3dsmax resetting UI

[peterguthrie]

Hello max users,

We seems to have never ending issues with 3dsmax resetting its UI so that you need to set up shortcuts, buttons etc all over again. Max 2017 seems to be better, but we had to go back to 2016 for other reasons.

Anyone have any tips? I suspect it may have started happening when we moved to windows 10 but I’m not 100% sure. Maybe some kind of permissions issue?

any help much appreciated

Peter

[romullus]

I don’t think it’s windows 10 related. When i switched from max2014 to max2016, i was shocked how unreliable it seemed to me at first. I was on win 7 then. Max kept loosing UI customization very often. But with time it somehow became more stable and after i changed OS to win 10, my experience with max2016 became pretty much normal. Of course there is plenty broken things which worked fine in max2014, but at least it doesn’t loose customization anymore.

[shadowman_1]

Make a backup of 3dsmax.ini with your current setup, and restore it every time when it happens.

[oncire]

Go to customize menu - Save custom ui scheme…it saves your keyboard shortcut, menus,quad, color etc. i always do this action everytime i change my ui. hope this helps.

[melviso]

Tbh, I am suspecting Windows 10 has some issues with 3dsmax which seems to get better with windows update. I am still using 3dsmax 2014 since my workflow is relatively simple and some things have been problematic compared to when I was on Windows 8.1. Will probably upgrade soon. I also figured re-setting 3dsmax UI settings/preference by deleting the 3dsmax folder in the app folder improves viewport performance and tools response when there is viewport lagging/ slow tool response. I only do this when it is absolutely necessary.

[Frood]

This happens imho when you are working with multiple max instances: Closing one with a large scene while loading another for example, 3dsmax.ini gets corrputed/reset.

As shadowman wrote, backup 3dsmax.ini and restore it when it happens. Very anoying indeed. We had this with win7 and now also with win10, so I think it´s not OS related.

Good Luck

[Juraj_Talcik]

@Rawalanche

Other one is trivial. Some recent Max versions have a bug where some of the setting files are saved by default inside of location where user account doesn’t have write permissions by default. Solving this is easy - just go over every single tab of Customize User Interface window, click save, and save settings to some location that your user account has write access to, such as your documents folder. Once you save them, Max will always read them from there. Then, your setting should not keep resetting anymore.

Since you do mention it started with Windows10, make sure you’re using Microsoft account as opposed to local account.

[peterguthrie]

@Rawalanche

Other one is trivial. Some recent Max versions have a bug where some of the setting files are saved by default inside of location where user account doesn’t have write permissions by default. Solving this is easy - just go over every single tab of Customize User Interface window, click save, and save settings to some location that your user account has write access to, such as your documents folder. Once you save them, Max will always read them from there. Then, your setting should not keep resetting anymore.

going to try this, thanks

[peterguthrie]

@Juraj_Talcik

@Rawalanche

Other one is trivial. Some recent Max versions have a bug where some of the setting files are saved by default inside of location where user account doesn’t have write permissions by default. Solving this is easy - just go over every single tab of Customize User Interface window, click save, and save settings to some location that your user account has write access to, such as your documents folder. Once you save them, Max will always read them from there. Then, your setting should not keep resetting anymore.

Since you do mention it started with Windows10, make sure you’re using Microsoft account as opposed to local account.

can you elaborate on how that might help?

ps. going to SoA this weekend?

[Juraj_Talcik]

That’s the only true ‘administrator’ account now within Windows 10. Lots of stuff don’t work 100perc. when this Microsoft’s wish is bypassed.

Sure of course :- )

[peterguthrie]

so everyone would have to sign up for a microsoft account? not sure that is going to happen!

[melviso]

@Juraj_Talcik

That’s the only true ‘administrator’ account now within Windows 10. Lots of stuff don’t work 100perc. when this Microsoft’s wish is bypassed.

Really? I wonder why Microsoft is doing this. Is there some sort of advantage for Window 10 users with this? Usually I wait for a year or highest 7 months before upgrading OS as time is spent by Microsoft fixing bugs, compatibility issues and ironing things out after release. Being ambushed with Windows 10 upgrade wasn’t cool at all. I read somewhere Microsoft got sued by some users over this.

[RobSteady_1]

Make a folder on the desktop including a 3dsmax.ini backup and a shortcut to:
C:\Users<username>\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsmax<version>\enu.
Just copy/paste it the .ini whenever something is wrong. Only a workaround but it works.

[peterguthrie]

we are an office of 11 3dsmax users, at least once a day someone loses all of their max customisations.

Not great Autodesk.

[daniel.reutersward]

I have this issue several times every day (I almost always have 2 Max instances open).

I created 2 Windows Batch Files and pinned the folder with those batch files so I just need to double click on 2 files and all my settings are restored.

Not a perfect solution, but for me it is a lot faster than having to locate the folders I need to restore my settings every time.

Hoping for a solution to this!

[metrocubicodigital]

Moved to Windows 10.

Moved to 3ds max 2016.

Same reset UI problems as you Peter.

[warsign]

I did everything and never solved that resetting UI problem!!!

And another thing I’ve struggled with is huge file size due to track notes!

Tones of scripts out there, tones of questions asked to Autodesk but some users didn’t find any solition to solve this problem!!!

[pokoy_1]

What did the trick for me in 2017 is to give the current user read/write privileges to max root and all child folders/files. It should be looking in the user paths but for some reason it won’t on my system and tries to load settings from max root. Since max can’t write into max root folder when it closes it’ll not save any changes I do, so it’s the only workaround that’ll work for me.

One odd thing that we also have is that another user’s account will override my account’s max settings in 2017, I really have no clue how this can happen.

Managing the UI (and bringing user settings to a new version) is crazily difficult and unreliable in Max, I hope it’ll get reviewed for the next version.

[Frood]

@pokoy

give the current user read/write privileges to max root and all child folders/files

I do that for (trusted) domain users for the whole “Program Files” path because of all that software using paths/user profiles badly. Saves me a lot of time. And as we know, 3dsMax is one of those.

@pokoy

for some reason it won’t on my system and tries to load settings from max root.

This is also something I allways change because I want all settings to be the same for all users. And nothing is lost when a user profile gets corrupt for some reason. This setting has been in “install.ini” to date.

Had no time to testinstall 2017 so… could you please check if ther is (still) a file called “install.ini” in the max root please? And if so, could you post it´s content for me? That would be great. Because if they changed that option, it would be a lot of work for me to migrate to 2017 here. And this could also be part of your problems.

Good Luck

[pokoy_1]

Will only be able to look it up on Monday, will do if no one else does before.

Actually, this could really be the issue. If 2017 defaults to max root and has no write privileges it will fail to save any custom changes. That would indeed explain both of our issues. Good point.