[PH03NlX]

I have been using Rhino v5 in conjunction with the Maxwell Plugin for the past 3 months with no issues whatsoever. Within the last 24 hours though the Maxwell plugin has failed to load. I attempted to correct the issue using the trouble shooting guides provided by the Plugin manual, but I was unable to fix the problem using the suggested steps. I did note though that one of the .NET libraries is missing however. That being the "Maxwell.NativeRMATYPES.dll".

I did not know how to include images in this post, so I posted the error messages and a screen shot of the missing library item on a personal website.

Here is the address:
www.witham.co

Does anyone know of a way to fix this issue? Thanks for your help.

[JDHill]

If you are only using the x64 plugin, then it is correct that you do not have Maxwell.NativeRMATypes.dll on your system; it only installs with the x86 plugin. Interestingly, I have had two similar reports in the last two days; both of them involve new installs on a particular model of laptop, though, so I am not sure what might've happened on your machine, seeing that the plugin was previously running fine. Has Windows Update been run recently, corresponding with when the plugin started failing, or have you changed/updated any drivers or otherwise altered your system in this timeframe? Lastly, have you tried doing a clean reinstall of the plugin?

(by the way, to place images in a post, you need to type the link, and surround it in [img][/img] tags)

[PH03NlX]

I have done a complete reinstall of the plugin and Maxwell v2. I haven't tried reinstalling Rhino (I don't wont to lose the custom hotkeys if I don't have to). The only windows update that occurred prior to the plugin failure was a security definitions update, and no drivers were updated or changed. Immediately before this failure I did download the latest version of Rhino v5, released on March 14. I do not believe this update was the cause of the problem however because my maxwell plugin for rhino v4 is also failing to load properly.

I am not all that tech savvy, but I feel like the maxwell plugin is not being completely removed from Rhino when I uninstall the plugin, so maybe I am not getting the program as "clean" as I need to. I believe this because the maxwell toolbar remains in my rhino interface after the uninstall. If I use any of the maxwell commands in rhino, regardless if it is installed or uninstalled, rhino does not recognize the command.

Should I attempt completely uninstalling Rhino and seeing if that fixes anything?

[PH03NlX]

I forgot I could export my options settings. I am going to attempt to completely uninstall/reinstall rhino v4/5 and maxwell. Perhaps this will fix whatever hiccup is causing the issue.

[JDHill]

It is correct that the Maxwell toolbars stay around after uninstalling, because you may have customized them with new buttons, and I wouldn't want to destroy those. To do a completely clean install, you would uninstall from Programs and Features, then go to the folder where you installed the plugin (Program Files (x86) by default) and make sure the MaxwellDotNET folder is deleted. Then you could remove residual files (user preferences, etc) by going to C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming and deleting (or renaming, in case you don't want to lose data) the MaxwellDotNET folder located there.

I would try all that before thinking about trying to reinstall Rhino. So far, I don't see what effect that could have, anyway, since as you say, you are having trouble with both Rhino 4 and 5.

[PH03NlX]

I went through the steps you suggested, and the problem persisted. Also, I did a full uninstall/reinstall of all the rhino and maxwell programs, and the error messages still come up. The error messages have not changed at all throughout this whole process. Because I scouring the programs and reinstalling them didn't fix the issue it seems likely that the problem is stemming from some other aspect of my machine. I will have to switch to a different work station when I want to begin setting up my render scenes I guess.

Thanks a bunch for your help JD, I never expected to have such a quick response from the support team.

[JDHill]

Not a problem, I'll let you know if I learn anything more about this. In the meantime, would you mind letting me know your machine specs, i.e. brand/model, hardware options, version of Windows, SR of Rhino 4, etc?

[PH03NlX]

My computer was made by a local gamer cafe, so it doesn't have a brand or model ID. But its specs are

Intel Core i7-2700k CPU @ 3.5GHz
16.0 GB Installed Memory
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 graphics card (Driver updated on 2-9-2012)
Windows 7 Professional, 64-bit (Service Pack 1) Operating system

I am running SR9 for Rhino 4

There was one noteable thing that happened yesterday when I reinstalled rhino 4 and rhino 5. My custom interface and key bindings automatically loaded when I first opened the program after installing. I thought I had completely deleted all files related to rhino off my computer by first uninstalling, then deleting from the C: drive, and finally deleting the roaming files.

Perhaps this load error which is coming from the 'maxwell.ui.userprefs' is coming from the same folder that my personal rhino interface stuff hid? Is there a way of resetting my maxwell user preferences outside of reinstalling, cause apparently that is not doing the trick.

[JDHill]

I have had some progress on this, debugging it with the help of the two users I mentioned above. In those cases, what is happening is that, at startup, the plugin runs through the modules loaded in the process, in order to determine whether it is running in Rhino or SolidWorks (necessary, since the plugin handles user preferences per-application, on any given machine); one of these modules, installed by NVIDIA, appears to have a bug, and this is triggering an unexpected exception in the .NET Framework. Due to the point in time where this occurs, it prevents initialization of much of the plugin. I have, however isolated this particular section of code, and produced a build which simply ignores this spurious error if/when it occurs, thereby allowing the plugin to continue loading as though everything were normal.

So here are links to an unofficial build that includes these changes:

• [link removed]
• [link removed]

Please give these a try and let me know if they help address your issue as well.

[PH03NlX]

The Maxwell Plugin that you linked works perfectly. I am sitting at my computer, smiling, completely blown away by how quickly you have provided a solution to this problem. As if the quality of the Next Limit products wasn't enough, that the Next Limit team also offers such superb support for its users is unbelievable. Thank you.

I hate to be the mouse who asks for a cookie, but is there a 64 bit version of this build also?

[JDHill]

Ack, copy/paste error...here you go:

• [link removed]

[JDHill]

The changes fixing the underlying problem here are included in 2.6.15, so I have removed the above links.