By JDHill
#383652
Thanks, unfortunately not yet seeing any crash here, so a few further questions:
  1. How long do I need to let it render before I can expect to see a crash?
  2. Are we talking about crashes in Maxwell.app exclusively, or also within SketchUp, when rendering with FIRE?
  3. If you look at the Apple crash window's scroll bar, you'll notice that there is much more text -- could you please copy & save that to a text file and upload it?
By JDHill
#383653
I did get it to crash now (on OSX -- was checking on Windows at first), but please still upload your crash report, to ensure it indicates the same issue.
By JDHill
#383654
Actually, not necessary, it appears that this particular scene is triggering a previously unknown issue, on OSX only, which we've now confirmed as being present up to the current code. So, about all I can recommend at this point is to try rendering the scene without using MXS references, or at least without some of them (given that your model contains almost nothing else), and see if that helps.
By JDHill
#383655
By the way, if you got rid of the on-the-fly displacement used in some of the materials, you could make your render something like 10x faster. To test it, you can add -displacement:off to Scene Manager > Output > Command-line, or stop Maxwell.app and un-check the Render Options > Globals > Displacement box.
By Jodie Jo Jodidio
#383656
Good, glad you are getting the same crash report.

When the problem occurs, it happens straight away, ie Maxwell crashes as soon as it opens.

What do you mean 'which we've now confirmed as being present up to the current code'? Does that mean that nothing can be done to fix it?

Yes my scene is entirely full of MXS references as if you remember my previous threads I was struggling to manage my sketchup files at all without them! Constant SKP crashes led me to put almost everything into MXS references, once I finally understood that was the recommended workflow, even after spending months watching tutorials expecting the answer to present itself.

I can try and use 'less' of them... and see if it helps. But do you think you can pin point the issue or is it going to be a case of crossing my fingers and just hoping for the best?!!

Thanks for displacement tip, I'll try it.
By Jodie Jo Jodidio
#383658
So, I have just been working 'backwards' and replacing MXS's with proper geometry, and test rendering at every change. Only after the very last MXS ref was removed did it work....

So - I have investigated whether it was that specific MXS ref, but on removing it from another known problematic version, it doesnt solve the problem either.

It obviously isnt an issue of having some or no references as it sometimes works, sometimes doesnt.

I have the same occurrence with entirely different models and files too.

Any thoughts?
By JDHill
#383660
Not at this point, no; as it is with some issues, this is surely due to a specific combination of several factors (else nobody would be able to use Maxwell). If you have other models that show similar behavior, I'm sure we'd like to see those as well, in order to try and identify what might be in common between them.
By Jodie Jo Jodidio
#383702
Hi JD

Any luck recreating the issue again in the other model which I posted the dropbox link to?

Luckily the first model I sent you doesn't have such complex geometry to necessitate the use of MXS refs, but I am working on others which are really poly heavy and not being able to use that feature is going to dramatically affect my ability to use Sketchup with Maxwell at all. I'm sure you're doing everything you can, but can you give me any kind of idea about when this issue might be fixed? I'm sure it's very difficult to say without knowing what the issue is exactly... but if you do have some idea please let me know!

Appreciate your help, thanks :)
By JDHill
#383710
I'm fairly certain the issue will be fixed, but you're correct to guess that I don't have a timeline for it.
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