Crashing with Accustudio materials

[JamesVan]

Just wondering if anyone else using the Accustudio library is experiencing the same problem.

When I select certain materials from the Accustudio library, particularly ones with photo maps, Revit stalls and crashes. After many subsequent attempts it seems like it may be tied to the automatic assigment of shading color. If I uncheck the "Update when AccuRender selection occurs" option under shading, I can pick any bitmap-related material without crashing.

[fernando]

yes, it happen's to me some times, never understand why, because it was erratic
not always repete with the same materials

never try that uncheck of "Update when Accurender...." gonna try date
and see if i could isolate better that error

[frame]

Do you remember what material in accustudio you selected specifically?
Is the stall happening in the accurender dialog--or after making the selection and pressing OK?

[JamesVan]

Just tested many different custom materials in 6.0 and it didn't crash! Guess this has been resolved. Thanks! :D

[MartyC]

Happens to me all the time after about 3-4 material applications in a row. Same every time, freeze up, not responding, program closes after a few attempts, error report sent. (Probably sent 200 error reports!!!)

Happened in 4.5, 5.1, happens in 6.0.

From research it appears one has to apply materials very slowly, and allow time between material changes to allow it all to catch up. My process is to save project after every material change. It also appears that the project then has to be selected from the file location and not the file menu as last save isnt recorded under file menu.

A fix for this woud be welcome.

Cheers M

[Henry D]

This is really becoming a problem for me on a large file I am working on. Sometimes even if I uncheck "Update when AccuRender selection occurs" option under shading, the program still freezes up when I get start switching materials around. I contacted Tech Support about this last week, but they said they weren't aware of this problem and wouldn't know how to fix it if they couldn't duplicate it. Is this still happening to anyone else?

[Henry D]

I solved this crashing problem by starting a new project in 6.0 and doing my material editing in that new file and then transfering the revised materials. All these problems disappeared when I did this. The drawing file I had the problems with was a project I had started in 5.1 and had upgraded into 6.0. Maybe Accurender is somehow getting corrupted in the upgrading process.

[gregcashen]

I just had the same thing happen. Sucky.

[sbrown]

I have this happen on one machine and not another, I think it may be a graphics issue. Have you had the same experience on more than one machine?

It is awful when you have worked for 1/2 hour or more then try to change a material and you never come back and have to ctrl alt delete to get back to work.

[gregcashen]

Mine actually just shut down Revit with the option to save a recovery file on selection of a new material for a loaded component. Only time so far.

[JamesVan]

Just happened again with a brand new family in 6.0. :(

Selected _ACCURENDER\Wood\Oak, White\Natural,No Gloss and crashed Revit. Had to give it the 'three finger salute'!

[MartyC]

I am getting seriously irritated!! :evil:

Revit has just crashed for the 8th time today due to material editor. I would love to just do a simple rendering without the constant crashing/freezing. I have bleated on about this for ages. Day after day, I am restarting Revit over and over, and recovering from where I left off. This should be addressed, at least with a comment from someone who knows, ie. the factory.

Could someone with the information please respond with the reason for the Accurender crashes, and what should be done to eliminate the constant problem.

Thanks

M

[beegee]

Hi Marty,

Understand your pain.
Can you include answers to the questions 'Frame" asked in the 3rd post above.

[MartyC]

Aaahh yes Mr Gee, no point wingeing without being specific, especialy when a specific question has already been asked by one of the big guys!


Do you remember what material in accustudio you selected specifically?
Is the stall happening in the accurender dialog--or after making the selection and pressing OK?

Stall occurs every time on pressing the OK button, in the accurender 'material library' dialogue.
The materials are basically any it seems. There doesnt appear to be any particular theme or common materials that cause the problem. Happens when applying a material when one hasn't been previously selected, when changing materials, and editing eixsting materials.

Any answers to this perplexing question frame??

Cheers M
(in a better mood now)

[sbrown]

Have you tried a diff. computer yet. I was having this problem like I mentioned earlier on some machines and not others. Check and make sure that your material library pathing doesn't include any paths to libraries that aren't really in the location you are pointing to. I had some of those and when I deleted those paths the problem went away(I'm not sure if its permanetly away or not)

[MartyC]

Scott and others,

I am a sole practitioner with only one Revit seat in-house, so transferring entire Revit setup to another, less grunty, computer here is a bit of an extreme exercise.

My Revit setup including library paths etc. is meticulous, and care is taken with all material applications. I will add that accurender will freeze Revit on a particular material application/modification, and following ending process (Revit, not just accurender) restarting Revit, opening file from where it resides, and continuing on with same material application - no worries! However two/three more material mods later - freeze!.........go through it all again.

