VrayProxy causes crashes when archived and opened on another PC

[hugh_wyeth]

Hi all,

I posted this issue to the Autodesk Max forums, but I've now narrowed it down to a VrayProxy issue and, in particular, a Cosmos VrayProxy issue (though i'm still not certain if it's only a Cosmos issue)

A Max file will open, save, merge fine on PC A. But when opened from an unzipped archive on PC B will crash. (The original file is archived from PC A and copied to PC B).

If I merge from the same file into a new empty scene, it will usually also crash. Sometimes, it won't - I can save the new file with the merged content fine- however, it is not linked up to proxies/texture files. When I then relink to those assets, usually using the RelinkBitmaps script and save, it'll save fine but will then crash on open.

I do not get any error message other than this extraordinarily useful piece of information -



For a lot of file open crashes, you can merge parts until something crashes and you now have identified a problem mesh or whatever it was. These scenes do not have that issue. There is some issue with how it links to texture/proxy assets (seemingly). I originally though that the continuous Google Drive backup may be causing issues, but having uninstalled it, it did not change this crashing issue at all.

On the original PC, the file is still fine and has zero issues. This happens both with files from PC A to PC B and vice-versa.

When all VrayProxies are removed from the scene, it will merge/save/open fine. So right now, my workaround is to reimport vrayproxies to the scene and re-setup the ForestPack objects every time i switch PC, which is getting frustrating as you can imagine!

Any help would be greatly appreciated! I am running Max 2021 with Vray, fully updated, all drivers and windows 10 fully updated. All assets and plugins are up to date/purchased through reputable sellers.

[vladimir_krastev]

Hi are you using Forest Pack in all scenes that have the issue? Have you tried to setup a scene with V-Ray Proxy and without Forest Pack and see how it goes? What version of Forest Pack are you using and also a fully updated V-Ray means I guess latest official release (?

[hugh_wyeth]

Hi vladimir_krastev - thanks for the reply. I've removed the forestpack objects as well as the forestpack presets from the scene and it still happens. If i just save the cosmos proxies in the scene it doesn't crash when opened on the other PC though. So it seems to be happening in files of a certain size and larger when cosmos vrayproxies are in it and that scene is then archived and opened on a different PC.

[vladimir_krastev]

Hi in this case could you send us a scene with the issue here on through our support contact form.
Please also include a crash dump if you have one. It is stored in your temp folder ( type %temp% in the file explorer and search for 3dsmax_minidump.dmp).

[hugh_wyeth]

Hi in this case could you send us a scene with the issue here on through our support contact form.
Please also include a crash dump if you have one. It is stored in your temp folder ( type %temp% in the file explorer and search for 3dsmax_minidump.dmp).

Hi Vladimir, I think I've now identified the issue - it's not a VrayProxy issue specificially - it's essentially max archive will archive the entire filepath and then when it's unzipped, it might exceed filepath length limits in windows without warning. When trying to then relink assets, like vrayproxies, max will crash as it exceeds filepath length limits in windows. The fix is to not use max's archive function (or at least not repeatedly!) and instead use a script to collect assets into a single folder when moving a scene between computers that aren't on the same network.