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I am getting an astonishing amount of instability with the MAX 1.5.6 exporter in my attempt to upgrade from 1.1.

It appears to me that merely the act of referencing an MXM that uses a texture will immediately crash MAX on load. To be more specific, if one creates an MXM which uses a texture map (for example, in the Reflectance 0 slot), then one can simply open MAX, go to the material editor, create a Maxwell material that references the MXM, and then save it. This file will never be able to be opened again without immediately crashing MAX.

Here is a trivial example:

http://funkytroll.com/temp/maxmxmbug.zip

This is a blank MAX file referencing an MXM with a trivial texture. You cannot even load the file with the maxwell.dlr plug-in loaded, it will crash immediately. I created it in MAX 8, but these bugs are not specific to MAX 8 and in fact you can load it in 9 as well and have it crash, or conversely perform the same experiment in 9 and create a crashing file therein.

Am I the only one who has tested this?

- Casey

And in addition, I should mention that so far I have found that any of these materials can be imported into a non-referenced Maxwell material with no problems. So it appears that there is nothing inherently wrong with Maxwell's interface with MAX, but rather just some simple trouble in the MXM referencing code which causes the crash. But I have not tested this exhaustively as yet.

- Casey

Hi.

The problem was reported here and here and it's fixed. Practically, it's a Max9 issue and it has to do with the way Max 9 handles bitmap previews. And indeed, it's frustrating as hell to use the referenced material type in Max 9.

The update will be available very soon now. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Those are not the same problem judging only by the reports, though - are you certain they are the same?

For example, in one of those threads it was said that the bug "exists only on Max9 32/64". But the bug I'm seeing happens in MAX 8, and it doesn't require the material to be applied to an object. It is sufficient for it to simply be in the material editor.

But, as long as you've downloaded my test case and it loads properly with the new plugin, then it's fixed anyways so it's all good!

Thanks,
- Casey

Those are not the same problem judging only by the reports, though - are you certain they are the same?

They appear to be unrelated, but they share the same root of evil.

But, as long as you've downloaded my test case and it loads properly with the new plugin, then it's fixed anyways so it's all good!

Yes, it loads properly in Max8/9.

I´m having the same problem in max 7.
Max crashes when I try to open a file. This is extremely inconvenient. I have been working in a project for a couple of days last week without closing and reopening the file. Now, when I want to open the file to do some minor adjustments (I´m supposed to deliver this afternoon) MAX crashes immediately. This means I have lost all my work in this project!
Is there any workaround or fix to this now?

This is not a complete work-around, but in case it helps:

In your 3dsmax/plugins directory, there should be the Maxwell plug-in file "maxwell.dlr". If you close MAX, and then rename this file to, say, "maxwell.ignored", it will not be loaded by MAX. You can then open the file without Maxwell crashing, and perhaps change all the offending materials from Maxwell materials to standard materials temporarily. Then close MAX, rename "maxwell.ignored" to "maxwell.dlr", and re-load MAX. Hopefully you can now load the file, and change all of the standard materials back to Maxwell materials WITHOUT using referenced MXMs (instead, just using the MXM import feature).

I hope that helps!

- Casey

Thankyou!

Yes that works. When I got myself together and stopped panicking i understood that that is the way to do it.
We have been working with the old plugin (with only referenced mxm:s) until very recently. Perhaps too early to upgrade after all....