Had discussions with my reseller early last year, who liaised with Adesk, and reported back as 'known problem'. OK, thats cool, but I am talking of not just a few freezes of Revit, I am literally talking hundreds. Since I do a fair bit of rendering for all my projects (simply cos I can with Revit) I am talking20,30 - 50 freezes per week...............see my point? a little irritating.

There must be a known reason for this issue, all I would like is either an instruction on what to avoid doing, or if it just cant be avoided at least I will know I have to live with it until AR4 (??). I personally like accurender, and generally seem to get-it, so dudes, whats the answer?

Cheers M

[marcumjohnson1743]

Just found this Thread. I have been crashing in the Material Library window sense I think back to 2001. Its an old and steady problem and I am on my 4th computer. I brought this to Client Support years ago but it apparently is just too hard to find or its an Accurender Problem and they will not or cannot fix it. Error report did not show anything in past & support could not replicate problem at that time.

Like Marty said if you are changing several Materials in the same session Revit can crash and then it will go for a long time and be OK then crash right in the middle of a rush. I have had it crash with materal maps and not. Just work with one simple color like pure white for long enough and it will crash.

This would be a great fix.

[beegee]

Still having problems in 6.1 ?

[marcumjohnson1743]

Exactly the same thing with 6.1

[MartyC]

Hey Guys,

Yup, same old, same old, crashee, crashee, crashee..............

But I have learnt that this is an issue that noone wants to know about. Shame, cos Accurender integrated with Revit is spectacular in my opinion, and I use it constantly. Maybe the reason for the reduced save and loading times in 6/6.1 was in anticipation of the need for the 20-30 Revit re-starts one has to do daily when doing a detailed renderig session (sic).

Chins up guys

Cheers M

[beegee]

Its not happening to everyone though and Revit Support are having trouble replicating the problem.

All of which is sounding like a hardware config issue to me.

Have you compared specs to see if there is a common denominator ?

[MartyC]

Okee Dokee

Heres my computer specs for comparison for those who are experiencing the problem.

P4 2.26Ghz (533Mhz FSB)
Intel 845EBG2 MB
1 Gig PC 3200 ram (2x512MB sticks)
GeForce 4 TI 4200 128mb graphics card
NVidea driver 6.14.10.4523
XP Pro 5.1.2600 SP1 build 2600

Total virtual memory 3.9GB
Available virtual memory 3.43GB
Page file space 2.9GB

Hardware settings etc pretty well default.

So tell me whats so whacky?

Most of the renderings I see here are pretty simplistic and not really exploring much beyond the default Accurender materials etc. so therefore they probably dont crash much, if at all.

I stress again, the crash/freeze occurs when applying/changing material selections of items/objects/wall finishes, whatever, it sometimes freezes just by closing dialogue box without changing any material, just mousing over the tree. I suggest there is something strange about the materials editor dialogue ....That is where the crash happens.

It would be nice for someone to provide the solution. The people experiencing this are not dreaming, they are not just at the stage of learning mouse skills, this is an issue. if Revit wasnt so bloody spectacularly awesome as a design product I probably would be really ****** off.

Answers welcome

Cheers M

[marcumjohnson1743]

Today Revit crashed about 20 times while I was in Material Editor. Remember this is my 3th Computer with same issue (said 4 earlier post). Seem to happen when I am in material Editor for over an hour and the project has many materials. I have been saving after every material edit, it saves time!

You cannot be serious about only a few users crashing. I would like to hear from the heavy Material Editor Users.

Load up a complex job with at least 30 materials and edit them for a reasonable period of time.

[marcumjohnson1743]

my computer:

P4 CPU 2.4Ghz
448 MB Ram
XP Pro 2002 SP1

My prior Computer had 1 gig memory but same problem.

[JamesVan]

Windows XP Pro 2002 SP1
Pentium M @ 1.5 GHz
1.0 GB RAM

ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 (32MB)

[gregcashen]

Send the file to someone who claims not to have this problem. Run through the same exact steps. If you both crash at the same time, then it is a Revit thing. If not, probably hardware or software config issue.

[christopher.zoog51272]

Better yet, start with a new project, do what ever you can to make ar3/revit crash. Then post the journal file, and description of the final step that killed revit. We should be able to make revit run the file up to the point of the crash, then see if it happens with the next step (the one that makes revit fail)

That may work,

Z.

[marcumjohnson1743]

Today on the first material I selected Revit froze in Material Library window.

