work in Camera view. I just use it for reference and work in another view.

This too has never happened to me (however, at most i use a wacom.), but f.e. with a wacom it'd be impossible to rotate a viewport, under some circumstance (it'd spin like mad.).

I tend to think it has to do with drivers not playing nice with Max, and the fact that ipr restarts is tied to the messages it gets from max misbehaving.
I'm unsure as to what tech support could do remotely, in this case; i'd think there would be need for a proper profiling of Max and the OS while this happens to ensure one caught the exact source of the problem.

Unless, of course, this presents itself with users *without* any 3dconnexion hardware, in which case it could well be us.

[RobH22]

I see a pattern emerging.

It's entirely possible this happens only when there is some specific delay somehwere, and ........of course, this presents itself with users *without* any 3dconnexion hardware, in which case it could well be us.

Thanks for your input. I'll update this post here as I learn more about other users and commonality between extraneous hardware or software tied to Max.

[^Lele^]

Sure, your concerns are worth exploring but I don't know anyone who runs Max out of the box without adding some level of 3rd party functionality.

I mentioned plugins because there could be maxscript callbacks installed which generate an excess of messages, to which IPR has to react (i.e. the callback signals that something changed, continuously, and IPR *has* to refresh.).
The problem isn't using third party scripts, per se', the problem is which ones are in use which could leverage callbacks, in other words.
On the other hand, the issue would have a definite start: it wasn't there before, it is after said script got installed.
Clearing the ENU folder unfortunately doesn't uninstall scripts.

Either way, if you switch to Arnold, same scene and all, and have a play, you'll be able to see if it's us or Max+some other condition.
Also, if you could, try without any 3dconnexion driver installed, and see if it works as expected at all.

[RobH22]

I mentioned plugins because there could be maxscript callbacks installed which generate an excess of messages, to which IPR has to react (i.e. the callback signals that something changed, continuously, and IPR *has* to refresh.).
The problem isn't using third party scripts, per se', the problem is which ones are in use which could leverage callbacks, in other words.
On the other hand, the issue would have a definite start: it wasn't there before, it is after said script got installed.
Clearing the ENU folder unfortunately doesn't uninstall scripts.

Either way, if you switch to Arnold, same scene and all, and have a play, you'll be able to see if it's us or Max+some other condition.
Also, if you could, try without any 3dconnexion driver installed, and see if it works as expected at all.

Sure, when I get a chance I'll do that. On a deadline this week.

[3d-laboratory]

I see, we have 3 different issues here: the IPR thing, the jerking model while rotating and the unwanted switching between perspective and camera in the viewport.
In my configuration I have also ForestPack, the scene with the IPR issue has 1.5M faces. ForestPack version is 6.3.1. MAX2021.3 and VRay5 hotfix2.
And I have also the problem with the flipping between perspective and camera view after opening the scene. It´s exactly the same. When I select an object in camera view the view changes to perspective. I have attached a weird photo where you can see that both views in one veiwport like photoshop layers 50%. I have the impression that it might be a problem linked with the new floating vieports, because the behavior of the flipping has changed something when I open a floating vieport with the camera view. Now the changing of the views in the "intern" viewport is another one. When I now select an object in camera view the pespective view pops up later, sometimes without any mouse movement. May be its not a bug, its a feature

[^Lele^]

We live to see new things, don't we all...
Thanks ever so much to both of you for the patience and help.
We'll remain listening attentively for any news which may point the way.

[RobH22]

....Very good Idea to render the lighttrails of the cars!

Forgot to address your complement, those trails are from the model we purchased, not my idea, but, they are great and I've used them since. It's really a nice touch. I wish I knew who to credit with that idea...

[RobH22]

I'm now strongly leaning to this being a 3dconnexion driver issue. I uninstalled the latest '3DxWare64_v10-7-1_r3280' using Revo Uninstaller which also purges the registry for lingering code. After reboot, I loaded one of my problematic files. I manipulated the file for 20-minutes and could not get it to fail, and it's nearly 17million polys. I then reinstalled the 3DxWare64 drivers and rebooted. I opened the same file and within 5-minutes, I was able to get it to exhibit the anomaly. I'll go over and post there so that maybe 3dconnexion will notice it and respond.