I have to correct my earlier crash statement. What it does is after selecting a new material in editor window and you are back into the Material Library window where I get a Not Responding message at top of the Material Window upon clicking OK or Cancel. Revit is now frozen and no matter how long I wait its frozen. I have to hit X to close revit and the Window message comes up stating program is not responding then it closes.

Attached is the Jounal which does not show the freeze at the end.

[Steve_Stafford]

Where are your accurender support files located? On your local PC or on a Network share? Have you tried obtaining new material libraries from the Autodesk content downloads? Do you have additional libraries from other vendors and/or libraries you've created?

I too had crashes in release 5.0 with the material library dialog and it usually occured after many material edit sessions. But I haven't seen a crash since then...

I suspect the "hanging" may be related to network or path issues with the OS and Revit/accurender or corrupted .lib files.

Good luck!

[Henry D]

grrrr... just happened to me again...lost 1/2 Hr worth of good work.
I have the latest download of materials located on my PC right where Revit puts them..I do have a User library with some materials I created, but I've always had that.

[marcumjohnson1743]

Henry D get this to Support. They think only two people are crashing.

[sbrown]

I agree this is a bug but it is very hard to pinpoint as I said before I can go from machine to machine and make it happen over and over on one machine and not on another. It may have something to do with video cards? I'm just guessing. I hope they can get it fixed. did you send the journal to support?

[marcumjohnson1743]

I sent my example journal to support.

You have to copy that journal.txt file right after crash or stall. It is at C/ Program Files > Autodesk Revit6.1 > Journals. Get last dated .txt file.

[MartyC]

Hellooo again.

Got 3 freezes in 6 minutes, my typical situation when applying accurender materials to a model, as discussed ad nauseum.

Attached are the 3 journal files saved at each crash for anyone who may be interested. :banghead: :banghead:

I remember a long time ago there was a desk accessory for frustrated mac users.........the 'smackamac'. Remember those.........

Cheers M

[marcumjohnson1743]

sbrown
I am on my 3rd computer. Same problem on all.

Also what do you mean about the path I do not understand what you mean by "to libraries that aren't really in the location you are pointing to".

I did just try moving all my mlib files to another location so only the revir.mlib file was left and after 8 quick material selections revit stalled. I closed revit and upon restarting the 1st material I selected stalled Revit.

[Henry D]

Crashing with Accurender Materials is now a known bug. I talked to Revit Support yesterday and it is happening to them so they are trying to fix it.

[MartyC]

Yahoo, yippeee, yeah, yeah, yeah, woohooo :D :D :shock:

Now I can love my PC again. Good work Henry, nice to know we are not nuts. Looking forward to fix.

Cheers M

[PeterJ]

Has this matter been resolved? My machine seems to have gone into freefall when choosing a new material.

[SkiSouth]

I don't remember a single crash with materials. If you look at the bank image posted it has well over 30 or so materials. I do however remember seemingly having to wait forever for accurender to "catchup". I assume by crash you mean a blue screen - with the wonderful notice of Do you want to send the notice to ADesk... Not a screen lock up. The (apprarent) screen lock up can be monitored with the Windows task manager- bring it up and watch the processors usage - Many times I did think the machine had locked initially when actually I just had to wait. Got in the habit with the rest of you to save, then render. Also, I almost always pop up the task manager and set to watch processor use. As long as its "ticking" Accurender seems to be working.....

Would be glad to run the project(s) and see if my older machine will work (Its P3). Just email - My email box will only take 20 meg files though..

Reviewing everyones notes -maybe I'm slow enough on my material selections- It takes me while to do a lot of things....;-) - Good luck to all - Looking forward to Revit 7.0 and hopefully a lot of fixes---

[PeterJ]

Hmm thanks. If it happens again I'll look at the task manager.

[narlee]

It still happens in the latest version, not always with the option to save recovery file or maybe I didn't wait 20 minutes.

[luigi]

Is this still happening to people??? I am on 7.0, the latest build and I just lost work for just checking a material, went to click ok and STUCK!!!!!! Now I need to redo what I did in the hour or so, just because I adventured to see what accurender material was being used for a material of mine!!!!!

Is it still a known bug, unresolved? It isn't the first time, but I decided to search for this and found this old thread. Even when it doesn't crash, it is extremely slow when in this editor, I mean a full 60 seconds or more when I just click on some item in the editor (Any accurender window, material, plant, etc.)

Frustrating!!!!

[MartyC]

Luigi,

You are right, no change to bug, still alive and well!!

CheersM